Hayden Hill
Hayden founded PianoGroove in 2015 with the goal of making the world a more musical place. He shares his love for jazz piano through his online courses and manages the community area of PianoGroove.
Live Seminar Resources
Live Seminar Resources
PDF Downloads
- The Whole Step 251 Sequence
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- iRealPro Practice Exercises
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- iRealPro Jazz Songs Playlist
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Related Lessons
Forum Threads
Seminar Description
Seminar Description
Learn why rootless voicings are an essential component of jazz piano performance. We cover the theory and the most important drills to master.
Great seminar, Hayden, very useful and accessible. I am sorry I was not able to tune in for the live session but glad I could catch it on replay. I found particularly instructive the discussion you had right at the beginning as to the how and why you use rootless voicings in your own playing. Along those lines I wonder if you could take a deep dive in a future seminar as to your thought process in choosing chord voicings when arranging a jazz standard, how and why you pick for example among a rootless voicing with or without a stride pattern, or a two-handed spread voicing, between a basic three-note voicing or a fuller 6-9 voicing, an upper structure, block chords, So-What, Herbie Hancock or Kenny Barron voicings, etc, based on melody note, tempo and rhythm of the song, the mood you are trying to convey and any other factors. What extensions and alterations do you prefer to include and why? I know this is a very broad question and that many of these topics are covered throughout the PianoGroove curriculum but I think it would be very useful to devote a full live seminar to them. Also have a comment on the drills. While I am nowhere at the level I aspire to eventually be, after months of practice I am above the level I thought I would be, and I am beginning to add some alterations to the dominant13 chord and experiment with various sounds. These drills do work. I have also found it useful to drill the voicings in isolation, not necessarily as part of a 2-5-1, since not everything in jazz is a 2-5-1, to use a metronome and to do the drills without referring to any chord charts but rather by knowing what chords belong in each progression. And as you say, the learning is reinforced when the voicings and progressions are applied to a jazz standard like for example the Ebm9, Ab13, DbMaj9 progression in Body and Soul and the bridge of In A Sentimental Mood. That progression is well ingrained in my mind and fingers now. Looking forward to all future seminars.
Hi Humberto,
Thanks for your comments.
Yes absolutely I can cover that. As you say it is a broad question but we can certainly explore all of this in a ‘deep dive’ session for a specific jazz standard.
Yes these drills certainly do work. They are the drills I used to learn these progressions by memory.
Tuomo hosted a great session yesterday on “Drop 2 Voicings” both rooted, and rootless. This is just a slight variation on the drills that I cover here, and using drop 2 gives a more balanced and sophisticated sound.
You can see his seminar here and I just added the chapters: https://www.pianogroove.com/live-seminars/drop-2-voicings-zoom-workshop/
Yes indeed that’s a great exercise too. Using the metronome is a good idea so that you are trying to keep a pulse and ofcourse start slowly and gradually speed up.
Yes exactly. It’s important to also play through the harmony of tunes, as this is the end goal.
It’s a gradual process… I started learning these progressions around 12 years ago and I can still get better at them, but as I mention that shouldn’t hold us back from perfecting our voicings in a selected number of tunes which make up our ‘go-to’ repertoire.
Awesome… likewise!
Talk soon,
Hayden
Hayden, thanks so much for your response and link to Tuomo’s seminar.