Learn these ROOTLESS VOICINGS for JAZZ PIANO

and to start with let's take a look at rootless chord voicings so for our c minor seven chord let me show you a rootless voicing for c minor seven you're going to play the root in your left hand in the bass you're going to find the chords third so what's the third of c minor it's going to be e flat and then we're going to play a major 7 chord built from e flat so e flat major 7 is going to look like this this is a really nice chord voicing it's called a rootless chord voicing position a that's going to give us the minor third the fifth the minor 7th and the ninth [Music] very nice so c minor seven would look like this we could build it for the four chord f minor seven which notes would we play find the chords minor third a flat and then build a major seven chord from a flat it's going to look like this now we can also invert this chord voicing and it's common to take the top two notes and to bring them down an octave so b flat and d you can come down here b flat and d and e flatten g and this is also a very common chord voicing this is a rootless chord voicing position b which i also use a lot with my chord progressions so for a minor seven chord we can either play a rootless voicing position a third fifth seventh ninth or a root is voicing position b which is going to be seventh ninth third and fifth now how about a major seven chord let me just demonstrate from c if we had a c major seven chord again we could use a rootless chord voicing and for a major seven chord we're going to find the chords third so a major third this time it's gonna be e and this time we're going to build a minor 7 chord from e so e minor 7 is going to look like this so that is our rootless chord voicing position a for a c major 7 chord then how about position b can you tell me which notes we're going to play just take the top two notes drop them down an octave and it will look like this so it's the same numbers three five seven nine or seven nine three five and you can just apply that to a major seven chord or a minor seven chord so how would we voice e flat major seven if we wanted to do a rootless chord voicing in position a we'll find the chords third it's going to be a major third then which type of seventh chord are we going to build well it's always going to be the opposite of the chord type so if this is an e flat major seven find the major third and then we build a minor seven chord so that's how i remember it if it's a major seven chord you find the third and then build a minor seven chord so it's like the opposite major minor whereas if it's a minor seven chord you find the minor third and then you build a major seven chord so it's kind of like the opposite whichever chord type it is you find the third and then you switch the chord type now even these new chord voicings can be a way for us to get out of key for example if we take these rootless chord voicings there's certain chords that we've looked at where if you apply these rootless chord voicings it will actually add a note that's out of key and i like to do this on the five chord g minor seven chord if you add this rootless chord voicing you end up with an a natural up here and really that's taking you out of key that would be maybe the dorian scale which has a major sixth so just by playing this chord voicing on the five chord it actually very subtly breaks you out of the key so sometimes just adding these rootless chord voicings will actually just tweak you out of key just a tiny bit so next let me show you how i like to voice dominant seven chords let's take a c dominant seven chord to demonstrate again i like to use rootless chord voicings and for a dominant seven chord we're going to find the chords third which is going to be a major third so two whole steps brings you to e then we're basically going to build a stack of fourths up from e e a and d and lastly we're going to add a half step above the middle note which is going to give us a b flat so this is actually the voicing that i like to use for dominant seven chords it's slightly different to the minor seven and the major seven because we just tweak this fifth and move it up and again we can play position a which looks like this or we can invert it take the top two notes bring them down an octave and play it in position b which looks like this now i know this is getting a bit heavy but this is how you create these sophisticated chord progressions the chord voicings are an essential part to these chord progressions so i like to use these rootless chord voicings another thing i sometimes like to do is play a stack of fifths in my left hand just sort of beefs up the sound of the chord especially if i'm rippling it so c minor seven [Music] sometimes beef up certain chords a stack of fifths in the left hand if you can stretch it or just play a root and fifth if you can't [Music] so now we can take these rootless chord voicings and start applying them to the chords that we've looked at so we could play an f minor seven root this voicing g flat dominant seven i'm doing this tritone substitution here find my voicing resolves nicely down a half step to f minor seven rootless voicing do it again tritone substitution to c minor seven now if you'd like to learn more jazz piano chord voicings i've put together a free download which is my jazz piano chord voicing guide you can download that for free at the link below that's going to show you all these different types of chord voicing including shell voicings rootless chord voicings fourth voicings the kenny baron voicing and more so you can download that for free below if this is the first video of mine you've seen make sure you don't miss out on future videos by subscribing to my channel i hope you enjoyed this series and i will see you in a new video [Music] soon

Channel: Jazz Tutorial | with Julian Bradley

Views: 62,756

Keywords: rootless voicings piano, rootless chord voicing, rootless chord voicings, chord voicings piano, chord voicings explained, jazz piano chord voicings, jazz chords, jazz piano chords, jazz chord voicings piano, jazz chord voicings, jazz chord voicing, rootless chords, rootless chords piano, julian bradley, julian bradley chord progressions, julian bradley jazz piano, types of chord voicings, jazz piano, jazz piano tutorial

Id: -Q0413UQjrs

Length: 7min 56sec (476 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 24 2020