Jazz Piano Chord Voicings - Four Way Close, Locked Hands & Drop 2

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In this series of videos I cover jazz piano voicings. I'll go through a number of different voicings which will make any jazz song sound strong and professional.
This Jazz Piano Tutorial is about Four way close, locked hands and drop two jazz chord voicings.
The most basic and strongest possible sounding chord progression is a V-I (e.g. G7 to C). And a common Chord Substitution for Dominant chord is a diminished chord 1 semitone up from the root (Abo7 = Rootless G7b9).
Now if you superimpose Abo7 over C6 and play all the notes in the form of a scale you get - C D E F G Ab A B = C Major Scale + Ab (AKA C Bebop Scale).
Now, you can do something interesting with this:
You can alternate between the two chords, changing inversions, to create a little run
This creates a V-I progression which sounds really smooth and really strong
You can do the same with Cm6, C7 and Cm7 chords (though not CMaj7)
Chord - Notes
Abo - Ab B D F
C6 - C E G A
Cm6 - C Eb G A
C7 - C E G Bb
Cm7 - C Eb G Bb
This is called four way close - Playing a 4 note chord in closed harmony (i.e. as close together as possible).
This is a great technique to employ when you’re playing a song where the melody moves in steps, such as:
Blue Bossa
There will never be another you
Fly me to the Moon
This technique can be modified in a couple of ways to get two other widely used techniques
If you use your Left Hand to double the top melody note an octave lower this gives you a technique called Locked Hand
If you omit the second highest note in Right Hand and play it with your Left Hand an octave lower this gives you a technique called Drop 2. A couple of point about Drop 2:
Always drop second highest note - regardless of what degree it is. This will change with the inversion of chord
Root - second highest note = 5th
2nd inversion - second highest note = root
Drop 2 - literally means you ‘drop the second highest note’. There is also ‘Drop 3’ or ‘Drop 4’ or ‘Drop 2 & 3’ voicings - which follow the same logic, but Drop 2 is the most widely used
And it of course can be applied in any context where there is a run of chords
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[@ZipplyZane]

In less than a minute, you explained what it took me ages to figure out: tritone substitution and why it works. The only thing you left out is that the minor ninth resolves with a half step.

[@Musicaadorecchio]

great lesson, I visited your website, couldn't believe you covered so many music topics for free and with such clarity! Thanks for being so helpful! the best piano site I ever visited! Hope one day you make some tutorial on the topic of ear training, that would be awesome!

[@WalkThatBass]

+Antonio PX1 Thanks Antonio. Very kind of you.

[@feralferret206]

Great tuto. Thank you for your work.

[@cplaysley]

Your videos are some of the most helpful, straightforward piano videos i've seen on youtube. I have so much to practice now!

[@WalkThatBass]

+Chris PLAYSley Thanks Chris.

[@LuKe-wc3vg]

This is amazing!

[@erhanmusician]

Excellent lesson. Thank you!

[@dante.x]

Best tutorial i found on this topic, thanks!

[@ryanpkelleher]

Thanks. Great explanation

[@hztan1263]

Thank you so much for this video!

[@leanderbunchmusic2693]

It works for me! Thanks 😊

[@Electrotranqui]

I love it!!!

[@grvychuck]

Really really amazing!! Thank you.

[@WalkThatBass]

+Hyuksoon Kwon My pleasure, Hyuksoon Kwon. Glad you liked it.

[@rainerbuck36]

Thanks a lot for also explaining the dominant-7-block chords and the minor7th-block chords, because in the other tutorials I've seen they focus more on the major6 and minor6-chords...Thanks!

[@nomnomnommy2955]

Very interesting and weird. I look forward to being skilled enough to play the tunes I play with these voicings. Fantastic video!

[@negrodisiac]

I've got got something to practice later!

[@ceyhanyazc2684]

absolutely fantastic, i love your videos, and hopefully one day i will be able to not just understand but also use these ideas/techniques. thank you so much.

[@WalkThatBass]

+Ceyhan Yazıcı No problem, Ceyhan. It's nice to hear you enjoy them.

[@angelopeluso1565]

.....fantastic lesson so Easy and Clear thanks a lot !!!

