Lessons

As a jazz pianist, a BIG part of the fun comes from choosing which chord voicings you'll use to ‘voice’ a jazz song. Each chord can be played using many different chord voicings. Take a look at just a few voicings I could choose from for a C minor 7 chord: So h... read more

When playing jazz piano, you can ‘voice’ each chord many different ways... Take a look at just a few chord voicings I could use for a C major 7: Each of these arrangements (show above) is called a ‘chord voicing’. They are all different ways of 'saying' the same chord. All of the c... read more

‘Upper Structures’ are a type of chord voicing used by jazz pianists for dominant 7 chords (e.g. 'C7', 'F7', 'Bb7'). Let's begin by demonstrating on a C7 chord (C E G Bb): In your left hand, play the chord’s root, 3rd and 7th - so for C7 tha... read more

The Miles Davis tune, ‘So What’, features two distinctive minor 7 chords played by Bill Evans: Bill Evans uses the same chord voicing for both chords (since they're both a minor 7 chord), and he 'side-slips' (transposes) the voicing down a whole-step from E minor 7 to D minor 7. In the jazz piano worl... read more

There are literally dozens of chord voicings you could play for any chord in jazz... Take a look at some of the different ways I could voice C major 7 alone: So how do you decide which chord voicing to use? In this article I'll show you the simple method I ... read more