I'm one of the guitarists who watches your videos, and what I really like about what you do, is that you talk entirely in terms of scale position. After years of playing guitar, I came to the conclusion that C, E, G, Bb etc. is of little consequence -- it's really all about scale position, especially when it comes to the guitar, where you can just slide the whole pattern up a few frets and you're in a different key. That's why the way you talk about playing piano is useful to guitarists too.

Thank you Michael Keithson for giving the people what they want! You are a diamond geezer, and you are sewing the seeds for other people's compositions.

I only play guitar and I watch every one of your videos. Super helpful

I'm a long time guitarist and recent piano player. Love your vids! I would encourage ALL guitar players to familiarize themselves with the notes of a keyboard. It makes it SO much easier to understand all those extended chords as each individual note can be instantly recognized unlike a guitar fretboard.

I'm a guitarist and this channel and "en Blanc et Noir" are my two favorite music channels, and you both teach on piano!

I will need to watch this over and over until I can document how varying the left hand bass note creates the different chords. A good use of screen time, so much better than stressing over political matters.

Michael, thank you very much for this valuable content for us. I was intuitively discovering the various functions of this voicing, but your explanations took me to another level. God bless you!

Holy Horseballs! your channel is the gift that keeps giving

Michael, with the science, you have out done yourself again. I only have two words (Absolute Genius)!!

Your channel is GOLD Your content is perfect for where I am at in my musical theory journey In addition to the content, I love your teaching style and personality, and the subdued lighting is awesome too. It's obvious you put in a lot of work in creating each video. Please know that all that effort is greatly appreciated 🙏 Greeting from New Zealand

Great Lesson. I always look forward to you dropping a new video, and always learn something new. Thank you Michael.

The naming conventions for chords really break down when you move the root, even though the sound of the resulting chord fits lots of contexts. This type of exercise can help iron out relationships between chords. Thank you for the video!

This was already one of my favorite shapes - for dominant chords - and you expanded my understanding exponentially. It was always there and i didn’t see it until you pointed it out. Thank you!

Top banana is MK with his voicings and demystification shenanigans !

i really like the way you explain music theory concepts, even though i know a lot of this stuff already it's really nice to hear it the way you present it with context

There must be more of these multi-purpose shapes!. Please keep these vids coming.

Really great video, Michael. I am a guitar player and I've been using that so-called "box" voicing for years now. The two uses you mentioned that I have not used -- or don't remember using -- are the "phrygian" (sus b9) chord and the tonic chord (resolution to that minor 6/9). Everybody should pay attention here, especially those who use jazz voicings.

An extremely high-quality explanation in a short period of time. Great, Thank you

Hey hey! Another good one, right up my alley! Musical harmony is a wonderful and powerful thing, and sharing it with others, just magnifies that power and wonder. How lucky we are to be a part of all this .. . . . . . . .

I knew what the voicing was gonna be before even watching. My theory and composition teacher in college was an amazing jazz pianist and he taught us this same thing and called it the Swiss Army voicing.

You have a great way of demystifying music theory, such that even my faltering middle-aged brain can absorb it. Please keep making these videos, and people, please subscribe! This content needs way more attention.

Great video, Michael. Thank you. I'll have to watch this one several times and hopefully the penny will drop a little further on each viewing!! I love your channel. Absolutely brilliant.

You've given me a lot to chew on this video, always a great choice of topic to get my mind's gears creaking. Cheers 🎉

Thanks for another great video.

Another one of the guitar guys here, great video again. You make things clear and concise, I often come up with ideas like right after watching your videos and making sens of it on the guitar. Please keep going! :)

So nice, M!

Bro im a guitar player, but your lessons are AMAZING! Learned a lot so far that can translate to guitar just as good. Thanks for all you do.

