Book Review: Beginning Jazz Keyboard

In my music library, I own Noah Baerman's book,

Complete Jazz Keyboard Method: Beginning Jazz Keyboard
It's The Complete Jazz Keyboard Method with CD for:

• Beginning
• Intermediate
• Mastering

Here's a little blurb from Amazon:

"Anyone with basic keyboard skills (equivalent to Alfred's Basic Piano, Lesson Book 2) can dig right in and begin learning jazz right away. Spanning from the major scale and basic triad theory all the way through 7th chords, pentatonic scales and modulating chord progressions, this book features a full etude or tune demonstrating every new concept introduced. Beginning Jazz keyboard breaks the age-old tradition of dry, intimidating and confusing jazz books, and provides an actual step-by-step and enjoyable method for learning to play in this style. The CD demonstrates examples and offers opportunity to play along."

It's a great resource and what I like about this book is that it takes you to some exotic chords,
instead of the regular major/minor chords. I think you'll like this one and the price is good.

 On my other blog, that is mostly for Jazz songs, I posted a favorite of mine,
Bouncin' With Bill E.  You can find the music chord chart at Bouncin with Bill. But today I
wanted to talk a little bit about shell voicings.

Some chord tones are more important than others. Let's take a look at the 3 most
common 7th chords (major, minor and dominant) from a root of D.

D Maj, which is DF#AC# played together.
D7, the notes in the chord are DF#AC.
Dmin7 chord has the notes, DFAC.

We know the root is important since that is what defines the chord. the 3rd and 7th
are not the same from chord to chord, so we need those to determine the chord quality.
The 5th is another story. The major, minor and dominant 7th chords all have perfect 5ths.
That means three chords are being played.

To play shell voicings, we use the same concept we've been using but leave out the 5th
of each chord; the roots go in the left hand and the right hand takes the 3rds and 7ths.
If the melody note is the 3rd or 7th of a chord, we have three-note chords; if not, we add
the melody note on top and have a four note chord. This is a very sparse, compact way to
voice chords without losing the character of the changes.

Play this I-vi-ii-V-I in G Major.

(I) GMaj7 =  (root) G/F#B (7th and 3th)

(vi) Emin7 = (root) E/DG (7th and 3th)

(ii) Amin7 = (root) A/CG (3th and 7th)

(V) D7 = (root) D/CF# (7th and 3th)

(I) GMaj7 = (root) G/BF# (3th and 7th

These voicings just get easier on the hands. In the above example, the
right hand barely has to move at all. This ease in voice leading is common
with shell voicings whenever the roots are moving down in 5ths (or up in 4ths).
In these cases, the most you'll have to move to get from the 7th of one chord to
the 3rd of the next is a whole step, sometimes only a half step. To get from the
3rd of one chord to the 7th of the next, you often need only to repeat the same note!

GMaj7 = G/F#B (7th and 3th)

Emin7 = (5th) E/DG (7th and 3th)

Amin7 = (4th) A/CG (3th and 7th)

D7 = (5th) D/CF# (7th and 3th)

GMaj7 = G/BF# (3th and 7th)

If you like Jazz, then consider looking into these dvd courses from HearandPlay:

Jazz101  and  Jazz201

Thanks to many of you that have asked about shell voicings. You can learn so much about
Jazz from Willie Myette and James Wurbel. Look them up on YouTube... some great stuff!

Warmly,





"The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you." B.B.King

Voicing 7th Chords

 A little bird told me you wanted to learn voicing 7th chords. Thanks for your emails.

 Here is what I have learned from Noah Baerman on voicing 7th chords.

7th chords open up a whole new world of possibilities. It is funny to think that just
one extra note per chord can greatly alter the sound, but dealing with 7th chords does
just that. Voicing becomes much more important now that we are using 7th chords.
More notes create more voicing possibilities. As jazz keyboardists, we strive to learn
what those possibilities are, how to execute them and what impact each one may have
on the overall sound.

Voice Leading

Here are two examples of voicings for a ii-V-I in Bb Major.

1. C/ CEbGBb
  
    F/CEbFA

    Bb/BbDFA

2. C/CEbGBb

    F/FACEb

    Bb/BbDFA

The first example makes more sense. Each voicing flows smoothly to the next one,
and the hands have to move very little to play the progression. In the second example
the sound is broken up, and the right hand has to jump around to play the chords.
The difference is that the first example uses good voice leading. Voice leading is the
smooth movement of voices (notes) from one chord tot he next. If your hands are
jumping all over the place, you're probably not using good voice leading, and the
music is unlikely to sound smooth or cohesive. To voice lead well, your hands should
use the least possible amount of energy. Imagine that, the easier it is to play, the better it sounds!

3. Example of a iii-vi-ii-V-I progression in F Major with good voice leading.

A/GACE (Amin7)

D/FACD (Dmin7)

G/GABbD (Gmin7)

C/GBbCE (C7)

F/FACE (FMaj7)

Each of the four voices in the right hand moves very little as the chords change.
Just like the individual singers in a choir, who can't jump around too much without 
getting tired and confused, the voices in a chord should avoid leaps whenever possible.
The bass notes move around more but that's inevitable when the roots are moving in large
intervals like 4ths and 5ths. Since the left hand is playing one note at a time, it is not
difficult to play.

We have more freedom with voicing when the left hand plays the roots. So far, we've
been playing four notes at a time in the right hand whenever we play 7th chords.
Now that we're getting  the hang of them, we can eliminate one of those notes.


4. The right hand can play the 3rd, 5th, and 7th of each chord. The left hand can take 
care of the roots.

D/FAC (Dmin7)

G/DFB (G7)

C/EGB

With this kind of voicing, the sound becomes more open. We don't lose the fullness
because all four notes of each chord are still being played. WE still use the same method
of voice leading, simply omitting the root from the right hand. Let's take the following
progression in B minor.

5. Roots in l.h. and 3rds, 5ths and 7ths  in r.h. with smooth voice leading.

B/ADF# (Bmin7)

E/BDG (Emin7)

B/ADF# (Bmin7)

G/BDF# (GMaj7)

C#/GBE (C#min7b5)

F#/A#C#E (F#7)

B/ADF# (Bmin7)

If we begin the progression with a different voicing for the first Bmin7 chord,
then the voice leading will naturally lead to other voicings for the rest of the chords,
since other voicings will be within easier reach.

6. Here's another way of voicing the same changes with the same technique.

B/DF#A (Bmin7)

E/DGB (Emin7)

B/DF#A (Bmin7)

G/DF#B (GMaj7)

C#/EGB (C#min7b5)

F#/C#EA# (F#7)

B/DF#A (Bmin7)


Hope these are helpful examples. You may want to visit these resources.

Advanced Gospel Courses

Gospel Core Essentials


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All the best,





"The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you." B.B.King