'Open voicings sevenths'

[alswi]

I see a keyboard course that is listing the theroy and technique. In fact, I can understand some of those. However, I don't know the terms 'Open voicings sevenths'

Would someone can answer me what it is and how to practice it? Thank You.

[BBoy]

Sure. A closed voicing is a chord that is "stacked" or close to each other. For instance, take the C major triad CEG. That is a closed voicing . . . you can't get any closer to each note than that. They sound okay . . . stable, solid chords . . . nothing wrong with that. But it sounds redundant after a while . . . music with just triads and inversions really starts to sound dry. So how else can we play a C major chord? Well, I can play C major in a open voicing by playing C-G with my left hand, and E-C with my right. If you are near a piano, play a CEG triad, then play C-G with the left hand and E-C eith the right. Hear the difference? The second is an open voicing . . . it sounds richer, fuller. These open voicings give the rich sound necessary for gospel ballads like "Jesus Is The Perfect Answer" and "I Love You, Lord, Today." Try "Jesus, You're The Center of My Joy" in a closed voicing, just triads, inversions and the root note with your left hand. Then play it with open voicings; not every chord, but open about fifty percent or more of the chords and compare how they sound . . . . you'll see what I mean.  

As a point of interest, closed voicings sound bad when you go below middle C. This is why you see many chords in open voicing below middle C. Above middle C, they sound fine. However, in gospel music, we like to stay right around the middle of the keyboard . . . that way, the music doesn't go into a register we aren't used to hearing (too high) and the music doesn't sound too muddy by being too low. So it is a good idea to try to try to stay within an octave of middle C (either up or down) when playing gospel music . . . not a hard and fast rule, but a general rule of thumb. Play your trills and your fills in higher registers, but stay around the middle for your meat and potatoes music.  :wink:  

Now the seventh is just the chord with the flatted seventh degree of the scale. If I wanted to play a C7 in closed voicing, I would play CEGBb. Again, if you are near a piano, play that. Hear how it sounds?

Now, let's open that voicing. Play E-Bb with your left hand and C-G with your right. Hear that? That is a C7 in an open voice. You can, of course, play E-Bb with your left hand and C-G-C in your right, if your hand is big enough.  

By the way, the voicing we just learned is called a 3-7 shell voicing, very popular when accompaning a soloist or if you are playing with a bass player. So if you run across that term (3-7 shell voicing) , that is what it means.

We used C major as an example for the sake of simplicity, but of course you can open any voicing in any key.

Hope this helps!  :wink:

Be Blessed  

[musallio]

There is so much to learn in music theory..
this is really fun..
Even if you know the stuff, it's good to refresh the memory..

Shell voicings..the buzz word in every jazz musician's lips...

I'm not yet there with my LH, but it's coming along slowly

[rspindy]

The two primary voicings for chords are "close" (or sometimes referred to as "closed") voicing and "open" voicing.  In its most basic sense, "close" voicing is simply the block of notes in the same order that we spell it.  Thus a C 7 chord (any quality M7, x7, m7, m7b5, dim7) in root position is C E G B.

The most basic open voicing skips every other note.  Thus our C 7 chord becomes C G / E B split between the two hands.

We can also take this open voicing through the inversions:
     1st inversion:  E B / G C
     2nd inversion:  G C / E B
     3rd inversion:  B E / C G

The effect of open voicing is maintained, particularly in inversion, if each half remains open, although the may be close between the two parts, thus root position might also be C G / B E; 1st inversion  E B / C G; 3rd inversion B E / G C.  Second inversion is a little tricky,  G C / B E would create a considerable space between the C and B on a noticeable dissonance.  It may actually end up in context as G B / E C and still have the effect.