Jazz Harmony for Piano: Volume 2
Here are some ideas that allow you to play a given voicing in many different contexts. My feeling is, you don’t need that many materials, but you need what you have in all keys and situations.
Back in the ’40s, people derived voicings from upper extensions of chords (b9, sharp 11, etc.). That’s still useful today, but most modern voicings come out of scales. We could start with Dorian (for the minor 7th chord), Lydian (for the major 7th chord) and Lydian b7 (for the dominant). First of all, be comfortable with these in all keys. I tend to take a scale and do it in all keys once a day, then on following days rotate through all the other scales I want to learn, such as diminished, melodic minor ascending (jazz minor), altered, Locrian sharp 2 and half step/whole step. My good friend Bob Sheppard, on the other hand, takes a key and plays all his stuff in that key during a practice session. I think that’s great, especially for A, E, B and F sharp, scales I need to deal with more often than I do.
Let’s work on the first one, C Dorian. It’s very helpful to use this scale in all sorts of vertical arrays. Here are some of the most important ones. Pick the ones you enjoy the most, and go through all 12 keys with them.
Spend 10 minutes a day doing this, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly your melodic and harmonic vocabulary expands. You should do these with the left hand as well as the right.Now, to expand your comping vocabulary, I’d suggest these patterns:
Do in all keys. I promise you’ll play better once you learn to do this. You’ll have more lines, too, because if you hear it in your left hand, it will come out in your right.
Start with the modes you use the most, and get those happening. Better to have this down in three modes than partially mastered in a bunch. Having them down in the six modes mentioned above is a great long-term goal.