Better playing with better chord voicings

Okay, you buy a music book, you play the chords and sing along and it just doesn’t sound right. It’s not necessarily that the chords are wrong that makes the song sound wrong, it’s that they gave you voicings that are wrong. They’re afraid you might be intimidated by having to play a voicing a little bit further down the neck. Get real. Those frets aren’t there for nothing.

Herb Ohta, Ohta-San, a great Hawaiian jazz player says that the first thing you should do when learning a song is to memorize the melody. You can do this by ear or by reading a lead sheet of the melody. Once you’ve really got the melody down, look for chord voicings that have the melody note on the first or second string, the A or the E string. Doing so will make the song sound like music to your ear, to coin a phrase. Learning the exact melody will also help your singing as it is common to sometimes make a variation that is not exactly the song. You miss the point that the songwriter varied the tune rather than having repeated exactly what came before. Having the melody on the higher strings will also give you a reference point while singing.

For those who are relatively new, a voicing is the order of the notes in a chord. A C major chord is CEG with one of those notes probably doubled because of having four strings. The C maj, however, is also EGC, or GCE.

So, 0003, or 5433, or 7565, etc.. Which works better with the song? Which makes it easiest to go to a voicing that works for the next chord?

When you work out a song, play around with voicings. Choose which you like best. Learning to do so has really opened up the ukulele for me.

p.s. Consider that you don’t have to play all the strings when playing a chord. Just play the ones that fit the accompaniment you wish.

I’m ready to hear from players who can correct any mistakes I’ve made or who can give me more insight.

I agree. That's what I do too.

Kimosabe said:

Consider that you don’t have to play all the strings when playing a chord. Just play the ones that fit the accompaniment you wish.

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The only thing more difficult than playing a chord is not playing a chord. It is challenging to pinch three notes and make them sound dynamically like the 4-noted chord that precedes and that follow it. However it is an essential skill to master the sound of nothingness. After all the major differentiation between blues and funk is the latter's employment of nothingness to syncopate its sound. Once embraced, the 3-string chord can work really well. I only mention the glory of the E major chord (1X02) and the marvelous G minor chord (X231) which is a movable chord as long as the fourth string is muted.

Two things I have learned from trying to play jazz are the importance of chord voicings and voice leading. In your example, what sounds best might be detrmned by what comes after. You want the chords to flow smoothly together. Another thing to keep in mind if you are playing chord melodies is that you need to try to keep the melody on the top two strings, preferably the first, otherwise it will tend to get lost. If you have to use the second string for the melody note try to use chords that will work with just the bottom three strings. You can also explore chord substitution but that may be another topic altogether. Briefly, a minor chord a thrid up from a major or vise versa will usually work. For example, an F major can become an A minor if having the E instead of an F will better lead to the next chord. Typically chord substitution is done wit 7th chords but it can work with others as well. Hope that helps.

John

I agree with all of that. Remember too that music publishers can make mistakes. Sometimes, indeed quite often, some of the printed chords are just plain wrong. The more variety of music I play in different keys, the easier I find it to replace those duff chords with ones that sound right.

Another thing is that sometimes a chord that sounds just right in re-entrant tuning can sound awful in linear. In those cases there's doubtless another voicing that sounds good. The tool at ukulelehelper.com is really useful for finding different voicings of a chord.

The only thing I will add are open/semi-open chord shapes up the neck with re-entrant tuning. A C chord can also be played xxx7, xx37, or xx78, etc. A G chord can be played 77710, or x7710. Em as x377. There are a lot of ways to play chords. All you need to do is know the notes of a chord and the melody and build a chord around the melody note.

I often drop a particular note in a chord on the G string that results in a maj7, or an added 4th, or ??? for an interesting sound; but if it follows the melody it tends to work. The effect isn't the same with linear tuning.

John

While chord "voicing" may be the technical term I'm not sure its giving new players the right idea. Chord pitch might be better.

I've been learning a new (Old) song recently, Lodi by Creedence. A main element of the song is a I, IV,I progression. I'm playing it Dmaj, Gmaj, Dmaj.. Now if you play it all open position then it doesn't really work but when you play it Dmaj, Gmaj and then Dmaj one position higher (different voicing)then all of a sudden you "get" the riff.

