One Shape, 12 Bass Notes – Massive Chord Voicings!

Duration: 14:22 2111 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

In this lesson, Jason Zach from the Nathaniel School of Music introduces an innovative approach to chord construction that moves away from traditional theory focused on stacking roots, thirds, and fifths. Instead, he advocates for using a fixed right-hand chord shape or voicing as a pivot point while experimenting with various bass notes in the lower register. This method allows musicians to form complex chords such as major ninths or minor elevenths without needing intricate theoretical calculations, effectively simplifying the composition process. By keeping one hand on a specific quartal stack—often consisting of two perfect fourths—the player can instantly generate sophisticated harmonies simply by changing the bass note, which offers a more ergonomic and flexible way to play compared to being confined to standard stacked intervals. The video demonstrates how this technique works across different chord types, starting with major triads in right-hand quartal voicings that support any chromatic bass note. For instance, playing an F-C-Bb stack in the upper register can be harmonized by a C bass to create a C7 sus4, or by a Db bass to form a rich jazz voicing equivalent to a D-flat major 13th chord. The instructor shows that this single shape remains powerful regardless of whether it is played on an upright bass with plucked strings or picked electrically, as the resulting harmonies adapt naturally to different keys and perspectives. Even when exploring minor triad shells like F-A-C, the same principle applies, where shifting the bass note transforms a simple progression into classical sounds, dominant sevenths, augmented chords, or suspended structures that might otherwise seem difficult to construct from scratch. Beyond simply forming static chords, this approach fundamentally shifts how composers think about harmony and melody construction by prioritizing vertical sound blocks over linear scale patterns. Jason highlights his app, Bass Alchemy, which generates various voicing shapes including diminished triads, augmented clusters, suspended fourths, and shell chords to facilitate ear training exercises known as "the alchemist's ear." Users can engage with random chord progressions accompanied by metronomes in different tempos and meters while listening to the contrast between the bass line and the upper-register piano part. This tool encourages musicians to build melodies from a foundation of pre-selected harmonies rather than adjusting chords after writing a melody, fostering a deeper understanding of how specific intervals interact within a chromatic family regardless of their traditional names or theoretical labels. Ultimately, the lesson concludes that mastering this single voicing shape with twelve different bass notes provides an efficient pathway to expanding one's harmonic vocabulary and improving overall ear training skills available on any instrument. By focusing on these alternate harmonization methods, composers can break free from rigid conventions found in standard music theory guides like chord charts or circle-of-fifths exercises, allowing for more creative freedom in arranging music for choirs, orchestras, or solo performances. The video encourages viewers to explore the provided app and study resources to internalize this perspective, suggesting that even complex-sounding pop songs often rely on these simpler underlying principles rather than the complicated names written down online. Through consistent practice with these shapes across all twelve keys, musicians can develop a more intuitive grasp of harmony that makes composing both easier and more expressive without getting bogged down in nomenclature or excessive theoretical constraints.

