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Taylor Eigsti's 49 Chords Exercises for Unlimited Voicings


Taylor Eigsti's 49 Chords Exercise may be one of the quickest, most efficient ways to train yourself to play only high-quality voicings.

 

In today's email + video, we focus in on understanding it better.

 

I'm going to break it down super clearly in this email for you, but you should also watch this video clip to fully understand:


 

So, here are the basics:

 

1 Taylor says "We take 7 different shapes in each key moving up 7 steps diatonically - 49 voicings for each chord times 12 keys, so technically that's a whopping 588 chords a day.

2 Now, let's break this down:

â—¦ Shape: basically, just a voicing or a grouping of notes that fit a certain scale.

â—¦ Diatonic Movement: You start with the shape, then more each note in the shape to the next closest note in the corresponding scale.

â—¦ If we have a shape: D Eb G, and we think in C Dorian, then D Eb G moves to Eb F A. D -> Eb. Eb -> F. G -> A (the next notes in the dorian scale.)

◦ If you move this shape up a dorian scale, you get a total of 7 different shapes before it repeats. 

3 So we chose 7 shapes total and move them through that scale, then do this in all 12 keys, producing a total of 49 different shapes.

â—¦ These shapes can be a little 3-note shape, or they can also be full two-hand voicings as well, so you are practicing all sorts of shapes.

4 Finally, we do a 3-day cycle:

â—¦ Day 1: Dominant 7ths

â—¦ Day 2: Minor 7ths

â—¦ Day 3: Major 7ths

5 Taylor clarified: it's just one kind of chord per day, so the context keeps changing. He also emphasized that it’s not about memorizing individual voicings, but about getting the physical shapes of the different chords in your hands and ears as you move diatonically.

 

If you didn't see the full episode yet, I highly recommend it:

 

Taylor Eigsti - Jazz Lab Episode 8 (https://youtu.be/N5trGwzrGUA)

 

Now, if you've been interested in a course that contains all the most cutting edge jazz piano techniques I've personally ever learned or created, the good news is I packed my Jazz Piano EVOLUTIONS course full of them.

 

In JPE, you learn all about using dissonance tastefully, i.e. how to truly hear playing out, two hand improvisation techniques, and a whole bunch of techniques that I have shared only in this course.

 

JPE opens officially to Waitlisters on Saturday, and to the public on Sunday, for the first time in an entire YEAR!

 

If you're interested in the course and want to lock in a discount, make sure you'r

e on the course waitlist:

 

 

Talk soon,

 

-Noah


How to Reharmonize a Melody in REAL TIME

Today I'm covering one of the most sought-after skills an aspiring jazz pianist can have: how to reharmonize any melody on the spot. The ability to do so can completely open up your sound and expand your creativity over any tune you find yourself playing.


This exercise should help you to really hear alternate harmony at a more advanced level; I am also going to show you how to take a single melody note and find nearly endless harmonic options to play underneath. In other words, you'll leave today's video having the tools to create a unique chord progression under just one note.


To begin this exercise, you're going to want to choose one single melody note which is going to become the top note for all of our voicings. I've chosen F here, but I encourage you to try many different notes in your practice. Underneath this top melody note, we are simply going to move our bass note up chromatically, trying different options to harmonize with the melody. Once you have these two outer voices covered, we will fill in the space between with different chords. Continue moving the bass note up, and test your knowledge of what chords work with the two outer notes that you have playing together. As you go on, you'll being to see how our top melody note begins to take on different roles in each of the chords you create - from the root note, to the major seventh, a minor third, a sharp eleven, and so on.


The exercise doesn't have to stop there! Try some variations in the left hand changes - can you complete the same exercise, but moving up in whole steps instead of half steps? What about moving the bass note up in major thirds? These are all great ways to continue challenging yourself to come up with new chords and progressions beneath the same melody note.




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