Scale Based Voicings

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Although the previous sections provide a wide variety of options from which to choose in constructing voicings, in many cases, it is more effective to construct your own voicing to fit a given situation. Usually, this is done by selecting a set of notes from the scale corresponding to the specified chord. Just as when constructing melodies based on scales, there may be notes you wish to avoid, such as the fourth in a major or dominant seventh chord, but any other notes from the scale usually work.

One situation where this type of ad hoc voicing can be useful is when playing 3/7 voicings on a tune with a lot of root motion upward by fourth. As was mentioned in that section, this tends to result in voicings sliding downward. For example:

[EXAMPLE]

A voicing that include the third and seventh but which places the fifth or root on the bottom can be used to maintain the sound and feel of the 3/7 voicings, and this gives you a way to work back upwards:

[EXAMPLE]

In a ii-V-I or ii-V-i progression, the tonic chord is often played with what looks like a 3/7 voicing, but in which the seventh has been replaced by a sixth:

[EXAMPLE]

In general, this type of voicing works well for major or minor chords. However, you should exercise care in using these sixth chord voicings for minor chords that resolve to dominant seventh chords a fourth above (as is most common) or major seventh chords that resolve to major seventh chords a fourth above, as in the progression Dm7 - G7 or Cmaj7 - Fmaj7. In these situations, the sixth chord voicing for the first chord is identical to one of the 3/7 voicings for the second chord:

[EXAMPLE]

The sound of the resolution is lost, as the ear hears only one chord repeated instead of two chords. Whereas if 3/7 voicings are used for all chords, then the motion of the seventh of one chord to the third of the next helps reinforce the resolution:

[EXAMPLE]

If you want to emphasize the resolution while using sixth chord voicings, you will have to change another note. For example, the following works better:

[EXAMPLE]

Even this does not outline the resolution as clearly as 3/7 voicings would have, though.

Sometimes, you may desire to make the harmony more ambiguous, and the use of voicings with no seventh can be an effective way to this. In fact, you may wish to construct voicings with no third, either. This would be particularly common in modal music. Since the resolution of chords is not important in modal music, the third and seventh are not so important to conveying the sound of the chord. Any of the following voicings might be appropriate for a Dm7 chord in a modal composition:

[EXAMPLE]

This technique is also useful when playing complex altered chords that do not obviously suggest any particular scale. Simply choose any combination of notes from the chord and arrange them as you see fit:

[EXAMPLE]

When constructing your own voicings, you have the opportunity to create a variety of colors through the shape of your voicing. Voicings with several close intervals have a particular sound; voicings with more widely spaced intervals will sound different:

[EXAMPLE]

Sometimes your goal is more to express a sound without completely violating the sound of the chord, rather than to actually describe the chord literally. So if you want, for instance, the sound of an open fifth, you may choose any notes a fifth apart that happen to come from the scale associated with the chord. You need not be concerned with whether or not these notes are the third, seventh, root, or any other particular degree relative to the original chord. For example, if you want the sound of an open fifth over a Gmaj7 chord, any of the following voicings might be appropriate:

[EXAMPLE]

Similarly, you might want the characteristic dissonance of a ninth. Over the same chord, this might be voiced in any of the following ways:

[EXAMPLE]

While these would not be standard voicings that would serve as appropriate voicings in most situations, they can be effective in achieving specific textures, and using scale tones helps ensure that your voicing is not at odds with the harmony.

The shape of your voicings can similarly be an important consideration in constructing voicings for atonal music. In fact, without a chord to imply or work well with, the shape of the voicing is often the most important consideration. Other issues in constructing voicings - both for tonal and atonal music - are described later, in the chapters on Accompanying.

Copyright 2000 Outside Shore Music
Authored by Marc Sabatella

Scale Based Voicings