Rich Quartal Chord Voicings

I practice the piano with warm ups and quartal voicings. I am seeing my improvisation skills improve daily. Are you familiar with quartal voicings? These voicings will spice up your playing and you will hear rich sounding chords in your playing!

Quartal Voicings:

* stacking intervals of a fourth
* intervals in the chord will be perfect fourths, and others augmented fourths
* three note quartal voicings are often used as left hand voicings
* made popular by musicians like McCoy Tyner during the first half of the 1960's.
* quartal voicings are more often used with minor chords or sus chords

Quartal Dvds:



Advanced
Improvisation & Warm-up Bundle


Quartals In Your Piano Solo

* article by Willie Myette

http://www.jazzpianolessons.com/blog

Quartal Definition:

"A convenient way to describe quartal and quintal chords is to use, for example, "3x4 on B" to mean a three-pitch-class quartal chord with B as the bottom pitch class (B,E,A). 5x4 on C = C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab. 7x5 on G = G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#, etc. (The first number of the equation refers to the quantity of pitches, and the second number refers to the interval.)"

http://spider.georgetowncollege.edu/music/burnette/Mus312/312.htm

My friend, edigiam, explained to me:

"Quartal voicings is something that I remember being associated with McCoy Tyner, a favorite of mine It's based on the interval of the fourth and appears especially in modal music.

To construct a quartal voicing, simply take any note in the scale associated with the chord, and add the note a fourth above, and a fourth above that. Depending on the scale note you start with you may wind up with perfect fourths or augmented fourths.

For instance, here's the quartal voicings for Cm7. The scale tones are C D Eb F G A Bb so starting with C the quartel voicings are "C F Bb", for D, (the next note in the scale) they're "D G C", then "Eb A D" (note the augmented fourth), "F Bb Eb", "G C F", "A D G", and "Bb Eb A". I use this type of voicing almost instinctively with minor chords in dorian mode, but they sound equally great with dominant chords where a suspended or pentatonic sound is being used (like gospel as if you didn't know)."

http://zone.hearandplay.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=4384&highlight=quartal+voicings

nickyh, had a question for Jermaine Griggs, about forming quartal chords: "In the key of Db, the left hand plays the root (Db) and the rt hand starts on Bb and is formed in fourths, that much i understand. My question is why does it start on Bb which is the 6th tone and not another tone? Or can it start on another tone." Jermaine's reply:
"Actually, it's just a matter of feel. You can play a number of quartal chords over Db." Read more regarding Quartal Chords:

http://zone.hearandplay.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=3360&highlight=quartal+voicings



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