Jazz Piano Chords: The Voicing Exercise That Teaches Every 7th Chord and Its Tritone Sub

[music] >> Hi everyone. This is Jason Zac from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, we are going to focus on two very important shell voicings for the right hand, namely the 3 7 >> [music] >> or the 7 3 for all sorts of seventh chords, be it minor seventh, dominant seventh, major seventh, minor seventh flat five, suspended, and the like. We're also going to play it in each and every shape and voice lead it correctly between chords over a rather long chord progression. So, to do this, we'll be in the key signature of G major or E minor, one sharp, and it'll be a rather long chord progression as you heard in the intro video. So, A minor seventh, >> [music] >> D dominant seventh, G major seventh, C major seventh, >> [music] >> F sharp minor seventh flat five or F sharp half diminished, >> [music] >> B seventh, E minor seventh, E dominant seventh. And we're also going to add different shapes to them. We'll focus on the correct voice leading between the voices, and it's just going to be two notes in the right hand. That's basically it. And the left hand throughout the lesson will focus just on the root and the fifth of the chord and the right hand will play the the money-making notes, so to speak, the three and the seven. And when played together, that'll be the shell. And you'll also learn a few things at the end of the lesson for more intricate or more niche topics of music like tritone substitution where some of the dominant seventh chords or in some cases all of them could be replaced by their tritone. And how to use that, how to retain the voicing, how to still ensure great voice leading will be covered. So, stay tuned till the very end, get your keyboards out, and play along with me. And for the duration of this tutorial, it's going to be difficult for me to focus on every one of the 12 keys. We'll be rooted on the key signature of G major E minor. But, if you want every single key signature, you either have to practice it on your own, transpose it, write it down, which I highly recommend, as well as use our companion app, which will be available for you on our Patreon, as we've been doing for most of the recent lessons, where you'll get the same exercise with notation, with playback capabilities on all the 12 keys with the options of the regular dominants, the tritone substitutions, the different starting points, and also all the notes that support the lesson, my handwritten notes as well as staff notation. Okay? And before we get started, it'll be nice if you can consider hitting that subscribe button and turn on the bell for regular notifications. Let's get cracking. So, first off, I'm going to show you how to play the seventh chord in a rather open-voiced manner with the shell in the right hand and with the root and the fifth or a simpler passage in the left hand. When we play chords, it could either be such that we play the whole chord in the right hand with some inversion or the whole chord in the left hand with some inversion. But when you combine the two hands, what's interesting is you can start improvising in the right hand because you have a few fingers free. For instance, So, [music] you you are just playing two notes for an otherwise four-note chord. So, what's happening here? I'm playing the root and fifth of the chord, in this case the seventh chord. So, let's take A minor seventh. Normally, it would be >> [music] >> A C E G. So, I'm taking the root, not playing it in the right, moving it to the left, taking the fifth, [music] the E, not playing it in the right, playing it in the left. So, I have A E here, and I have C G here. So, this [music] is a nice sound considering I can even play it down doesn't sound too bad very low. I can even invert the C and the G, make it a G C. >> [music] >> This sounds very usable. However, if I play A C E G together, it can tend to sound a bit muddy, [music] and I definitely can't play it I can't play other chords like a D seventh >> [music] >> or an E seventh. It starts sounding very unusable. So, when I'm here, let's take the case of a D seventh chord. Let's build it from the ground up. Let's open out the chord. >> [music] >> So, there's D, F sharp, A, C. What's the rule again? Now, you retain the root and the fifth, take the third which used to be here and push it [music] here, upstairs. It already works if you ask me. Now, take the seventh, which is C, and push it upstairs here. >> [music] >> And you can invert it. So, you can either play F-sharp C or else >> [music] >> C F-sharp and they both work. You can even play them higher or you can play it much more higher. They all work. So, this is generally how most musicians will end up playing seventh chords in a real world context with songs. This is how professional musicians also tend to play seventh chords. However, if you'd like to still play seventh chords as blocks, it's always a nice thing. >> [music] >> You can even break it up. You can even arpeggiate it. Right? I'm just giving you another shape or another voicing. What I like [snorts] about this is with the three seven shell, you can kind of connect from chord to chord very easily. So, if you take the A minor seventh going to D seventh, so A minor seventh, I'll do it with the three seven shape. I want to now play D seven. So, whenever you go in this circle of fifths counterclockwise motion where