Drop 2 voicings are often made into this mysterious thing that is hard to practice and learn. Something that you have to spend months practicing to get into your playing and be able to use.
That is of course not true and in this video, I am going to show you some of the simple things you can practice, how to remember the chords and how you start using it in your playing.
It is about staying practical!
3 Types of Drop2 voicings
For this lesson I am using the song, Solar known as a Miles Davis Tune but it is actually written by Chuck Wayne.
First I am going to go over some voicings that we need to play the song. It really is just 2 sets of 4 voicings on the top strings and then a dim chord.
Then I am going to use those voicings to play through Solar and embellish the basic comping and show you how you can add to it yourself.
I will talk about why we use some voicings and explain it from a music theory point of view, but also a more visual description that really helps understanding and remembering the voicings.
Basic Set of Drop 2 Voicings
The m6 is a very useful voicing for three types of chords:
First we need a m6 voicing, that will also work as a m7b5 and a dom7 chord:
The m7 chord can be used for m7 but also maj7 chords:
The Voicings would be these:
Putting it to use on a Song
This first example of how to use the drop 2 voicings is using one voicing per chord. Everything is kept simple and I am using the same voicing sets for the II V I’s in F and Eb major.
The II V I in Db is a little different because I want to move closer to where I will play the Dø.
This is about reusing as much as possible and playing music with only a few voicings. That way we have something to build from.
Progessions as building blocks, not chords
It is extremely important to start thinking in progressions more than single chords. If you do that then you can sum up a song in a few blocks where it might be twice or three times as many chords.
That is also what is clear in how I think in II V I progressions and treat them as one thing, more than separate chords.
Adding Melody – Making Music
The next step is to use the same chord voicings but now I am also using different top-note melodies to have some melody and variation in the comping.
From Chords to Musical Statements
The important part of adding more melodies and thinking more like a melody is that it is easier to comp in a way that responds and supports whoever you are playing chords for. Developing this skill is so essential, and it is important to remember that comping should be a piece of music, not just some chords on a groove.
Expanding What You can Play
Now that there are some melodic options and you probably have one voicing in your system then you can start adding voicings by using the surrounding inversions. An example of how that might work is shown below:
Putting Drop2 chords to use
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