[@izamorfelix7966]

Very Nice this student of the droop i am happy for learn idea

[@ThomasHope73]

Great lessons, love your approach. I am finding the audio really harsh though, could it be your mic?

[@pc2nite]

The 4 way close voicing shown here is just one quite specific type. There are others too. This one’s distinguishing feature is its passing diminished chords. Many KZbin videos describe it now as the Barry Harris voicing but very similar was used by many famous pianists from the 40s eg Nat King Cole, George Shearing. These type of voicings are also called blocked chord voicings. They were also often used around that time by close harmony vocal groups.

[@thtr9647]

Hi, really appreciate the work. Just wonder if you can put together more techniques to harmonize melody by chords such as this video, which only sounds good if we have melody in steps. How about when it jumps around?

[@gunorijssel7987]

Someday I will reach this high level on chord thinking. Until THEN I'll go on with working my way up quietly one step at a time....Thanks anyway!!!

[@aytchannel1766]

Thank You for this excellent lesson. You have a great way of explaining all these concepts to a beginner like me. The pictures on the upper left helps a lot in following what you are saying. Should a musicians be able switch between these techniques on the fly while they are playing? The drop 2 voicing seems to be very complicated to do while playing a song. I suppose you have to be very familiar with all the chords and their voicings?

[@WalkThatBass]

Hi Jason, Ideally, a professional musician should be able to switch between all these techniques and lots of different types of voicings quickly, smoothly and easily. This, of course, takes years to master. To get to this point you really have to sit down with a single piece of music and work through it slowly, practicing each bit individually. I find it helps writing it all out on a piece of paper. But yes, eventually the goal is to be familiar with all the different chords, common chord progressions/movements, and chord voicings. Good luck!

[@berryblast3930]

For the second bar of fly me to the moon,why not make the last chord Eb diminished in anticipation of the G7 on the third bar?

[@nomnomnommy2955]

So sometimes you use the diatonic chord with the melody on top and it’s inversions and sometimes you use the b6 fully diminished chords, how do you chose whether to use a diatonic chord or one based off the dimished ? Is it almost a 50/50 balance between the two?

[@johnm5321]

Interesting that you say you can superimpose an Abdim7 over a C7 as well. I don't know my bebop chords well but I've heard that bebop dominant adds a natural 7 to a mixolydian scale, can you explain how it works to have the Ab (b13) in there as well?

[@95brycef]

You are an exceptional teacher thanks a lot. Really well paced .....is it possible to employ this to melodies that jump around and don't have such stepwise movement. Side note are you Australian? if so nice to see fellow Australian musicians

[@WalkThatBass]

+Bryce Francis Hey Bryce, It won't flow as nicely if the melody jumps around too much. The reason this technique sounds pleasant is because it creates a I-V-I mini-chord progression. If the melody skips notes, it could break this relationship. For example, say we are in C Major and using the C6 and Abo chords. If the melody goes up in thirds we get the notes: C, E, G, B. Using the Four-way close technique over this melody would create a I-I-I-V chord progression which won't sound quite as nice as a I-V-I-V progression. If the melody did something like: C, F, A, D, G, I suppose you could create a I-V-I-V-I progression and make it sound ok, though I suspect it will sound a bit disjointed because you are jumping around and might loose the smooth transition between chords. Having said that, I've never tried this so maybe you can make it work. And yep, I'm an Aussie :) So you must be my one Australian viewer. haha.

[@paulallenMacca]

Thanks for sharing this could you please add more videos showing The Locked Hands Style maybe in a Tune like The Nearness Of You or As Time Goes By or even Unforgettable.

[@WalkThatBass]

Hey. Yeah, no worries. I was thinking about making a follow up video to this one which shows a few possible alterations to this basic Locked Hands technique. I'll try work something about in the near future.

[@paulallenMacca]

Many Thanks.

[@WalkThatBass]

Hi. So I just released a video on 'advanced' locked hands. I didn't use one of the songs you mentioned, instead I used the song Blue Monk as an example (because of its more chromatic melody). But you can take the ideas in that video and apply the to the songs you mentioned as it allows you now to reach more notes.