you're resolving in fifths, so to speak, >> [music] >> A D G C F B-flat E-flat A-flat D-flat F-sharp, also known as G-flat, B E A D. It kind of goes like that. So, A seventh will resolve to D seven, but even A minor seventh resolves [music] to D seven. It'll be a two five of the one, which is G major seventh, which again goes in that circular manner, correct? A minor [music] seventh D seventh G major seventh, standard two five one chord progression. So, if I play [music] A minor seven starting off with its three and seven shape. >> [music] >> And now go to D7. What happens there? One of these notes will be in common. The C of the A minor 7th is the third of A minor 7th, but the same C ends up being the seven flat or the the seventh interval of the D7 chord. So, you can keep the C note consistent there. Sort of like inversions. So, [music] A minor 7th D7. I don't want to go here and play this shell because the C is going upstairs. I want to keep the C right here. So, A [music] minor 7th D7. A minor 7th. All that's changing is the G going to F sharp. >> [music] >> To get some motion, you can play the root and the fifth and toggle it. >> [music] >> Now, when D goes to G, again D is close to G in the circle of fifths. So, this is D7. [music] So, G major 7th will have that F sharp in common as its seventh. So, you just slide the C down to B. >> [music] >> And your left hand changes to the root and fifth of G major 7th. So, A minor 7th >> [music] >> D7 G major 7th. What's next in the piece? >> [music] >> Go down another fifth to the C major 7th. Retain the B. Drop down to E. So, so far >> [music] [music] >> And just so that we stick in the key of G major or the key signature which has one sharp why not we do a minor 251 to continue onward? What is the minor First of all, what's the relative minor of G major? E minor, right? So, what is E minor's 251? That'll be F sharp minor 7 flat 5 or F sharp half diminished going to the >> [music] >> B seventh and resolving with E minor. So, I'll try that shape. >> [music] >> This is F sharp minor 7 flat 5 if you add that tritone in the left hand rather than the perfect fifth. This would make it a minor seventh. That's a minor 7 flat 5. So, [music] So, that's a two, five, >> [music] >> one. The one being E minor now, the relative minor of G major. And to get back to the [music] loop or to loop the chord progression, so I'll play a secondary dominant E seventh, [music] which is the five of the two. What's the two of G major? A minor 7, so E seventh, A minor. So, let's do that minor 25 cadence again. >> [music] >> F sharp, B, E minor [music] seventh, E dominant seventh, and now >> [music] >> back to A minor because E seventh resolves very nicely to [music] A minor 7. Now, see what's going on here. If I started with the 37 shape [music] of A minor seventh, I I just tend to keep dropping down on the piano. >> [music] >> F sharp minor 7 flat 5, B seventh, E minor seventh, E dominant seventh. So, just to keep that going, >> [music] >> instead of going all the way up again and repeating the loop, might as well continue the loop from the other inversion. So, instead of playing CG, I can restart the second cycle by playing GC [music] instead of playing CG. Second cycle, >> [music] >> GC. So, when I end off with E7, 3 4, >> [music] >> I'll do GC of A minor 7, 2, and continue on with >> [music] >> Sounds [music] good in the lower register. >> [music] >> E dominant. Okay, let's do that again. Maybe I'll play it higher just for some variation. A minor 7, 1 2 3 4, >> [music] >> 2 4. G major 7, C major 7, >> [music] >> F sharp half diminished, B7, E minor 7, resolving [music] secondary chord back to A minor 7 but in the next shape. G major 7, [music] C major 7, F sharp half diminished, >> [music] >> B7. And while you practice this, it's always good to sing [music] different aspects of the chord. So, first off, you could sing the roots. 2 [music] A D G C F sharp B [music] E E7 >> [music] >> A A D G [music] C If it's too low, F sharp D E >> [music] >> and it loops. Another nice singing challenge would be sing the name of the chord with the notes of the chord maybe in order. A minor [music] 7th D dominant 7th G major 7th C major [music] 7th F sharp minor 7th B dominant 7th [music] E minor 7th E dominant 7th A minor 7th [singing] and so on. Another nice thing would be to just sing the shells in the order that you're playing them in the right hand. So, a good trick would be play the shell and then sing it. >> [music] >> That's C F sharp. >> [music and singing] [music] >> Now, the other voicing. >> [music] [music and singing] >> And then the >> [music] >> B 7th >> [singing] [music] [singing] >> and it goes on. So, that's another nice thing to sing. So, yeah, there are a lot of things you should do while you practice the piano in general. Train your ear, also train your theory. So, yes, we have the notes. It's great to visualize, but also it's good to handwrite it. Have a culture of writing down the shapes, the inversions, and so on and so forth. So, all that's happening in this rather long chord progression is one [music] finger stays its ground. And then, when you shift to the next chord, only one finger out of the two moves down a semitone. Then the >> [music] >> that one stays, and this one moves. This one stays, that one now moves down a tone. >> [music] >> So, it's either a downward semitone movement or a downward tone movement. That's basically