Rootless BOX voicings explained Jazz Piano College 145
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- čas přidán 1. 03. 2018
- Tutorial explaining rootless voicings and what Berklee college calls 'BOX' voicing. At least that's what they called it 30 years ago! Here's the same pdf I've posted in previous videos on this subject.
the boxes in pdf. goo.gl/b8s8Cm
my playlist on rootless voicing: • rootless voicings
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At the time 06:18, did you mean D altered or Db altered?
D altered! thanks, my mistake
@@TonyWinston thx for great videos. I really learnt a lot.keep us posted plz
oh my gosh, only people that LOVE life post stuff like this for free. And we all for sure do love you
Tony you are a real one
I love all your lessons professor Winston!
Practical and will improve our playing once we remember it automatically. After years learning jazz, I can say this is one the most important in jazz because we can cover 7 9 and 13 in one hand.
In my opinion this is one of the coolest concepts for more advanced jazz improvisation. And of course Mr. Winston is teaching it :) You can also google it with the terms "magic voicings", "universal voicings" or "shape voicings".
Whatever you call them, the cool thing is how those voicing shapes relate to the modes of melodic minor scale. To put it bluntly, for each of the twelve box 1 shapes there is a single melodic minor scale to play over it, no matter in which context the voicing is used (9/13, altered, dominant #5, half-diminished etc).
For example:
- sheet calls for a F7
- we want to play an unaltered rootless for it, therefore F7(9/13)
- to achieve this we use the box 1 shape from the b7 of F7 which is: Eb, G, A, D (Eb box1)
- for Eb box1 (or the enharmonic A box2) we can ALWAYS use C melodic minor (C, D, Eb, F, G, A, B) scale on top!!!
- technically, in the context of a F7, the C melodic minor scale would be called "F lydian dominant" or "F mixo #11" or "the 4th mode of C melodic minor", but it's still just the notes of C melodic minor
Now, if you would play Eb box1 as the altered chord of B (B7alt), we could still just play C melodic minor over it! In this case our C melodic minor becomes the beloved and overplayed trademark scale of jazz: the B altered dominant! (7th mode of C melodic minor). But again, it's still just C melodic minor. Same shape = same scale!
Eb box1 in the context of an Am7b5: as expected, we can still play C melodic minor, which becomes the A locrian natural 2 scale (6th mode of C melodic minor).
Now we can always practice the box voicings 1 and 2 with their according melodic minor scale. Whenever we see a place to use the box voicing, we also know the according fancy pants jazz scale to play over it. For box 3 something similar can be found when using the diminished scales, and for box 4 when using the modes of the harmonic minor scale! With this we do not have to think about advanced jazz scales anymore and can use our brainpower for more creative things during improvisation.
But of course be careful. The reason why this is not teached as a straight forward technique by most teachers is because it can lead to very one-dimensional playing. Also, it's very very important to be conscious about what you play. Just letting your muscle memory do its thing is a straight road to bad habit town. The scale may always have the same shape, but the "good" notes (3rd, 7th, tensions) change positions all the time!
Sasha Capriolo thanks..very interesting comment and a great explanation. Box 3 I relate more to the diminished scale but I agree with all you said
thanks! yes box 3 definitely relates more to the diminished scale. I got a bit ahead of myself there :)
could you give an example of a minor scale over a box voincing?
Frank Deruyck if I understand correctly you want to see the box voicings used as a minor chord.
TLDR basically box voicings do not work well with minor chords. They only do if the minor chord is also the tonic chord.
In my opinion there are 2 straight forward possibilities to play a minor chord with box voicings. Usually people play the minor chord as either the II chord (as in the first chord of the major II-V-I progression) or the I chord (as in the final chord of a minor II-V-I progression). When it's a II chord, it's usually played as a minor7. When it's a I chord, it's usually played as a minor6 or MinMaj7.
If we would play box 1 from the minor third (b3) of the called minor chord, we would get a nice rootless minor6/9 chord, which is cool but actually has only very limited use (you'll see..). Again, you can play the same melodic minor scale over it as always.
