How to Train Yourself to Play ONLY Strong Voicings

How to Train Yourself to Play ONLY Strong Voicings | w/ Taylor Eigsti

Рет қаралды 34,096

Ай бұрын

In this lesson with Taylor Eigsti, Taylor shows you his 49 chords exercise, which will train you to use only strong, beautiful voicing shapes and give you the control you need to play only strong voicings in the future. This is a clip from the full Jazz Lab episode, in which host Noah Kellman sits down with modern jazz piano master & GRAMMY® Award-winning pianist / composer Taylor Eigsti. Noah and Taylor discuss everything from the best improvisation exercises, how to achieve a "clean" playing style and sound, voicing exercises, Taylor's 49 Chords exercise for building good hand shapes, all the way to travel and packing tips for gigging and touring.
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Пікірлер: 78

@NoahKellman Ай бұрын

Full breakdown from my email today: Taylor says "We take 7 different shapes in each key moving up 7 steps diatonically - 49 voicings for each chord times 12 keys, so technically that's a whopping 588 chords a day. -Shape: basically, just a voicing or a grouping of notes that fit a certain scale. -Diatonic Movement: You start with the shape, then more each note in the shape to the next closest note in the corresponding scale. -If we have a shape: D Eb G, and we think in C Dorian, then D Eb G moves to Eb F A. D -> Eb. Eb -> F. G -> A (the next notes in the dorian scale.) -If you move this shape up a dorian scale, you get a total of 7 different shapes before it repeats. So we chose 7 shapes total and move them through that scale, then do this in all 12 keys, producing a total of 49 different shapes. -These shapes can be a little 3-note shape, or they can also be full two-hand voicings as well, so you are practicing all sorts of shapes. Finally, we do a 3-day cycle: Day 1: Dominant 7ths Day 2: Minor 7ths Day 3: Major 7ths Taylor clarified: it's just one kind of chord per day, so the context keeps changing. He also emphasized that it’s not about memorizing individual voicings, but about getting the physical shapes of the different chords in your hands and ears as you move diatonically. Make sure to join the email list to receive these in your inbox! You can join by signing up for the Free Solo Piano Course or Free Resources Library (links in description) or use www.neojazzacademy.com/free

@sklungofunk Ай бұрын

i swear music must be the most fascinating subject ever

@brente6107 Ай бұрын

Taylor gave a masterclass about 8 years ago in the Bay Area called “cooler chords.” I started practicing this exercise immediately after and it changed my life. Honestly it took my about 4-5 years before I could really implement it into my playing without guessing, but I had only been playing for a couple years so I was a beginner so it was a slow process for me lol. One thing that helped my greatly was being able to to it with my eyes closed, because I found that when I would sight read changes, it wasn’t really in my fingers. It really does give you an ability to invent new voicings on the spot and use them as a reaction to another soloist, or harmonize out a tune in a fresh way every time. To me, starting with just 3-4 notes each time was a good entry point. Also when you take it through diminished/more exotic scales you’ll come up with chords beyond your wildest imagination.

@NoahKellman Ай бұрын

Amazing points thank you for sharing! Love your ideas: -try it with your eyes closed -take it through more exotic scales 💯💯

@emroach1829 Ай бұрын

@brente6107 I'm currently at two and a half years in, and would love to feel more free in my voicings, so I did this for the first time today and it took about 4 hours to get through all 12 keys. Wondering if you remember it taking as long. I probably wasn't as efficient as I could have been -- I found myself wanting to really soak in each voicing, so I'd play each one a few times, and that definitely slowed me down, but it feels valuable? I'd like to integrate this into my practice, but the way I approached it doesn't feel sustainable so I'm curious if you might have any tips/insights from your experience.