As an exercise in barre chords/moveable chords I will start from 0232 ((g maj in standard uke tuning) I'm not in standard tuning) and then play the scale tone chords up the neck using the g maj or g min shapes slid up the neck. You can just play the triad or barre the whole chord.

Sometimes I will play say the A min chord as either 2000 (open position) or 2453 ( the G min slid up two frets) and see how it sounds. I may use both in the same song for a different "voicing" but its more about a different Pitch to the chord than just saying its a different voicing.

anthonyg said:

While chord "voicing" may be the technical term I'm not sure its giving new players the right idea. Chord pitch might be better.

I've been learning a new (Old) song recently, Lodi by Creedence. A main element of the song is a I, IV,I progression. I'm playing it Dmaj, Gmaj, Dmaj.. Now if you play it all open position then it doesn't really work but when you play it Dmaj, Gmaj and then Dmaj one position higher (different voicing)then all of a sudden you "get" the riff.

As an exercise in barre chords/moveable chords I will start from 0232 ((g maj in standard uke tuning) I'm not in standard tuning) and then play the scale tone chords up the neck using the g maj or g min shapes slid up the neck. You can just play the triad or barre the whole chord.

Sometimes I will play say the A min chord as either 2000 (open position) or 2453 ( the G min slid up two frets) and see how it sounds. I may use both in the same song for different a "voicing" but its more about a different Pitch to the chord than just saying its a different voicing.

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Voicing and pitch are two very different things, though. Voicing refers to the order in which the individual notes are played, for example, a C chord played 0003 has a voicing of GCEC, whereas a C chord played 0007 has a voicing of GCEE. Compare this to a C chord played 12 12 12 15, which has the SAME voicing as 0003 but a different pitch.

robinboyd said:

Voicing and pitch are two very different things, though. Voicing refers to the order in which the individual notes are played, for example, a C chord played 0003 has a voicing of GCEC, whereas a C chord played 0007 has a voicing of GCEE. Compare this to a C chord played 12 12 12 15, which has the SAME voicing as 0003 but a different pitch.

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Yes.

What I'm saying though is that all this talk of "voicing" isn't helping newcomers understand what its all about. Its a bit obscure.

A different "pitch" is much easier to understand. In my D,G,D maj example. The riff isn't D to G back DOWN to D. Its D to G then UP to D. That's easier to get you head around. Just talking about "voicing" doesn't always make much sense.

I guess that I automatically learn song melodies first, without really planning to. Lyrics come next, then the right chords.
Correct, some "as written" chords do sound wrong. I've been replacing the chords instead of the voicing, or chord pitch, which I hadn't considered.
I think this might encourage more study on my part, as I'm still an intermediate player, and don't use the upper range of the neck yet, although on rare occasions that I do, I find it fun, unless the intonation is off.
As far as not playing all 4 of the strings, I play a lot of 2 and 3 string chords.
And this....was unplanned:
https://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?134491-Is-it-a-quot-badge-of-courage-quot

anthonyg said:

Yes.

What I'm saying though is that all this talk of "voicing's" isn't helping newcomers understand what its all about. Its a bit obscure.

A different "pitch" is much easier to understand. In my D,G,D maj example. The riff isn't D to G back DOWN to D. Its D to G then UP to D. That's easier to get you head around. Just talking about "voicing's" doesn't always make much sense.

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I get what you are saying, but saying pitch when you mean voicing doesn't make sense to anybody...

robinboyd said:

I get what you are saying, but saying pitch when you mean voicing doesn't make sense to anybody...

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Chord "Voicing" doesn't make a lick of sense to anyone until your getting more advanced in your skills.
Strictly for learners talking about chord pitch is imminently more understandable. Chord voicing comes after understanding what different chord pitches can do for a song.
Chord voicing's are what they are on a ukulele or guitar. Its not like a piano when 1st inversions just fall to hand and second and third inversions are something you play around with.

Sure you can play around just with inversions on a stringed instrument but I don't believe that its the best way to introduce new players to barre or moveable chords.

To me "pitch" of a chord makes no sense at all. After all, a chord is made up of notes of different pitches so it can not be said to have one 'pitch'. What works for me is simply the voicing and how far up the fretboard it is.

Voicing (music)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voicing_(music)

While its technically correct to call it "voicing", to newcomers its just jargon which hasn't been explained properly so it just goes over their heads usually.

