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School Chart Voicings

The most frequently asked questions from beginner jazz students relate to voicings. How do I get that jazz sound? How do I know what notes to use? Which notes are the important ones? There are no quick answers to these questions but there are some techniques and practice tips that can be applied in order to get a solid understanding of how voicings are built.

I decided to apply this one technique to a sample big band school chart (per request from one of our readers). Lower level school charts often come with very basic voicings to make it easy for the students to read and follow along in the chart. The problem is if the student does not have a knowlegable teacher, he or she is going to get stuck with the given voicings, which don’t necessarily have the jazz sound.

It is possible to write down a bunch of voicings but it is more helpful to learn some basic techniques that can help you learn how to create your own voicings. By learning the essential progression 1 an 2 you, will soon understand the concept on which standard jazz voicings are built. The most important thing to understand with these voicings is the importance of the 3rd and the 7th. The interval that these two notes create is the backbone of a jazz voicing. The voicing then becomes complete when you add a 9th, 13th, 11th and in some cases a 5th. In order to apply these voicings you need to understand and know the notes on which a chord is built. In other words, locate the tonic, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 11th and 13th. Lets take a look at these essential progressions.

Note that all of these voicings contain the 3rd and the 7th. Even when played with only the left hand, the sound will differ greatly from the standard indicated voicings. Also pay attention to the rich and full sound that the 9th and 13th creates. These notes are called upper structure notes and they are the notes that give a voicing its unique character.

The following example is what many published big band piano parts look like. The voicings are very basic and there is also no rhythm indicated. Take a moment to look at these chords and analyze them.

1. Make sure you are secure about where the 3rd and 7th are.
2. Practice playing the chords with only the 3rd and 7th in the left hand.
3. Practice playing the 3rd and 7th in the right hand. If you want you can play the root of the chord in the left hand.
4. It is helpful if you indicate with a pen the 3rd and 7th.
5. Keep in mind that it doesn’t matter in what order you play the 3rd and 7thd. Actually, it is preferred that you change the order around so that sometimes you have the 3rd on the bottom and the 7th on top, and the other way around.

In this example I have incorporated the voicings from the essential progressions to build some nice sounding chords. The bracket indicates the foundation of the voicings. The added notes are either the root of the chord or other chord tones. Also, note that sometimes the essential voicing is spread out between the hands. By incorporating the voicings from the essential progression you will soon be able to explore the great sound of jazz voicings.

Per Danielsson

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