I notice that I have used 7sus9b13 here and there without knowing it. My top two favorites from your list: 3 and 5. At 8:42 you start playing m6/9 and I immediately have a melody in my head that I love - sorry for borrowing this. As always, I am happy and grateful that you share this with us. It breaks through so many rigid patterns, that I am trapped in. Thank you so much.

Once again, an awesome video!

Great as always, thank you so much! Stay awesome 🙌

Love it! once again Thank you Maestro. so grateful for all your work and effort

Thank you so much. I find what you are teaching challenging and refreshing . I appreciate that thanks again!

Sincere, useful and cool... Thanks a lot!

I loved watching this, definitely helpful and inspiring 😊

Waaaaoooo!!! Great teaching!!! I recently joined your channel and I might say: I really enjoy the way you teach! Thanks a lot❤

Hi Michael! I appreciate your work very much. Guitarist here, for 50+ yrs. Guitar is a tricky bitch... as transposition is easy and most guitarists are trapped into chords w/Root in the bass and transposing a few shapes they know. Most of them don't see a shape as other possible chords, unless VERY advanced musicians. I moved away from chords with a root in them, unless I want to strongly state their function in a harmonic progression. Learned a lot about these things from Charlie Banacos, back in '90s, when he was around. See... another problem with guitarists is often poor voice leading; most of them are trapped by knowing chords shapes rather than "morphing" one into the next chord. Like in a II V I or other progressions. As a simple example... take the Dom7 b9 sus voicing from this video... and play it like this Ab C D G as D h/dim, then simply lower that C to B for a G add b9 (7b9 function) and finall down to C G Bb Eb G for a complete minor II V I . On the other hand, the magic of this voicing from the melodic minor scale can also be great in the typical guitarist transposition mindset, so you could play Ab C D G and move it up a minor 3rd to B D# F A# and move it up again a maj 3rd to Eb G A D and here you have your minor II V I, DH/Dim/G7b9/Cm69. Melodic minor scale chords are VERY useful in the way they can be used for many different families... and the scale has that powerful unstable character given by its double tritone. Guitar has a hard time with clustery chords. Those multiple seconds are impossible to play, whereas on the piano it's much easier. The voicing you are showing here is VERY hard when making inversions on the guitar. Impossible seconds in it. But spreading the notes a bit helps to get some other voicings and helps the adventurous guitarist to wander in piano land! Great to see somebody talking about these things on YT.... where too many chat about the same old stuff... Cheers to you!

I see a video from Michael Keithson, who not only makes the best music theory videos but was also the best ever Batman, and I press ‘Like’ … 🎹🦇

LOVE your channel

As a guitarist, this is a classic. I also consider the m7b5 to be a swiss army knife too. The are only one note apart. A major7#11 a tritone away from a m7b5 chord are good subs for each other

Another guitarist here - SOLID CONTENT - cheers!!!

Major 7 #9 is my favorite voicing especially in D Major. I love to voice it with F# Bb C and F in the right hand. Paul McCartney utilizes this in Maybe I’m Amazed in the bridge transition between each four bar run!

I love this channel!

Always great, always informative. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and thoughts. 10/10 🎼💖🎵

Absolutely awesome.

Just found your channel a few weeks ago, Really enjoy your topics and concise presentation. I'm a guitarist but i lurk on a lot of piano channels and I find for certain subjects i prefer learning on piano which I can then transfer to guitar.

you are awesome man . thanks for your effort. all the others are fake but your are reallll thanks man you have been a blessing to me

I’m still learning stuff on guitar and wanting to play jazz. Your videos are gold! Harmonies, voicings, chords relationships, and all that. I’m sharing your channel out if that’s alright.

10:36 These two chords (chords 5 and 6 in the list) sound really good in sequence like this. Feels like a good anchor point for some moody brainstorming.

I love this little masterclass. Tysm, Michael. This is one to live with until it sinks in. (After I figure out all the wrinkles). Just subscribed. Cheers!