@GtrMmorpg Ай бұрын

@@emroach1829 I havent tried this approach just yet, but I imagine one of the reasons its taking you so long is because you want to feel "comfortable" with the shape before moving on to the next one, because thats what makes us feel like we are learning, neuroscience has showed on the other hand that our brains learn better if we just expose them to it briefly and then move on to the next thing, and then we expose them again to the same stimulus a little later. Its a much more uncomfortable way to learn because it makes us feel like we didnt get to learn anything well before moving to the next thing, but in the long run its the better approach

@brente6107 Ай бұрын

@@emroach1829 Did you do 7 shapes in each key? For a while, I had to narrow down to 3 shapes because it took a while. I also found that voicings that had more clusters were easier to move up and down as opposed to doing all 4ths or something. How comfortable are you with moving triads through each inversion diatonically? You could also try just doing each interval, one hand at a time up and down the scale. I do think it’s valuable to hang out on a voicing briefly. Taylor actually had me do that during the lesson and also play a little bass note to get context. But yeah don’t take to long before moving onto the next chord.

@suga4all Ай бұрын

Super good lesson, thank you! Btw, 'no worries, if the first chord s*cks, it's a passing chord' made my day! 😂

@genekelly3961 Ай бұрын

This is true organic comping. A fresh approach to playing static chords. ❤

@CaptnRich737 Ай бұрын

What a great idea. Very angular sound, reminds me of McCoy Tyner.

@LonzCantiLife Ай бұрын

if i did this correctly, this should serve as a formula using the number system. In Noah's pinned comment the example is C dorian starting with D, Eb G which will be 2, 3, 5 below: 1 2 4 2 3 5 3 4 6 4 5 7 5 6 1 6 7 2 7 1 3 1, 2, 4 would be C, Eb, F, and you'd move up according to the scale. in 4 chord example, i picked 1 4 5 7 in C dorian which is C, F, A and Bb. The below is the formula that should follow, meaning the next chord will be D, G, A and C. 1 4 5 7 2 5 6 1 3 6 7 2 4 7 1 3 5 1 2 4 6 2 3 5 7 3 4 6 In a nutshell, this should be able to be mixed and matched depending on which degrees of the scale you pick and should sound cohesive no matter the mode you're using (assuming you're counting 1-7 based on that mode and not based on sharps and flats) 🔥🔥🔥🔥

@lynxfilante 17 күн бұрын

this is exactly the kind of exercise I needed ! thank you for this

@KutiaMoyoMusic Ай бұрын

Wow, that's super duper helpful! That exercise will definitely take my skills up multiple notches!

@JohnHobart 7 күн бұрын

This is such a ridiculously simple concept and I don’t know why I never thought of this years ago. I’ve been playing since the late 80s and I never thought to just comp a diatonic left or right hand block of predetermined notes and do scales with it. It really opens you up to a whole ton of potential directions to take song composition also. Freaking fantastic.

@polyton4539 Ай бұрын

omg this is crazy! thank you so much for sharing this. this is invaluable information.

@hectormayoral443 Ай бұрын

This is fascinating OWO Thank you Mr. Eigsti

@davidsummerville351 Ай бұрын

Very cool, I like doing this with the pentatonic scales. Good stuff!

@Ryangongaware Ай бұрын

amazing video!

@JuroJanik Ай бұрын

Awesome! Thank you!

@Marvelous.Leonardo Ай бұрын

This is brilliant

@marcelomollomusica7737 Ай бұрын

Muy bueno... gracias por compartir esto.

@melodypudding Ай бұрын

Wow can’t wait to try this method! It’s so true that I arpeggiate on somewhat of a chord shapes I’m used to fr. Thank you so much for the great content!

@NoahKellman Ай бұрын

Awesome, hope it goes well and gives you some new shapes!

@ulokwa Ай бұрын

i love the idea of choosing a shape and then practicing it up and down a scale. i'm very stuck playing similar chords for certain bass notes-i love how free i am to choose and explore sounds with this. will implement this in my practice!

@NoahKellman Ай бұрын

Yeah it can completely open up and change your approach to harmony-and provides so much creative freedom for movement in between chord changes.

@ulokwa Ай бұрын

@@NoahKellman I tried this today and it was awesome! I didn't realise the extent to which I was unfamiliar with even basic shapes like 1-2-4-5 on different scales. And what lovely new sounds in different positions! feels like this can give tons of mileage. tbh at first i thought "ugh what is this clickbaity title" but this was really memorable . thanks again!

@NoahKellman Ай бұрын

@@ulokwa haha well I’m glad you decided to watch and found it helpful!

