How to Compose EMOTIONAL Jazz Piano Pieces

[Music] how's it going guys julian bradley here from jazztutorial.com today i'm going to show you how to write emotional sounding chord progressions particularly featuring some jazz piano chord voicings so first of all the main tool which i use as a composer to create a motion is when i take chords which move up and down by thirds so if we're in the key of c minor if i play a series of chords which moves up the keyboard in thirds so i could go from f minor to a flat major to c minor we could keep going to e flat major or we could go [Music] down so moving by thirds is the technique which i use when i want to create an emotional sound go from a flat major to c minor that's going up a third so a flat to c we could go the other way [Music] now you have to be accurate with which type of third you move up by and let me just show you the pattern that you use so say you're on a major chord let's take a c major chord well you can move up by a major third in this case because c major has a major third in it so you wouldn't go to e flat not for an emotional sound you would go to e and then what you do is you switch the chord type so if you start on a major chord c major you go up a third well you're then going to switch the chord type to a minor chord so you play an e minor chord so really that's the technique you go up by the type of third that's in the chord so in this case a major third and then you switch the chord type from major to minor let's take another example let's take a c minor chord which type of third would we go up if we wanted to go up a third from c minor in this case we have a minor third so this case we'll go up a minor third and again we're going to switch the chord type from minor to major so we'll play e flat major so this is the pattern we use it doesn't work if you go from minor chord up a minor third to minor chord although that's an interesting sound it's not an emotional sound it's more of a star wars soundtrack type of sound and likewise if we were to go with a major chord and to go up a major third and to keep it a major chord e major and go up a major third again it's an interesting sound this is more of a james bond goldfinger kind of sound but that's not really the emotional sound that we're going for here so every third that you go up chord alternates from major to minor or minor to major you can keep going up as high as you want to go so that's what i'm doing with these chord progressions i'm taking here an f major chord major seven going up a major third to a and playing an a minor chord switching the chord type you can do this for any set of chords just play a major or minor chord let's take a d minor chord which type of third would we go up we go a minor third because it's a minor chord it has a minor third and then we would play an f chord which type would it be major or minor or we'll switch the chord type from d minor it's going to be f major so any major or minor chord you can apply this pattern to and so far we're just looking at it going up so we can also apply this pattern going the other way going down so if we're on a c minor chord and we want to go down a third which type of third would we go down well since we're already on a minor chord we know that we're going to be going down to a major chord which means we're going to count down a major third from c because a major chord has a major third in it so that way we can figure out that if we want to go down we're going to go down by a major third to a flat and we'll play a major chord from a flat and let's take the final example if you're on a major chord like c major you want to go down a third which type of third would we go down well since we're on a major chord we're going to be going down to a minor chord so we know that the minor chord that's a third below will have a minor third in it so we're going to basically count the other way count down a minor third and play an a minor chord so we'll switch the chord type now let's take a look at the chord voicings which i've been using so far in this lesson the main chord voicing which i want to show you is called the kenny baron chord voicing let's first of all line it up from c and we'll play a c minor 11 chord so it's going to be a stack of fifths in the left hand c g and d then we'll find the chords third this is a minor chord so it'll be a minor third and we'll build another stack of fifths up from the minor third so this is it for a c minor 11 chord and then we can do the same thing for a major seven chord we're just going to take the right hand and build it from the major third instead so major third of c is e you build a stack of fifths from e so these are our two chord voicings one for a major chord one for a minor chord we get the nice color of the eleventh up here or the sharp 11th for the major 7 chord now i know this requires big hands if you want to play it as a block chord you'll have to be able to stretch a 9th but if you can't stretch a 9th we can still arpeggiate it and often that's how i play this chord voicing i'll arpeggiate it so it's up to you you can play all sorts of patterns using this chord voicing and when you combine it with moving in thirds it really unlocks all sorts of emotional chord progressions so f minor there f minor 11 i went up a third to a flat major now applying this kenny baron chord voicing [Music] went up another third to c minor 11. so if you look at the roots going up in thirds that's going to create an emotional sound you can create a bit of variation in the top notes [Music] so in a moment we're going to talk about chord voicings but first if you want to download a series of chord progressions i've put together some free sheet music to go with this lesson it's called 23 sweet chord progressions and these are all featuring a jazz piano style so if you want to download that sheet music it's absolutely free just click on the link below so there's all sorts of things you can do with this kenny barron voicing you can arpeggiate it you can arpeggiate to a rhythm [Music] you can saw off this chord voicing leave off the 11th just play it like this this or play the third and seventh together and by the way kenny barron is a famous jazz pianist who uses this voicing and a lot of his compositions and playing we're just taking it we're adding more variations to it so instead of just playing f major 7 sharp 4 like this we can actually add a melody on top i'm going up a third create a motion playing a minor this time and applying this 11th voicing i went down a third that time so d f a i'm just using these three root notes to create a motion because they're a third apart [Music] and finally let me show you some modulations or key changes which you can use when you're writing in this style first of all if we take this c minor seven chord and all you do is you go up a half step play a major chord you go up basically a major third from that major chord and that's how you create the emotional sound because it's going up in a third and then you can repeat this pattern we're on f minor let's go up a half step let's play a major chord g flat major and then go up a major third and switch the chord type to b flat minor so major switches to minor when you go up a third and we can just repeat this pattern upper half step f minor upper half step b flat minor upper half step e flat minor upper half step [Music] a flat minor upper half step c-sharp minor and this pattern actually takes you through all 12 keys [Music] now i realize i'm using different chord voicings which we haven't looked at yet and in fact i've put together a free e-book for you which is called the jazz piano chord voicing guide which shows you all of these chord voicings which i'm using so you can download that for free at the link below it's an 11 page guide which gives you about 24 jazz piano chord voicings and those are really going to bring these chord progressions to life [Music] now let's try applying the kenny baron voicing to this modulation sounds nice so let's slow it down taking c minor chord how are we going to voice it stack of fifths that's right find the minor third e flat and stack of fifths so that's our voicing like that go up a half step d flat major we're gonna do stack of fifths again find the chords major third this time f and do a stack of fifths it's gonna look like this going to f minor switch the chord type because we've gone up a third stack of fifths then find the chords which type of third that's correct it's gonna be a minor third because this is a minor chord stack of fifths and go up a half step just keep repeating the pattern [Music] now i know this is a lot of notes so again you can download the sheet music to my 23 sweet chord progressions at the link below that way you can print it out i've notated this chord progression and i've notated all the chord voicings as well and apart from that make sure you don't miss out on future videos by subscribing to my channel hit the bell icon my name is julian bradley i hope you enjoy the sheet music i hope you enjoy all of the chord progressions and i will see you in the next video

Channel: Jazz Tutorial | with Julian Bradley

Views: 131,236

Keywords: how to write chord progressions, piano chord progressions, r&b chord progressions, how to make chord progressions, chord progression, how to create chord progressions, beginner chord progressions, how to compose chord progressions, sad chord progressions, guitar chord progressions, best chord progressions, music theory, jazz piano chord progressions, jazz piano chords, how to compose music, emotional chord progressions, how to compose jazz chord progressions

Id: 3nHAgz1mMWI

Length: 15min 10sec (910 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 02 2021