For example:
- sheet calls for a D-7 as the I chord in a minor II-V-I
- so our D-7 should actually be played as a D-6 most of the time
- we play box 1 from the b3 of D-7 (which is the note F), so it's F box 1 (F, A, B, E)
- F box 1 (or the enharmonic B box 2) we can always use D melodic minor 1st mode (D, E, F, G, A, B, C#)
- D melodic minor (1st mode) is the actual common scale for the D-6 chord
- Practice this on the tune Beautiful Love
Second way to do it example:
- sheet calls for a D-7 as the I chord in a minor II-V-I
- we want to play D-7 as DMinMaj7 (because we are cool cats)
- we play box 4 from the b3 of D-7 (still the note F), so it's F box 4 (F, A, C#, E)
- F box 4 we can always play D melodic minor 1st mode (D, E, F, G, A, B, C#)
- Be careful, in this case the note D of the scale becomes an avoid note because of C# in the chord below!
- Practice also on Beautiful Love
Now if you would try to play the F box 1 in a major II-V-I (D-7 to G7 to CMaj7) as the II chord (D-7), you'll see that it doesn't really work. This is because the guide tones of D-6 (F, B) are the same notes as the guide tones of the following G7 (the V chord). This is bad because II-V-I is all about the movement of those guide tones from chord to chord.
Instead you can use the standard rootless minor chords Mr. Winston shows in this very video. They could be thought of as Major7 chords built from the respective b3, like FMaj7 as a D-9. With the same concept we used to put melodic minor modes on top of box voicings 1/2, we can now use the church modes and put them on top of Major7 chords. Here we would have D dorian on top of D-9 (C major scale over FMaj7 chord). In fact Major7 chords could for all it's worth be counted as box voicings, box voicing 5 and 6 if you want, but nobody does. Or you introduce another multipurpose chord like the minor11(omit5) which i'm currently experimenting on.
Please tell me if you found something for minor chords :)
THANKS MAN!!
Great material thanks from Belgium
Fantastic video!
I just found you video's, very well done. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. It's very hard to find such well presented information with such depth, again thank you.
This was your best video for me so far. Thank you. You are amazing!
Brilliant! I’m going to practice, practice this. Thanks!
Thank you Winston, a really interesting breaking down.
I’d add the “So What chord” as box voicing as it can function as m7 / V7 / Vsus / and I chord
Such awesome stuff, Tony. And thanks to Sasha Capriolo. This is so great!
wow!! thanks a lot..i'm student of piano and this is exactly how i need to play en this year.. yours videos are very clear. thanks
Brilliant, extremely helpful video - thanks very much!
Thanks Tony you are the man!
What an awesome video, keep it coming!
Great work!
...esta clase me ayudo mucho con el Box 1 ...genial !! gracias !!!
phenomenal
thanks!!!
Wait, so they could just as easily have been called ink voicings? Or paper voicings?
Hey do you think of chords with extensions like 9th 11th and 13th as like a C with Emin7 on top (for Cmaj9)? or a C with a E♭maj7 on top (for Cmin9)? Do you think of your chords like this where you break them down into smaller chords? Or how do you think of them when playing chords with lots of extensions?
Hi Tony, I've seen a few of your videos where you've mentioned the box voicings. I've tried to find a basic explanation on how this is used, but haven't been successful. Have you got a video where you introduce the box voicings and what they mean?
Box voicings are ROOTLESS voicings (mostly) that are analyzed in a box. Here's my playlist with lots of videos on the subject. czcams.com/play/PLIOpTqumB5KxhA7s-2hZFYssPFsEoKztW.html
@@TonyWinston Thanks!
Hello all.Could someone please explain to me in simple terms what the various numbers in the boxes mean and how to learn the voice shapes in all 12 keys?Are there any books that have these box charts listed in them?Thank you.
