Smoothest Jazz Chords in the World

do [Music] so the way this composition came about was 10 years ago i was doing my master's degree in composition for film and one of the homework assignments was the instructor would give you a word my word was love and you had to create a piece of music that embodied that word so to capture the mood of love i went with the lydian scale and i just started out playing in c lydian scale which is basically the major scale but with a sharp four so these are the notes of c lydian scale it has a very dreamy sound which i thought was appropriate for the mood of love and falling in love so in my left hand i'm outlining a c major seven chord i'm just playing root fifth and seventh then i bring in a simple melody you see i had that sharp four in there and then i modulate and i just transpose the same idea and i move up a major third to e lydian scale so a sort of e major seven sound and play the same melody just transposed into e lydian scale which would have a sharp four again very dreamy [Music] then we go to a c sharp minor sound so i'm changing the chord here again just whatever i feel like so now it's time to add a bit of sophistication we can't go too long just playing the lydian scale i want this to be a jazz composition so i have to add in a few sophisticated chord voicings not every chord not every chord has to be sophisticated but you do have to pepper them in and you have to place them strategically throughout the composition so here i play this f dominant seven because it's f got a minus seventh and a major third which outlines an f dominant seven chord but we also have the thirteenth and a flat nine it's sort of a fourth voicing i ripple it we then move to a new texture [Music] so what am i doing here well we basically play an e minor seven chord going to a g major seven chord and at this point the music sounds more like it's in e minor and really i've gone from c lydian i've moved now to e minor which is actually the same notes as c lydian scale this is e minor scale it's the same notes as c lydian scale but we're now playing e as though it's the root of the scale so now we have more of an e minor sound and i play my first kenny baron chord voicing of the composition the kenny baron chord voicing is a stack of fifths in your left hand so from e i'm going to do a stack of fifths so root fifth ninth and then we're going to find the minor third which is going to be up a half step from the ninth g we're going to build another stack of fifths in the right hand now i don't want you to worry if you can't stretch a ninth you don't need to because i'm arpeggiating this chord voicing which means i'm playing one note at a time and i'm just holding down the pedal so you don't have to be able to stretch a ninth in this composition we're arpeggiating so it doesn't matter if you can't stretch the knife you can still play this piece then we go to a g major seven chord and again we arpeggiate holding down the pedal root fifth ninth and i play the third with it which is a major third basically a kenny baron applied to the g major chord because the kenny baron chord voicing can be played for major chords as well the only difference is you're going to build the right hand from the major third b natural so i could build another stack of fifths from b natural and this would be the kenny baron voicing for g major 7 with a sharp 11 up here and i've sawn it off at the seventh so instead of going up to the sharp four up here we're just playing this the lower part of the voicing [Music] and next i go to a new chord which is a minor seven i apply the kenny baron chord voicing this is a minor 11 really when i play the voicing so stack of fifths stack of fifths in the right hand but built from the minor third which is c so stack of fifths and i repeat the exact same pattern that i just played for e minor 11 and g major 7 but we do the same now for a minor 11 and c major 7. [Music] same pattern [Music] and then we pause and that was the transition which then leads in to the real payoff moment which is this [Music] and don't forget you can download the sheet music absolutely free just by clicking on the link below that way you can really study the notes and you can really learn this piece so that you can actually perform it to other people so that's a lot of chords let's take this chord by chord first of all what this chord progression is and how it started was first of all an e minor seven chord and it goes up to g major seven chord which then goes up to a b minor seven chord so and really this section is in b minor so we've sort of transitioned to more of a b minor sound so b minor is the one chord of this section and then we go down to an a major chord which would normally just be an a major chord within the key of b minor but i actually added a major seventh which is a g sharp which actually modulates from the scale of b minor because b minor scale would have a g so this is kind of coming out of key just in a subtle way just by adding a major seventh then we come back to the g major seven chord so subtle modulation there then we go to an f sharp minor seven chord and when i get to this point i need to bring us back to the starting chord because i want to repeat that progression a second time so to get back from f sharp i use tritone substitution and i play an f dominant seven chord which resolves nicely down a half step to e minor seven so tritone substitution is basically preceding any chord whether it's a major seven or a minor seven just counting up a half step and building a dominant seven chord so that's what i do but i decorate all of these chords with much more sophisticated chord voicings of course so first of all for all of the minor seven chords and all of the major seven chords i am using the kenny baron chord voicing which we just looked at so for e minor seven again i'm going to play a stack of fifths in my left hand and i'm going to find the chords third which is a minor third from e it's going to be g and then i build a stack of fifths from g like this then we go to a g major seven chord and again i'm going to play the kenny baron voicing root fifth ninth i'm going to play the chords third which is a major third so it's going to be b natural stack of fifths we're going to get this lovely major 7th and sharp 4 or sharp 11. then we go to b minor 7 and i'm going to build the kenny brown chord voicing here again so stack of fifths from the root gives me root fifth ninth then i'm going to play which type of third for a b minor seven chord it's going to be a minor third so it's going to be up a half step from the ninth d stack of fifths up from there and we get this then we go to the a major seven chord and here i'm going to play the kenny baron voicing but for a major seven so stack of fifths in the left hand the left hand's always the same whether it's major or minor but this chord is going to have which type of third it's a major chord so we're gonna have a major third c sharp stack of fifths out from c sharp and here we get this lovely sharp four up here then we go to g major seven again kenny barron voicing root fifth ninth major third stack of fifths up from there we've already had this chord then we go to the f sharp minor seven chord almost finished here f sharp minor seven again kenny brown chord voicing so stack of fifths in the left hand and a stack of fifths in the right from the third which is going to be a minor third for f sharp minor seven [Music] stack of fifths and then finally we come to an f dominant seven chord which is the tritone substitution which will then resolve back to the e minor seven chord and then we'll start again so for f dominant seven i voice it like this root then the chord seventh which is a flat seventh so it's going to be a whole step below the root up here then we have the major third which is a and then i play this as an upper structure voicing which means i'm going to play basically a g major triad in my right hand but i'm going to rearrange the notes i'm going to invert it so that's more in the same place i'm going to take the top two notes bring them down an octave and that is my lovely upper structure voicing for f dominant seven you can always invert these these upper structure triads like this this this this this but i want it here because my melody note i want to resolve down to the ninth of e minor so your ear is always hearing the top note as a melody so whatever the top note is is going to make its own melody so [Music] so that's the first time around now you understand the theory again i started with minor seven chords wrote the chords first [Music] and then i decorated them with the kenny baron chord voicing [Music] and then we can repeat the whole thing again [Music] uh [Music] do [Music] so if you really want to learn this piece i encourage you to download the sheet music it's absolutely free i'm giving away the sheet music to this composition for free you can download it at the link below or go to jazztutorial.com forward slash free

Channel: Jazz Tutorial | with Julian Bradley

Views: 60,370

Keywords: jazz piano lessons, jazz piano lesson, jazz piano chords, jazz chords, chord voicings, jazz piano composition, learn jazz piano, chord progression, beautiful jazz, beautiful chords, beautiful chord progression, falling in love for the first time, julian bradley, kenny barron, kenny barron voicing, upper structure, jazz piano voicings, chord voicing lesson, jazz composition, jazz tutorial, julian bradley composition, composition lesson, compose jazz, jazz piano tutorial

Id: 0mtE9nEaewk

Length: 15min 26sec (926 seconds)

Published: Tue May 31 2022