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Hi everyone, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, we are going to focus on how to train your year using the bass register by keeping a pivot right hand chord stack or a chord shape or a chord voicing, if you want to call it that. First off, I'm going to show you the right hand chord voicings. Then I'm going to show you when the bass is used, how that can a train your ear, b give you a different perspective to form and analyze your chords a bit better without really using too much of theory or chord stacking methodologies which go from root, third, fifth and you know the traditional mindset. For example, how do you just form a a complex chord like a major 9th or a minor 11th chord using just a very simple principle? And I guarantee you if you stay till the very end, you're going to learn a much more efficient and simpler method to form your chords and also make the process a lot more ergonomic on your instruments to not be confined to those three or four notes which are stacked. You can fool around, you can change it around, you can voice it better, it'll work better for a choir and an orchestra and hopefully you as a composer as well. So to make this process a lot more easier, we have done a lot of lessons on bass ear training on our YouTube channel. I encourage you to check them out uh after this one. We leave you a few links in the description. However, what we ended up realizing is there are too many possibilities. If you just take one stack, if you take a quartal voicing, [music] which is basically two perfect fourths, C F [singing] B flat, there are so many things [music] you can do. If you just play an A flat in the bass, it forms a very sophisticated chord or you can get a suspension or [music] an an add nine or a a beautiful [music] F over A with a 11 in there. So you get some very advanced chord shapes which when you read it, it'll seem very complicated. The chord itself will take you so long to read. You can't even spell it out. But actually, it's quite easy to form. And this is how most of the even pop musicians tend to compose chords. You take a band like Green Day, it might write E minor if you Google the chord, but it's actually a very complex chord. They may be playing [singing and music] da da da da da da da da da da da da da. [music] It might not be what's written in a Google sheet. Okay. Okay, so that's what this is going to teach you. And to explain this, considering that we have so many possibilities, we've built an app called Bass Alchemy. And what this will do is it'll give you different voicing shapes. We have the major triad. We have the minor triad. Minor triad. The [music] diminished triad. Then the augmented triad which is 1 135 sharp. The suspension which is 1 2 5. [music] The suspended four. The open fifth. sappa the quartal which I just showed you stacked fourths then you have the trionee cluster which will have a trionee and then a perfect fourth [music] major 7 shell that's just the third and the major 7th and a dominant seven shell E flat that's the third and the seven flat so let's first start with the most famous of these stacked sounds the stacked perfect fourths the sound of McCoy Tiner and Herby Hancock and modern neosoul composers if you wish uh the quartal chord if I take here I can pick a key so I'm picking the key of F so since it's F major the way it's set up in the app if I choose F you're going to get a C F flat chord this is part of the F major scale okay [music] we'll be adapting the app shortly to support every kind of key and every kind of perspective. But anyway, let's just say we are playing C, [music] F, B flat in the right hand. What can we harmonize in the left hand? Well, this this is the chromatic family. So, what the app is saying is if you now press C, F, B flat in the right hand and stack it with a C, [music] you're going to instantly form a C7 sus4 chord. [music] And then if you go to D flat, you're going to get a beautiful jazz voicing which is D flat. You could say major 13th. How do we prove that [music] D flat is now my new root? D flat [singing] major 7th 3r 13 or six just [music] by changing the bass note. And you can adjust the bass sound if you really want to explore by by changing you know from upright to picked. I think I'm going to stick with picked. So you go see C forms what now? C forms a C7 sus 4. Now [music] D flat forms a 13. Now you'll be D is another great sound. D [music] minor 7 with that U [clears throat] B flat in there which is a sharp five or a flat 6 you could call it or you could even call it as a B flat/ D or something. Long story short, these names don't matter because they get quite complex as you can see in the diagram and with me uh fumbling my chord names, right? It doesn't matter. What matters is the quartal shape in the right hand is so powerful or not only the right hand, the quartal shape is great in the upper register period because it supports any of the chromatic notes in the lower register. Okay. So, I've so far walked you through C, [music] D flat, D. What about E flat? E flat will form a nice [music] E flat 6 sus 2 as it's written, but it basically has a six. It has a sus 2. [music] And yeah, you could call it E flat 6 sus 2. Nice. You can even learn some chord names with this app. Now, E is a it says avoid, but even that sounds good. It's kind of like a C over E with that F C7/ E. Yeah, it kind of works. But no one really knows what to call this chord, including the app. And then you do F, [music] good old Fsus 4. Then here you go. Beautiful F sharp or G [music] flat major 7, but with a trionee because of the C. [music] It's not a regular F sharp major 7th. So F sharp [music] major 7th or G flat major 7 flat 5. Then you have an F sharp. Okay. Oh, sorry. I changed my key. I'm going to move it back to F and change my note to G. [music] It's a G minor 11 sound or G minor 71 sound. [music] As you can see so far, I'm guessing everything sounds good. This is your traditional A flat 69 [music] used a lot in jazz music. Very ambient sound. [music] A A have to use this sometime in life, right? It's an F over A sound. [music] Beautiful with that uplifting suspension as well. So [music] yeah, F major add four slash A I give up. It's just a complex sound I guess. [music] Then B works. And the last note B uh probably the only one to avoid. So that's 11, which sound beautiful over a quartal chord in my opinion at least. I'm sure you'll agree. Let me know in the comments. So, moving [clears throat] forward, you can harmonize pretty much any cluster. And I'm sure you you get the idea. If you harmonize an open fifth, almost everything's going to sound good, right? FC with a C, [music] you almost everything's going to sound good. This is your F C played upper. and all the chords [music] E flat, E, Fifth, G flat, which also sounds good, G7 [music] sus 4, A flat, A minor, like an F over A, B. So with a fifth chord, I think everything works. However, challenges arise if you maybe take a minor triad shell. Okay? So now you're on an F minor. The key is F. So you're you're playing F minor. F A flat C. And now if we walk it through F minor/ C. Beautiful classical [music] sound. What happens over F minor/ D flat? It becomes a D flat major 7th chord. >> [music] >> Now D flat minor 7 flat 5 E flat with that sus [music] 4. Amazing. An augmented sound there. Good old F minor. I love this sound. F minor over G flat bass. That's an F minor/G. F minor sl A flat. Don't like this much, but it kind of is an acquired taste. B F minor or B flat. Yeah. Yeah. As you can see, most of it kind of works because a minor chord if even the notes to avoid kind of make it that additional diminished seventh family note. So, it all sounds good. So, [clears throat] long story short, this is a nice way to kind of put music together from a different perspective and just hold down a chord. Maybe you want to just play an F minor and just explore the bass, [music] things like that, cliches. Or maybe you're a newcomer to the instrument and you just want to focus on one chord with different inversions and then explore some complex harmony but still compose music like any other composer. [clears throat] So whatever be the case, you also have an option where you can do musical random [music] and it plays what it thinks can work, you know, as a random chord [music] progression. And you can hear this with a metronome. You can hear this in different arpeggio patterns, different tempos, different meters. The chord can be for 2x or halfx. And the metronome can be on or off while you practice. And what's cool is you hear the bass as well as the piano playing the upper register chord. So you have a good contrast. And what's nice is you can train your ear, as it's called here, the alchemist's ear. So you can train your ear. Let's say I choose quartal. And the job here is it'll give you ear training challenges. So what you hear, [music] you have to guess probably E. Okay, cool. That's right. F. So [music] unfortunately I got it wrong, but you get the idea. So it's a good [clears throat] resource to kind of do one voicing 12 bass notes, all the 12 on any key. So this another app just like chord trees that we have at the Nathaniel school where we are trying to take an alternate step to harmonization or another way to do it as opposed to the usual traditional write your scale in a circle, do your triads, then do seventh chords. You have a pallet or a set of about seven of them and you use them to write chords for a song. And then the choice of making chords tends to be more random based on the melody. It kind of survives. But with a app like this, you can focus on the harmony first and then build the melody from the ground up rather than have the melody and then you know adjust based on the chords. So this should be a good app to improve your chord theory, improve your voicing skills, especially with the right hand. practice on all the 12 keys and more importantly train your ear and give you hopefully a different approach towards composing music and creating harmony in general. So do check out Bass Alchemy, play around with it, let us know what you think. The app is available for free. Don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and if you want a proper detailed study guide on how to use the app, don't forget to be a Patreon subscriber. You'll get a PDF there. And what else? That's about it really. If you want to learn something more structured and organized from ground zero to maybe this point, do consider a semester or two at the Nathaniel School of Music. Thanks a ton for watching this. I will catch you in the next one. Cheers.