When
voicing chords for gospel piano playing, we have the option of packing the
pitches close together or spreading them out in an open voicing. My former lesson on Close and Open
Chord Voicings covered this topic with more simple harmonies. In gospel music, the harmonies tend to
include more color tones. Traveling
gradually from open to close voicings (or from close to open) across a musical
line creates a nice effect of contrary motion (parts moving in opposite
directions).
Most
gospel piano chord voicings include two or three pitches in the left hand. When constructing chord voicings that include
the root, it is usually placed on the bottom of the voicing (unless otherwise
indicated by the chord symbol). This
leaved one other pitch available for a two pitch left hand voicing. Which pitch we select depends on what
register of the piano or left hand is located in and how open or close the
overall voicing is. A third above the
root may sound ok in higher registers, but down low on the piano this interval
sounds muddy. Also, this close of a left
hand voicing suggests an overall voicing that is close (which doesn’t sound as
good in low registers – also muddy). So,
lower left hand positions lend themselves to other intervals above the root.
The other
intervals available in two pitch left hand voicings are the 5th, 7th,
9th and 10th. Most
people can’t reach past the 10th.
The octave is also available, but it sound kind of hollow and ends up
doubling the pitch that is already being played by the bass guitar (when
playing without a bass guitar this can be used to strengthen the bass
line). These other intervals sound good
in most registers of the piano. However,
larger intervals leave less room for the right hand pitches, so they tend to occur
more often in lower registers with open voicings. Fifths work in most situations (low or
high). In high registers they help to
create beautiful close voicings. In low
registers they can be used to create a majestic sounding voicing (since herald
trumpet playing was based off of open fifths).
The
right hand usual supplies the other pitches of the chord. In gospel piano, pitches are often doubled to
create thick and full texture. This is
opposed to jazz style voicings which tend to avoid doubling in order to stay
clean and open sounding. However, the
desired texture is also dependent on the feel of the specific song (or even the
moment). For example, this is a gospel
song, but its slow and clean style lends itself to less dense voicings.
Capitalizing
on common tones is another practice of gospel and jazz musicians. There will often be one or more pitches that
are shared between two adjacent chords.
Maintaining the voicing of these pitches while changing the other
pitches usually results in smooth voice leading.
The
chorus is usually the most memorable part of the song. Sketching the melody of the chorus in our
chord voicings can help to emphasize its importance. Since we are only hitting chords during each
chord change (and not every syllable of the melody) we cannot play a complete
version of the melody in our chords.
However, we can try to place the melody pitch on the top of our most of
our voicings in the chorus to hint at a duplication of the melodic line.
Finally,
there are times when a gospel piano player breaks away from the chords of the
song in order to play melodic fills and runs.
These lines are often played in octaves or split octaves. In our musical example there is an octave run
that leads into the bridge. Then there
is a split octave run on the third line of the bridge. These runs help to emphasize main lines in
the melody, or lead to new parts of the song.
This Learning Music With Ray video discusses
the use of chord voicings typical in gospel piano playing. In it, I continue with our study of the
original song He Makes All Things New. I play through each section of the song
voicing the chords musically (as opposed to using block chords). I also provide a detailed breakdown of each
chord voicing, explaining how they are structured and why they were selected
for that musical situation. I highlight
the strategies of contrary motion, common tones, melody sketching and octave
runs.
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