Even though it isn't technically correct, I'm calling it chord "pitch" to help people understand it.
Lets say we have a single note scale in the key of C maj.
It goes C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C. The last C is an octave higher than the first.
Scale tone CHORDS in the key of C maj are, C maj, D min,E min,F maj,G maj, A mim, B dim C maj. Now in ukulele/guitar music you almost never play this in a linear pitch progression but if you wanted to you could play i like this.

0232, 2453, 4675, 5787, 79(10)9, 9(11)(12)(10), (no 7dim here)then finish at (12)(14)(15)(14).

Now with ukulele/guitar chords we are so used to the sound of open position chords where we are usually going sideways and even back down to the next chord in the progression that trying to play a simple song in the Key of C maj as I have listed above will sound WRONG.

Sometimes however, going UP to the next chord in the progression DOES sound right. It depends on the song and sometimes, and this is where it does get confusing, I will play different versions/voicings/pitches of the same chord in the same song.

I will often play C maj as both 0003 or 5433 in the same song at different times. In the Lodi by Creedence example I'm actually playing it on a Baritone so the progression I'm playing is,

D (0232), G5 (just because I can(0033))then D (7775)then after 3 beats its back down to D at(0232) then G5(0033) with some hammers and then D (0232). You may see this written simply as D,G,D,G,D and if you try this with all open chords it doesn't make a lick of sense even though it is correct.

Lets take a simple G maj, C maj, D maj progression. G (0232) C maj (0003), D maj (2220) OR (2225).

We are all used to playing the D as (2220) even though its "pitch" sounds lower than the C maj that has preceded it. You can play D maj as (2225) to get an increased "pitch" over the C maj chord but honestly it doesn't always sound "Right". Sometimes though it does.

Play around with it to find what works.

Anyway, just labelling all these variations as just "Voicing" and breezing on by doesn't help new players to learn what's going on.

Perhaps we have one of those "agree to disagree" situations on this point...?

Bill Sheehan said:

Perhaps we have one of those "agree to disagree" situations on this point...?

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Whatever works for you guys works for you guys.

Lets be clear that I believe that I am better at teaching the concepts to new players than you guys are. People used to be whacked over the knuckles with rulers for getting music wrong by their teachers but somehow some of them still learnt music. I'm not sure that this is the Mahalo way though.

In the opening post the OP wanted to hear people views/opinions on teaching the concepts of "voicing".

anthonyg said:

Whatever works for you guys works for you guys.

Lets be clear that I believe that I am better at teaching the concepts to new players than you guys are. People used to be whacked over the knuckles with rulers for getting music wrong by their teaches but somehow some of them still learnt music. I'm not sure that this is the Mahalo way though.

In the opening post the OP wanted to hear people views/opinions on teaching the concepts of "voicing".

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Although I have been involved with teaching in the past, my current job is as a translator. As a translator I have a certain amount of leeway in terms of conveying concepts to different audiences when a direct translation would not be easily understood. What I do not have leeway to do is to replace one concept with an entirely different but tangentially related concept. If I did that, I would not only fail to convey the intended meaning to people without sufficient background knowledge, but I would also fail to convey the intended meaning to experts. In my opinion, this is what you are trying to do here.

robinboyd said:

Although I have been involved with teaching in the past, my current job is as a translator. As a translator I have a certain amount of leeway in terms of conveying concepts to different audiences when a direct translation would not be easily understood. What I do not have leeway to do is to replace one concept with an entirely different but tangentially related concept. If I did that, I would not only fail to convey the intended meaning to people without sufficient background knowledge, but I would also fail to convey the intended meaning to experts. In my opinion, this is what you are trying to do here.

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My point is, the case for why a new player would even want to know what "voicing" is hasn't been made. Just saying "it sounds better" isn't working as an appropriate answer for most.

The answer I gave was that sometimes a very simple lick or progression may be D maj, G maj and then D maj an octave higher and that playing D maj, G maj and back down to D maj doesn't make the simple lick/progression "Work".

Its as simple as, is the melody going UP to a note or DOWN to a note and this is not being made clear by simply talking about "voicing".
The further complexities of "voicing" come after this simple understanding.
Some of you guys are just making it too complicated.

Well, one thing we CAN all agree on is that Creedence Clearwater's "Lodi" is a GREAT tune! Everyone have a great Sunday evening!