Using the FABE voicing, a seventh one is putting a C in the root, for an Ionian voicing, a sus maj7, a very pretty chord one hears too little. Another possibility is an Aeolian voicing with an A in the bass, which I don’t think was mentioned. If you add a C#, so you have FABC#E, you can use D,E,F,G,A, and B in the bass to get, respectively, a major minor, sus b9, Lydian augmented, dom #11, minor major with 5th in the bass, and half diminished with natural 9th, the chords of the melodic minor scale, and if you put the C# (aka Db) you get the 7th, the alt dom you mentioned in the video.

A very good lesson thank you very much GodBlessing

nearly 25% of 100000 subs. Congrats

Thanks !

You are awesome sir

Really great video not only for showing people these chords but also to show how open-ended chords can be! I have to ask though, what piano plugin is it you're using when playing your keyboard? I had to pause halfway through and look for something similar sounding in Pianoteq cuz of how much I liked the sound, lol.

Thanks 😌

Had a feeling it would be FABE

Great content as always Michael, felt so seen in that guitarist call-out. It was a bit more challenging as a guitarist to follow until you got to Dm6/9 where it all "clicked", as this is perhaps the most common intervallic voicing arrangement accessible on guitar (honestly, that's what it sounded like to me from the start). As a guitarist, if you build the m6/9 with the root on the 5th string, and just move that bass note up/down, it all makes sense (-1 Semitone = Altered; -1 Tritone = Dom13; +3 Semitone/1 Minor 3rd = 7Sus4b9 (Implied 7th); +4 Semitone/1 Major 3rd = Maj7#11)). I actually feel like I learned more working that out than if there had been transcription, wonderful wisdom sir. PS: 11:07-11:45 Made me lol, piano problems...shape is static through keys for Guitar (per string set in a given tuning*)

Isn't this the famous 'Joe Henderson' chord (major seventh with flattened fifth)? I guess that's why Joe wrote so many modal tunes structured around this chord, because it's so versatile and sounds so cool.

FABElous voicing

Great! I'm studying Jazz Harmony and Voicings. It's Difficult but on the + Your Vid Makes sense 😂😂 💯👍

I like how you explain the material. Can you make a video that talks about "Scale and Improvisation". Thx Broo

Hey Michael, I want to master harmony and music theory so I can play very freely and compose my own music. I know some basic stuff, i can use seventh chords in most of the major keys and some minor. I can play some chord progressions but with the basic shapes and it doesn’t sound that advanced. I know about the modes but i didnt study them much, i also watch open studio and they always say to lock things in in 12 keys but i dont know if the concept is relevant for my level of knowledge and if I want to spend my time doing it. So where to start? Should i practice voicings for, lets say, types of chords like maj7, m7, 7, sus, maj6, m6 with some extensions so it sounds better? Or should I master every mode in every key… or should I do something totally different? Thanks!

Let’s go new vid just dropped

Nice

So how does that Fatar TP100 keybed on the Nord lead feel? ...I have the SL88 Grand hammer action but wanted to get something for my PC as well ...the Arturia Keylab 88 seems to have the same key action as the Nord Lead 4 (Fatar TP 100) with a more compact hammer action so I was wondering how it feels for a pianist.

Very helpful interesting and instructive. On another channel I watch some times I think they called this voicing the "unicorn" voicing because of the shape on the staff? but maybe I'm getting that wrong notwithstanding I enjoyed the video. Thank you.

I’m a drummer thank you for the voicing explanation

SImple and beautiful.

Great video. I don't understand why you can call the E7sus4b9 chord that when it doesn't have a 7th the way you play it.

7:01 Am I the only one that still has to get used to a chord named SEVEN sus4 b9 not containing a seventh? I feel like that’s probably the most normal thing ever but it just doesn’t make sense to me.

I confirm guitarists are watching 🕵️‍♂️👀

Great lessons. What about cadences?

why would you think it's cool to show a 1 frame message?