Advanced Chord Voicings
Advanced Chord Voicings
Definition
Advanced Chord voicings are chords that use beautiful colors like 9’s, 11’s and 13’s but are fully contained within an octave span and played mostly with the left hand.
Importance
These Advanced Chord voicings are very useful in playing with a bass and or drummer. These left hand chord voicings free up the right hand to improvise while the left hand plays all the important and colorful notes of a complex chord!
Application
Obviously if we are playing a 9th or 13th chord all within the left hand and not spanning more than an octave we must have to omit some of the “ Less “ important notes of the chord. These “ Less “ important notes are: the root and 5th of the respective chord.
There are approximately 10 of these so-called “ Advanced Chord Voicings” that I teach to my students. These voicings are used and taught only by professional pianists. They are harder to visualize on the piano but well worth the extra effort because of the phenomenal sound generated.