Linda Michal thanks for watching. The numbers in each box show how each note functions in the chord. 3 means that note is the third of the chord.
So depending what box for dominant chord you’ll use bass player has tension choice of either
- regular dominant chord and substituted altered dominant or
- altered dominant and substituted unaltered(regular tension) dominant
That’s how I get it. That’s I think one way of getting it.
Right?
Yes, the bass note determines what the chord is. But it doesn't change what you're doing. The bass can be a pleasant (or unpleasant) surprise
Hello Tony, as this video is many years in the past, I'm not sure you will even see my comment. However, at 12:36 you are voicing a G-dom7 unaltered chord; and you mentioned that the "appropriate" scale was a G Lydian dominant (yes, I like the sound for sure). However, because the chord is a G-dom7, I thought the scale to use would be a G mixolydian. How can I know what other scales will work best? or, is it purely subjective on my part? It seems there are so many choices that I'm unable to discern which scale is more "appropriate". Is there somewhat of a standard set of scale choices that players will use over certain chords more than others?
Of course I see your comments, thank you! Either scale is appropriate and you can mix the two. Yes it's purely subjective. Stay tuned for a new video out in a week or so. Just In Time. I talked about that very thing.
Fantastic, thank you. @@TonyWinston
At 10:33 you say that the ninth on the Aflat minor7 chord makes “that part” (the top 4 notes) a rootless voicing. Does that mean that if you hadn’t added the ninth, and only had the third, fifth and seventh up top, then those top notes wouldn’t have been a rootless voicing?
Nathanial Blower no, rootless just means no root. Sometimes rootless chords sound like something else if there is no bass player. But when used in context (Like in a 2 5 1 ) they sound right.
Tony Winston so the Bflat made the right hand into a rootless voicing of an Aflat min7(9), but without the Bflat the right hand would’ve been doing a rootless voicing of an Aflat min7 (no extension)?
And without the Gflat the right hand would’ve been doing a rootless voicing of an Aflat min triad (no 7th), and maybe in the right context just the Cflat in the right hand would’ve been a rootless voicing of the same (since 5ths are optional)?
Nathanial Blower This is funny to read. Like some spells or so.
Nathanial Blower You are right but it is not used at all. In that case you would say that you just played the min 3rd of a chord not "rootless voicing of a ab minor triad w/o 5th".
Więcej Opcji I suspect you’re right, but then at what point do you start calling it a rootless voicing in the right hand? Once the the 5th is present? Probably not. I would’ve guessed that once the 7th is present it would’ve been called a rootless voicing, but in the video Tony says that the 9th is what makes it a rootless voicing, which is surprising...to me.
Surely that’s just a 3rd inversion 7th chord, what is box ??
Would the blues sound more modern if they were played with BOX voicings?
Kyu Hong Kim yes , for sure. Quartal voicings are even more modern.
❤❤
What I don't get is when you say do the unaltered box voicing on 5 chord in lots of different keys you change the notes of the box chord when I thought they were always meant to be the same before unaltered...
BLoobermooper give me the time for the part of the video you are asking about. Then I can answer better. Thanks
Tony Winston it's at 7.26 where you are recapping about box 1. You say play unaltered box 1 in differnt keys but when you play different keys you seem to no longer be playing the notes FABE for the 5th which I thought was the BOX chord.
FABE is box 1. With G as the bass note , it is an unaltered V chord (G7).
If the bass note is Db, then FABE is and altered Db7 chord. It is very confusing at first but I will keep making videos about rootless voicings.
Tony Winston hey yeah thanks. I understand now that you were adding a side point to main discussion that you can apply those voicings for any 2-5-1 progression in any key. Ive done as you suggested and tried to play in all keys but got to E flat and stopped a bit as it's a lot to memorise! Thanks
Are you calling it "Box" because of the shape of the middle voicing rather than the particular passing chord you have put there? You didn't exactly explain what a box chord is, you just gave lots of examples of how to use it.
No. It's because the chords are analyzed in a box.