In the last blog I announced that I'm launching Unit 6 of my Guitar Method, Vertical Truth: Chordal Mechanisms for the Guitar next week.
It's called 7th Voicing and creating chord melodies is the main focus of this brand-new lesson series!
I explained the concept:
A 7th chord consists of 4 notes; root, 3rd, 5th and 7th.
7th voicings eliminate the 5th so you have 3-note 7th chords consisting of the root, 3rd and 7th. The term, "voicing" is used because the 3 notes are spoken of in choir-terms as in, "alto," "tenor" and "bass." The "soprano" voice is reserved for the melody, whatever it may be.
There are two voicings we'll be working with, "Close" and "Open."
Close Voicing (or Close Position) retains numerical order from low to high; root-3rd-7th. The notes are "close" to each other.
In Open Voicing (or Open Position) the 3rd is raised an octave; root-7th-3rd, from low to high.
The application should be obvious; we add a melody note to the top of each voicing. It's a way to harmonize melodies, also known as, "chord melodies."
In this video I'm going to give you one position (out of 3) for Open Voiced 7th Chords and one position (out of 4) for Close Voicing. There are 4 types of 7th chords; Major, Dominant, Minor and Diminished, so that's 8 different chord shapes:
With these 8 shapes you have the foundation for creating your own chord-melody arrangements of any song you want! You don't have to go googling for arrangements which you then learn by rote without understanding how they were created in the first place.
Jay
P.S. There's another video coming. In that video, I'm going to talk about a bigger picture and where Unit 6: 7th Voicing fits into that, and how when you learn the content of Unit 6 you're learning way more than what I've talked about thus far. Watch for it in a couple of days.
Please leave comments &/or questions on the Master Guitar School Facebook page or email me at jay@masterguitarschool.com.
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