I learned this great harmonization technique which I picked up from my private studies with the late great Charlie Banacos in the mid 70's when I was a Berklee student and from taking a great arranging advanced course at the school, "Voicings Derived From Chord Scales. Also listening a lot to the various Bill Evans Trios and his transcription books, I learned how Bill could come up with a killer voicing by harmonizing a single melody note in different keys.

Once I learned the technique, it opened up many harmonic and reharmonizing tricks I could apply when experimenting with a variety of standard tunes. Anyway, I wanted to pass the technique along on the forum for jazz students who are searching for learning jazz harmony and how it could apply to arranging standard tunes.

The technique is in the intermediate/advanced category, meaning a student would need to know all the major, minor and modal scales and how they relate to each other in harmonic relationships. So anyway, here goes. Harmonizing the same/single melody note descending chromatically in all 12 keys. After getting into this, you could theoretically pick any single note on the piano/keyboard and come up with 12 different voicing, however you have to keep in mind the range of where you are and not get too far into the bass area where things could get really muddy fast.

So let's start with C, one octave above middle C and descend chromatically. I'll list one example, you try it and then try to come up with something on your own. I also recommend having music manuscript paper and tie bass/treble clef together to write out, play and memorize each voicing.

Ok. voicing one idea. Start with key of C. Remember, the top note C stays in the same position always for now. All the other notes that make up the voicing descend under the melody note C.

Voicing 1, Key of C. RH C G D LH A E C = C6/9.
Voicing 2, Key of B. RH C A G D# LH A B = B7 b9 b13.
Voicing 3, Key of Bb. RH C G D LH Ab Bb = Bb7 9 13.
Voicing 4, Key of A. RH C A F C# LH G A = A7 #9 b13.
Voicing 5, Key of Ab. RH C Bb F C LH Gb Ab = Ab7 9 13.
Voicing 6, Key of G. RH C A F C LH F G = F/G7.
Voicing 7, Key of F#. RH C A E C LH E F# = F# mi 7 (b5).
Voicing 8, Key of F. RH C Ab Eb LH Ab F = F mi7.
Voicing 9, Key of E. RH C G D LH D G# = E7 #9 b13.
Voicing 10, Key of Eb. RH C A F C LH G Eb (10th) = Eb 7 9 #11.
Voicing 11, Key of D. RH C F# D LH C F# D = D7 b9.
Voicing 12, Key of Db. RH C Ab Eb LH Bb Ab Db = Db Ma7 9 13.
And end on Key of C. RH C G D LH A G C = C 6/9.

This exercise can be a bit overwhelming in the beginning, especially if you are not used to it. But the more examples you try on your own, you will then be able to randomly pick a single note and harmonize it in all 12 keys and come up with some unique voicing. Also you could try harmonizing a single note and ascend chromatically.

I hope this little tutorial can be of some value to any jazz student who wants to learn more about jazz harmony, voicing and chord scales. Thanks, katt

This is a little edit that I wanted to include about this exercise. I taught jazz, blues and rock keyboards in a music store for over 8 years, plus had many private students. I assigned this exercise to some of my advanced students and they would come in to the next lesson and blow by mind with the stuff and ideas they came up with. I learned some new voicings from them.

Also around my first and second semester at Berklee, Bill Evans would get booked at The old Jazz Workshop Club, next to Paul's Mall with his trio and the piano was near the back of the bar near the bathroom. You had to pass the piano if you wanted to use the head. Anyway, 8 or 10 of us would literally stand right in back of Bill and could see how he played. He was on ground level, not on the stage. At that time I was just getting my 4 way close and block chord voicing requirements done for my proficiency exam we had to do every semester. But Bill had these very large hands and he was playing these complex spread voicings, usually a tenth in LH and filling up the voicing with various notes with his RH.When Bill was soloing, he was playing LH tritones and shell voicings as guide tones relevant to his improvisation. At that time, I was mesmerized and didn't have a clue what he was playing. But as time goes on with the studies, lessons, reading, transcribing, etc, things started to sink in. But it takes years to get it together. The voicing exercise I listed here is something Bill had mastered and applied to his style of playing.

Something like this?:

Nitekatt2008z, hi

I am glad you posted this tutorial. It is a really cool technique and when handled nicely it creates some nice colors. That one note reference creates a nice type of tension that holds on to the harmonic progression as it descends or ascends chromatically. For those who would like to hear it beautifully in action by Bill Evans, check out the bridge on Bill's playing of "Gary's Waltz". Really cool....(I believe he only descends 9 half steps to the key of C though...)

Bill Evans, "Gary's Waltz"

Great tutorial Nitekatt2008z!

Dan

Perfect Chris, you got it!! How did you post the notation graphic? I had the exercise written out and would have posted like you did. But some people don't read notation as well, so I just listed the notes. Since you understand the concept, now try an example with another single melody note and produce a chromatic ascending progression and see what other ideas you come up with. Thanks for the post.

katt

Thanks Dan, I hope the tutorial can give you some possible and new jazz harmonic ideas. I'll post some more examples when I have the time. Also, there are no absolute rules to follow, other than what your ear finds that works for you. katt

nitekatt, are the voicing intervals always fixed so you just memorize it? Or do you end up memorizing the chord quality based on the distance of the melody note from the root?

