This tutorial of Advanced chord voicing is brought to you by Elmond Isaiah of ‘The mystery of sound‘.
He is one of the finest pianist in Nigeria and we are delighted to have him share some of his knowledge and experience with us to make young musicians grow.
In this tutorial he would be giving us cool advanced chords that we can substitute for our regular major and minor chords that we are used to playing.
INTRODUCTION
Chords are not just three or more musical notes harmonically played or sung together, they are the life blood of music like Jermaine Griggs will always say.
If chords are rightly applied, they produce an irresistible outstanding positive effects on anything, whether living or non-living.
In this lesson we will examine three popular chords and their application. Many musicians have been using these kind of chords their own way, but here, we will talk about them in many different exciting perspectives. Hope you will like it!
The three chords to be discussed are:
- Ab(9)/C
- F#(9)/Bb
- Ab6
Firstly, I want to establish a fact that chords should be voiced according to the kind of music you are playing to at the moment.
Always listen to what music want you to play per time. It is also good to know how to interpret chords and name them rightly to avoid mix up.
Chord description:
A chord like Ab (9)/C, is called A flat ninth over C, and it means that the right hand should play Ab(9)while the left hand should play C at the same time.
But when there are more than one note on both sides or on one side, then it will be for left and right hand just as it appears.
For example: Ab+Eb/F+Ab+Bb+ C# means the left hand will play Ab and Eb, while the right hand play F+Ab+Bb+C# together, or if the chord appear as Eb/F+Ab+Bb+C#, or Ab+Eb/ C#, the same method of playing is applied.
The left hand and right hand respectively following the demarcation by the slash between the notes.
Although forAb+Eb/C#, right hand can decide to play the Ab+Eb, while the left hand play C#.
NOTE: The slash between chords with more than one note in either left or right hand side is called ‘slash.’ E.g, Ab+Eb/F+Ab+Bb+ C# is called A flat, Eflat slash F, Aflat, B flat and C sharp.
While the slash in between chordswith just one notes on either of the side, or when right hand is to play the notes that appears on the left side is called ‘over.’ E.g, Ab(9)/C is called A flat ninth over C.
Chord voicing is a most know techniques. I discovered years back that by allowing a finger in your left hand play just a note meant for a finger in your right hand, in the same position is able to change the chord’s quality and give it a different feels.
Though this does not happen all the time, but we must know that our left and right hand does not have the same dexterity, frequency, speed, touch sense and task.
For example, looking at Ab+Eb/F+Ab+Bb+C#, if you decide to have the chord as Ab+Eb+F/Ab+Bb+C#, though the F is still on the same position, but now played by the left hand, possibly your tomb, you may notice a slit change in frequency and feels of the chord than it was when your right hand tomb played it together with the other notes.
So, let’s get started.
