Discovering The More
Common Jazz Piano Voicings
Chord voicings are the name of the game when it comes to turning those favorite standard songs of yours into rich, juicy, tasty, full-bodied masterpieces that, upon being heard by others in a room, turn heads. You don’t have to possess awesome, digital improvising “chops” to put a song across with confidence and a sense of authority. When you have a reasonable command of supporting those melodies with lush harmonies, you are interpreted as a pianist who has command of his or her instrument. Why? Because you are!
An absolute first strategy that will be more than just remotely helpful on this journey will be to familiarize yourself with the more common jazz piano voicings used by professional piano playing giants who have already gained the respect of their audience.
Listen To Recordings Of The Jazz Greats
Listening to the great recording is perhaps the most tremendous strategy you can adopt. Learn to fully appreciate the harmonic sounds of those piano giants. It’s not so important that you know what they are playing. Rather, it’s valuable to listen to great players simply to be in touch with the fact that, at this point in time, they know what you do not. Listen to a recording Bill Evans, for example, as he performs a version of Waltz For Debby and remain curious about those piano voicings he is using. Listening again and again is likely to lead you to discovering exactly what is being played in certain areas of a tune. But even if you aren’t able to quickly reproduce what you are hearing, you are still nurturing your musical ears.
Excerpt From Sneak Peeks #3
A Dual Approach To Mastering Common Chord Voicings
As you expose yourself to learning tools, you will learn that many of the chord sounds you were hearing from the likes of a Bill Evans have become common jazz piano chord voicings being used again and again by those who have invested their time in exploring as we are suggesting here. It becomes a remarkable moment when you listen to such a recording repeatedly over time and, upon actually seeing a particular voicing explained and demonstrated as in a program like ProProach, the light bulb goes on… “Wow! That’s what I was listening to and that’s how to play it!”
Integrating a combination of listening to recordings and participating in a program like ProProach will soon lead to your making connections between what you have been listening to and what you find yourself actually playing! Those “Ahaaa!” moments are irreplaceable.
Incorporate What You Learn Into Your Tunes
As I mentioned over and over again, it’s crucial to incorporate what you learn into your own tunes. It’s much like learning a language like English. A certain word is of little use to you unless you make a habit of incorporating that word into phrases and sentences until you eventually feel absolutely confident with using it whenever you like. That’s how it works when it comes to learning those common jazz piano voicings.
Create Your Very Own Jazz Piano Voicings
You will find that, once the more common voicings are mastered, you’ll be inspired to even create your very own chord voicing sounds. Pro Piano Chord Bytes offers plenty of suggestions in the commentary section of each of those weekly lessons. A chief aim of that program is to get you thinking creatively so that you have more and more fun expressing yourself in your own unique way.
Put Your Progress “On Steroids”
Let’s not forget a most important requisite to all this. Keep it fun. While those “mystery” chord voicing sounds you hear the pros playing should serve as encouragement and inspiration, do not place your focus the fact that you do not know how to play those sounds yet. Instead, place your focus on what you have learned and make the most of that, keeping your vision open to discovering the unknown. Adopt this approach as a habit and you’ll wake up one day and it will seem as though you have suddenly become a pianist who is in the driver’s seat when it comes to putting a song across in a fashion that spells greatness!