[@oferyehuda6131]

hey, thanks for the lesson, it was clear and informative! do you have any suggestion as to how to practice these techniques?

[@WalkThatBass]

Thanks Ofer, I would practice them by applying them to actual songs. So just find as many songs as you can where the melody moves by step (you can even just start with the ones I mentioned in the video) and work out how to apply this voicing. I just released an 'advanced locked hands' video which expands on this technique and gives you a few more options in terms of voicings, chords and melody notes. I'd start by practicing the four way close voicing with your right hand. And then add in the bottom octave (Locked Hands) and then practice drop 2 voicings. That just seems the most logical progression to me.

[@oferyehuda6131]

Ok, thanks a lot!

[@alexanderdeschutter8820]

@@oferyehuda6131 hows the practicing going !? :P I just found this video, good question to ask. I'll try it with some tunes, as well as how he showed just going up and down octaves alternating voicings

[@johanwiman5983]

Thank you for a very good lesson! In trying to practice this I ran in to some problems. I started with the key A flat where I wanted to learn the locked hands-technique for all the chords. The explained method applies brilliantly for A flat and F minor, but for the other chords it misses out some of the notes in the A flat scale. For instance I can't play the note D flat when applying locked hands to C minor. I could play a passing note over D flat, of course, but is there a better to fit the locked hands technique to these odd notes?

[@WalkThatBass]

Hi Johan, So there are a couple things you can do to modify this technique to allow you to play extra notes. 1. On the diminished chord (G7b9) you can raise any note up 1 tone and still remain within the same ‘diminished scale’ and therefore create a similar sound/equivalent chord. So D F Ab B can become D F Ab Db (I’ll call this an altered diminished). (I have a separate lesson on the diminished scale where I explain this) 2. You can change the ‘tonic’ chord during your run. You could do Cm7 - dim - Cm6 - dim - Cm7 - dim - etc. 3. You can extend and alter the ‘tonic’ chord - so play a Cm9 instead of a Cm7 for example. In your above example you are playing the III chord of Ab Maj. Minor7 chords do not have a b9 (Db) as an available tension, therefore you (generally) should not use the Db over a Cm7 chord. But you could modify the G7b9 chord to include the Db. Say your melody is: A Bb B C Db D You could play, for example: - Cm6 = C Eb G A - Cm7 = C Eb G Bb - Dim = D F Ab B - Cm7 = Eb G Bb C - Alt dim = D F Ab Db - Cm9 = Eb G Bb D These ideas make matters a little more complex, so I didn’t cover them in the video. But the general concept is still the same - you are creating a I-V-I-V-etc. progression. Does that make sense?

[@johanwiman5983]

This makes sense, thanks a lot for your clear and explicit answer! It's a lot of work learning all these chord positions for each chord but rewarding in the end. Your lessons by the way are about the best structured lessons I have found as yet on youtube! :)

[@WalkThatBass]

Thanks Johan :)

[@jonathanng5043]

im totally new to the 4 way close concept, do people almost always use 1-5-1-5 pattern or they can almost use any two chords? does the two chords have to not have any same note? Where can I learn more about this? Thank a lot in advance

[@royjohnson3361]

That's the basis for the video: "The most basic and strongest possible sounding chord progression is a V-I (e.g. G7 to C). " It creates a 'perfect' cadence over and over again. If you used IV-I, you'd have a plagal cadence, which should 'work' but wouldn't have as strong a sound. Maybe?

[@toodietoodieomg]

is this the barry harris thing?

[@WalkThatBass]

+toodietoodieomg Yep. It's the 6th diminished scale.

[@bartmuz]

thanx for useful video material ! very welcome to my music channel / regards

[@WalkThatBass]

+Bartmuz virtual band No problem, Bartmuz. :)

[@trumpetman]

Could fly me too the moon swing a bit more? I mean really.

[@drunio1504]

Horrendous echo, room with bare walls? Better mic? Carpets help kill echo. Near Honky Tonk tuned rig = harsh sound. Great teaching but dated tools?

[@roblaw7537]

first section isn't quite right- eg C7-Abo-C7 etc isn't right. You are touching on Barry Harris method and should credit as such