it. You just drift downwards. So, if you do this in two laps, so to speak, in lap one and lap two, you're going to cover both the 3-7 shapes [music] as well as the 7-3 shapes of each and every one of the chords, the usual chords you would use in the G major scale, including some secondary chords, which are not even part of the G major scale. So, [snorts] it's a good workout, I think. And let's now get into a couple of rhythm patterns that you can pass the time better with, and I'll end the video, as I said, with some concepts of tritone substitution. So, the first rhythm pattern I already have been showing you is block [music] chords in the right hand and toggling fifths in the left hand. It's [music] basically it. Moving forward, you could just cascade the notes >> [music] >> by playing one [music] e and a two e and and you wait there. One e and a tie [music] e and the seventh four. One, two, three, four, one. 2 >> [music] >> 3 4 1 2 3 4 >> [music] >> 1 e and a 2 4 1 2 3 >> [music] >> 4 change 2 loop continues. >> [music] >> Okay, play that a bit faster. >> [music] >> Maybe shift a bit faster if you wish without that gap. So on. The other thing you can do is something a bit more poppish. Maybe you can play a tresillo. But I'm not really playing 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and instead I'm doing 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and so the end of the 2 and the end of the 3. >> [music] >> Can be a bit This will be a bit more salsa-like. And keep the toggling of the root and the fifth going in the left hand. It adds a good contrast. >> [music] >> E minor >> [music] >> E dominant goes on. Second [music] shapes. >> [music] >> 3 4 Another nice thing is to swing this since it's used a lot in jazz music. You can do two kinds of swing rhythms. One is the Charleston and the other is the the kind of displaced Charleston, if you will. So, the Charleston will be just one and two. One and two, and three. So, you're playing at the one and then at the end of the two. One and two, and four, and one, and two, and [music] three, and four, and one, and two, and four, and one, and two, and three, and four, and one, and two, [music] and four, and one, and two, and three, and four, and Displaced Charleston [music] now would be one and two, and three, and four, and one, and [music] two, and three, and four, and one, and So, you're starting at the end of the one and then ending on the on of the three. Again. >> [music] >> One and two. And to combine the Charleston, you can do one and two, and three, and four, and one, and two. >> [music] >> Displaced normal, displaced normal. So, it kind of adds a tension and resolution. So, I'll do that. >> [music] >> F sharp. B. >> [music] >> Or maybe the other way. >> [music] >> On. Off. >> [music] >> On. Off. On. >> [music] >> Off. Another rhythm that I enjoy playing, especially in an ensemble, is something like this. So, I'm kind of hitting as well as breaking the chord. So, one e and a two [music] e and a three e and a four e and So, a lot of the e's and the a's are being used here. I guess all of them. 1 e uh 2 e and uh 3 e and uh 4 e and [music] so Slowly, 1 e and uh 2 e and uh 3 e and uh 4 e and >> [music] >> e and because it's fast, I'm breaking it. >> [music] >> Bottom to tops. Slowly. [music] The whole thing. >> [music] [music] >> Just to cap off the lesson, we've done a lot of rhythms as well now. We've done on the chord progression in these two laps. What you could also do whenever you have a dominant seventh chord, you could retain the right hand shape but just change the dominant seventh chord a tritone apart. This is called tritone substitution and this approach works a lot in these cyclic chord progressions that go in fifths especially. So, A minor seventh, [music] D seventh, G major seventh. So, D seventh since it's a dominant seventh chord, what is its tritone? You could replace it with that. >> [music] >> D's tritone is A flat. So, you could play that A flat alongside [music] the chord progressions. A minor seventh, A flat seventh, G major [music] seventh. So, it it adds some sauce to the music. G major, [music] C major, half diminished. Now, I'm going to B B7. What's [music] B7's tritone? It's F7. [music] So, I would have normally played B7, but instead of playing it there >> [music] >> and what's cool is the same shape in the right hand which you used to play for B7th. You will play for [music] F7th. Same shape cuz the seven of one is the three of the other. So, that's called tritone substitution. The three [snorts] and the seven flat will be the same. It just changes position, so it'll be an inversion. While the left hand you change the root of the chord. So, let's do that again. A minor >> [music] >> A flat seventh G7 major seventh C major [music] seventh F sharp half diminished >> [music] >> F7th E minor seventh >> [music] >> Now, instead of playing E7th I'll play its tritone. What is E7th's tritone? B flat. And it kind of [music] resolves >> [music] >> A minor back to then going to >> [music] >> A flat seventh G major seventh C major seventh half diminished [music] tritone >> [music] >> and ending on the dominant. So, there are a lot of things you can practice, a lot of chord options that you could work on. First off, it's a rather long chord progression and it ends up having most of the seventh chords that you would normally play. 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