@nkmc2011 Ай бұрын

I've been working on this since the original video came out. I'm loving that my left hand is getting used to non-conventional chord shapes! And it's slightly easier than thinking chord tones up the scale.

@NoahKellman Ай бұрын

For sure! Makes me happy to hear you are getting good use out of it. And I agree, can certainly have a particularly awesome impact on the left-hand

@fisch723 Ай бұрын

Great lesson! I do a simpler version of this on guitar. Pick a shape on 4 strings and move them up the scale while keeping all the mode notes. Sometimes very tricky but great for creating voicings you wouldn't necessarily find by noodling.

@jarbasgoulartdecastro9104 Ай бұрын

MORE!!!!

@Doumbeck Ай бұрын

Thanks!

@josephalvarez5315 Ай бұрын

This is great

@malcolmgrayson9887 Ай бұрын

This was my favorite part of the longer video. Thank u

@NoahKellman Ай бұрын

Sure thing, Malcolm. Glad you enjoyed it and appreciate the comment!

@tastymuffinmm Ай бұрын

Thanks for the amazing tutorial! How should I choose the shapes to play?

@remyvegamedia Ай бұрын

I have to rewatch the whole video, but this part is such a good exercise for me to put into my hands. It's hard to find stuff like this that works. I worked on drop 2 voicing for months and I still cannot do them fluently haha.

@jonathanwingmusic Ай бұрын

A few things that helped me with drop2's are 1) practicing multiple permutations from a common bass note (so taking C, that could be your all your "root" position chords from, then you can also play Ab, Am, Adim over C, F and Fm over C, D7/C, etc etc. 2) Voice leading the different shapes using simple and mostly diatonic chord progressions, and 3) Reharmonizing basic songs I know very well, and each time around I try to make myself play the chords from different positions. I found all of these methods to be a lot more helpful than playing drop2's through the circle of 4ths or 5ths or running the same position up and down from different select intervals (which can have its place but usually doesn't make for the best voice leading anyway). Hope that helps!

@remyvegamedia Ай бұрын

@@jonathanwingmusic Wow thank you so much for taking the time to suggest that method. I've been trying to find ways to practice then again lately because I hear a drop two movement i. my head and can't make it happen haha. I'm gonna try this. Thanks so much, again.

@jonathanwingmusic Ай бұрын

@@remyvegamedia no problem. Yeah honestly the third suggestion, playing reharmonizing songs I like, was the best of them all and I recommend this for learning any chord voicings - it has a way of making you feel like you're performing to a band and making music out of these voicings which is so much more fun than hammering out mindless exercises up and down, which for me anyway has helped a lot with memory reinforcement - probably because that's how these chords will be used in the real world anyway!

@louislamonte334 Ай бұрын

Thanks for this, Noah! I hope you're very well, my friend!

@NoahKellman Ай бұрын

Thanks, Louis! I hope you're well also.

@louislamonte334 Ай бұрын

@@NoahKellman Thank you so much, Noah! Great to hear from you! You're always an inspiration to me!

@NoahKellman Ай бұрын

@@louislamonte334 thanks Louis, means a lot 🙏

@LonzCantiLife Ай бұрын

the fact that i can actually understand and do this really shows me my understanding of theory is sick now 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

@AJStudios18 Ай бұрын

best i can do is passing chord

@chrisjones6467 Ай бұрын

Is the idea here that ideally you’re practicing 588 different voicings per day? (7 voicings x 7 iterations per key x 12 keys = 588)

@wildhorsemusic1111 Ай бұрын

Can you break this down more? Im lost. I watched the whole interview the other day

@mariomarinho6480 Ай бұрын

Me too. I have slowly and later compreemshion

@Pseudify Ай бұрын

1). Pick a chord that you want to learn a variety of voicings for to improve your improvisation. Say G min7. 2). Gmin7 fits well with the Dorian mode (flat 3 and flat 7). So first familiarize yourself with the G Dorian scale. 3). Now pick a random series of 3 or 4 notes that are in that scale (you can actually pick up to 7 if you want to get more complicated), with no repeating notes. Say A, B flat, D, F. 4). Play that series of notes noting what scale degree each note is. So A, is the 2nd note, B flat the 3rd, D the 5th, and F the 7th. 5). Now go up one scale degree for each of those notes and play that chord. So play the 3rd, 4th, 6th and 8th scale degrees (B flat, C, E, and G). Note, you are only playing diatonic notes - notes within the G Dorian scale. 6). Repeat this until you’ve gone through all seven scale degrees. 7). Reverse direction and play down all 7 scale degrees. 8). Pick another random series of 3 or 4 notes and repeat the process. Repeat this until you’ve completed 7 total series of random note chords.

