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Exercise
— switch — The Cycle Shells with Color Rootless Voicings Bud Powell Left Hand The Turnaround Tritone Substitution Reharm the V Diatonic Sevenths Secondary Turnaround Minor ii–V–i Minor ii-V-i with ♭9 Minor Turnaround Diatonic 7ths in Minor Backdoor Progression Twelve-Bar Blues Minor Blues Bird Blues Blues Stride LH Blues Walking Bass Rhythm Changes Boogie Blues Shuffle Rhythm Changes Bridge Blues Rootless (Evans) Coltrane Changes Blues Pedal Point Standard Intro Blues Block Chords Two-Handed Comping Blues Freddie Green Charleston Comping Bebop Blues Comp Freddie Green Comping Blues Guide Tones Walking Bass Charleston Blues Tritone-Sub Walking Bass Bud Powell Blues Drop Two Two-Handed Modern Blues Stride Bass Stride with Melody Quartal Voicings Upper Structure Triads Hybrid Voicings Kenny Barron Voicing Sus Chord Vamp The Mu Chord Maiden Voyage Chord 4-Way Close Pedal Point Lydian Vamp Phrygian Vamp Bossa Nova Guide Tones Bebop Scale Dominant Bebop Dorian Bebop Bebop Minor The Enclosure ii-V-I Lick Pentatonic Patterns Plain Locrian Melodic Minor Dorian ♭2 Lydian Augmented Lydian Dominant Mixolydian ♭6 Locrian ♮2 Altered Scale Harmonic Minor Phrygian Dominant Half-Whole Diminished Whole-Tone Scale Minor Blues Major Blues Aeolian (Natural Minor) Dorian Mode Ionian (Major) Lydian Mode Minor Pentatonic Mixolydian Mode Phrygian Mode Whole-Half Diminished
(MED. SWING ♩=80 )
2
Jazz Piano · Three-Note Voicings
Shells with Color
Add the 9 (or 13) to every shell, in all twelve keys
Play exercise
The shells told you the chord quality . Adding a single
tension tells you the chord color . Stack one note on
top: 9 on minor 7 and major 7 , 13 on
dominant 7 . The 13 voice-leads down a half step to the
9 of the I chord that follows — a cleaner resolution than the 9
of V (which would have to leap to get there).
One pattern, twelve keys: ii as 3-7-9, V as
7-3-13, I as 3-7-9. On the ii→V move, the bass and top
voices both hold while the middle drops a half step. On the V→I
move, the middle holds while the bass and top both drop. Two
voices fixed at every transition.
Color on m7 / maj7 Bottom = 3, middle = 7, top = 9.
Color on V7 Bottom = 7, middle = 3, top = 13.
Jump to
C F B♭ E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ B E A D G
C
3
2
X
O
O
O
D
m
7
2
1
1
X
X
O
G
7
3
2
1
O
O
O
F
3
2
1
X
X
O
G
m
7
1
3
1
1
1
1
3fr
3
2
4
1
O
O
C
7
B
1
3
2
4
X
X
C
m
7
1
3
1
2
1
X
3fr
F
7
1
3
1
2
1
1
E
1
2
3
4
X
X
F
m
7
1
3
1
1
1
1
B
7
1
2
1
3
1
X
A
1
1
1
3
X
X
B
m
7
1
3
1
2
1
X
1
3
2
4
X
X
E
7
D
4
3
1
1
1
X
E
m
7
1
2
3
4
X
X
1
3
1
2
1
1
4fr
A
7
G
4
3
2
1
X
X
A
m
7
1
3
1
1
1
1
4fr
D
7
2
3
1
4
X
X
B
1
3
2
4
X
X
C
m
7
4
2
1
X
O
O
F
7
1
3
1
2
1
1
E
3
1
2
O
O
X
F
m
7
1
3
1
1
1
1
B
7
2
1
3
4
X
O
A
2
1
3
X
O
O
B
m
7
1
3
1
2
1
X
E
7
2
1
O
O
O
O
D
1
2
3
X
X
O
E
m
7
2
O
O
O
O
O
A
7
1
3
X
O
O
O
G
4
3
2
1
X
X
2fr
A
m
7
2
1
X
O
O
O
D
7
2
1
3
X
X
O
The Daily Drill
Hear the color
5 min Play one key, alternating shells (two notes) with shells-plus-color (three notes). Notice how the added tone changes the chord's mood without changing its function. 10 min Cycle four keys at a time. Keep the bass and top voices anchored — your left hand should feel like it's pivoting, not jumping. 3 min Swap-test: on V7, briefly trade the 13 for a 9. Both sound fine on the V itself — the difference is the resolution: the 13 falls a half step onto the I chord's 9, while the 9 of V has to leap. That voice-leading is why the 13 gets the seat. 2 min Free play — improvise a melody over the changes. Where this sits in the pedagogy These three-note shapes are the bridge between two-note shells and the four-note rootless Bill Evans / Bud Powell voicings. Mark Levine's The Jazz Piano Book introduces them in exactly this order: shells → shells+9/13 → rootless A and B. Once the 3-7-9 / 7-3-13 shapes feel automatic in the left hand, dropping the root entirely (because the bassist has it) and stacking a fourth note on top is a small leap rather than a redesign of the hand.
The shell tells you what; the color tone tells you who. Same harmony, different voice on top — different feeling.