@NoahKellman Ай бұрын

Here's the full breakdown from my email this morning (make sure you're on my email list to get these!): Taylor says "We take 7 different shapes in each key moving up 7 steps diatonically - 49 voicings for each chord times 12 keys, so technically that's a whopping 588 chords a day. -Shape: basically, just a voicing or a grouping of notes that fit a certain scale. -Diatonic Movement: You start with the shape, then more each note in the shape to the next closest note in the corresponding scale. -If we have a shape: D Eb G, and we think in C Dorian, then D Eb G moves to Eb F A. D -> Eb. Eb -> F. G -> A (the next notes in the dorian scale.) -If you move this shape up a dorian scale, you get a total of 7 different shapes before it repeats. So we chose 7 shapes total and move them through that scale, then do this in all 12 keys, producing a total of 49 different shapes. -These shapes can be a little 3-note shape, or they can also be full two-hand voicings as well, so you are practicing all sorts of shapes. Finally, we do a 3-day cycle: Day 1: Dominant 7ths Day 2: Minor 7ths Day 3: Major 7ths Taylor clarified: it's just one kind of chord per day, so the context keeps changing. He also emphasized that it’s not about memorizing individual voicings, but about getting the physical shapes of the different chords in your hands and ears as you move diatonically.

@michellemonet4358 Ай бұрын

Thanks. @@Pseudify I guess.we have to know what Dorian means.😅

@michellemonet4358 Ай бұрын

@@NoahKellmanty

@jonathanwingmusic Ай бұрын

Pretty cool. Reminds me a bit like a Shearing-esque Block Chord style where you play voicings in a scalular fashion, but with a more open-ended approach for any type of voicing. Also love his idea about arpeggiating them. However one thing is not entirely clear to me - in your email and in the video it seems to suggest we are focused on playing only specific chord types per day (Dom7, Min7, Maj7). However, these voicings will produce different chord types as you go up and down a scale diatonically, wouldn't it? Also depends on what your left hand / bass note is doing too? In other words even if I start with a m7 chord, in Dorian, and move up, won't the same shape produce maj7 and dom7 chords too? Unless I keep the left hand on the same root note, of course then it will create different flavors of the minor chord, though not always m7. Does sound pretty cool to run these voicings over a pedal tone either way - but just a little thrown off by the chord-per-day cycle when the example would seem to produce all kinds of chords (e.g. - playing his Gm7 voicing in the video from C in the left hand basically creates a Dom9)

@ABRAHAMRIVERA415 Ай бұрын

I keep rewatching the vid too, not too sure how the chord remains min7 when you change the notes, I'll keep rewatching anyway tho, great content!!!! Priceless!!!!

@nonenone9493 Ай бұрын

@2:00

@MathieuPrevot Ай бұрын

I like CECE (1 hand) and CFCF scales on both hands for stretching. CbECbE is too uncomfortable for me.

@michellemonet4358 Ай бұрын

❤❤

@juliansherwood2115 Ай бұрын

Why do you choose the dorian scale for minor 7's?

@charlesperforms Ай бұрын

7:30 fucking dope

@Mtaalas Ай бұрын

that's great if you have GIANT HANDS! :D I can reach one octave, but that's about it... :(

@musical_lolu4811 Ай бұрын

Exactly. That's the part that tends to be glossed over and taken for granted.

@penguindrum264 Ай бұрын

These voicings are beautiful but the first set of two handed 7 note voices in the pdf are insanely difficult to play up the scale in most keys.

@NoahKellman Ай бұрын

For sure, what I would recommend is taking it one hand at a time to start. You can even go just two notes at a time for instance if it’s difficult. I’ve done that method with a lot of tricky shapes and it has helped a lot!