I'm just trying to understand how to remember this? I'm trying to look for some easy pattern. Someone tried to explain this to me long ago too and I still didn't get how to apply it in real time.

At least I can see now that voicing 7,8 and 12 are the only ones that are not dominant. So that's a start.

Edit- and it makes sense that every other dominant would be an ALT.

But I realize now that this is just your example. In theory, you just start with the root and fill in something in the middle?

Jazz, the voicings could include drop 2, drop 2 & 4, spreads with R-b7 LH RH top melody note plus whatever notes you like, clusters, etc. No rules or patterns. other than trying to keep the same top melody note and make up the voicing by adding the additional notes under the top note. Today I am setting up a set with the Eb above middle C as the melody tone and then harmonize that set in all 12 keys. I'll post when finished. I'm seeing this exercise could possibly get to infinity with the possibilities.

Also as I stated, it's best to notate all 12 voicings and write in the chord tones or relative scale degree of what the harmonic structure relates to. In fact you could start a notebook of just this exercise and practice the voicings in tunes. katt

I have to ask though. Instead of a randomized concept of chord substitutions for melody notes, from experience though, aren't there a collection of subs that seem to work based on the chord that follows and chord that precedes? Or is each individual deemed to have to start from scratch in this process?

Otherwise, like you said, there seems to be infinite choices and in which case, it's like a hunt and peck system.

Since most of the subs are deemed to be Dominants, then one could automatically cycle through the diminished cycle to identify several possibilities already (of alternate dominants).

I've never done this before but if I were on a piano right now, I'd probably try variations with just chromatically moving a 3 note voicing on the LH 1-b7 and some moving center note (#11 or 5 maybe). Does that work?

Jazz, feel free to use this exercise as a stepping stone to your own goals for jazz harmonies and any modifications. Again, no rules here to start other than first try to harmonize one melody note at a time up and down the piano/keyboard and write out your examples or you will probably not remember some hip chord you came up with that could be applied to a standard tune.

What is interesting about this concept is, since you are harmonizing the same melody in all 12 keys, some will work, some won't. This is where you might change the notes around until you get the sound you might be hearing. There will be blissful dissonance, pleasant melodious motifs.

Let me show you an example of the concept applied to a standard, "Days of Wine in Roses" in F.

The melody has a pickup on beat 4 C to A. F ma 7 is the first chord. Now since A is a whole note, a possibility of harmonizing the A could be F ma 7 E mi 7 11 Eb 7 (#11). So now you have harmonized 3 different voicings using A as the top melody note, but each A establishing a different tonality related to the voicing.

When I was at Berklee, Oscar Peterson was in Boston to give a concert and he stopped by the school auditorium to give a lecture, play and then gave a brief "master class." I was lucky enough to be one of the students that crowded the stage and surrounded Oscar in a circle to gain a glimpse of his genius at the Yamaha Concert Grand. He demonstrated this exact concept of randomly asking students to call out one melody note and then he harmonized it in all 12 keys. At that time my brain was spinning and I hadn't a clue what he was doing. After about 25 years of playing it out, it starts sinking in so it can be used and applied in many situations.. katt

Hey nitekatt, a more simplistic application I just did while I was practicing was to harmonize the in between notes in the melody to just ANYTHING.

I used Stella by Starlight. What I did here was play the entire melody as block chords but ended on the actual chord for the tune on the longer notes. I found that I could pretty much pick any 1-b7 shell for any key for the in between melody notes and it sounded good! It sounded like it was resolving to whatever the main melody note was.

So at least I got the LH semi figured out. Then I looked at harmonizing the RH under the melody note using various intervals like a third below or less. Now this was a little harder to remember and could not be random, it appears.

Now at the time I'm playing it, I'm a not actually checking what chord quality I'm using against the melody although it is obviously some dominant. It didn't seem that it was important to know at the moment though since a lot of it seems to work, even I just moved chromatically to my target chord (the actual chord).

This kind of playing reminded me of a lot players and I wondered how they got that sound. And now I realize how do they do it.

But the neat thing about doing this was I got a sense of freedom that I could really go anywhere and play anything. As long as the LH voicing as an open shell, it was pretty hard to get anything to sound bad.

Now my experimentation here is not so extreme since I still resolve to the original chord and I'm not using dense voicings. But it's a start. Am I doing this right?

This looks like what I was doing. One of the chords was still the original chord, the rest was harmonized.

Jazz you are on your journey now, a new path of discovery in learning unique possibilities of jazz harmony. Your example of using "Stella" is perfect to apply some of these concepts and finding sub changes and options to the regular changes. In theory, you could experiment harmonizing the entire "Stella" melody in all 12 keys as far as the voicing technique because it's mainly based on whole, half and quarter notes. I still recommend to notate your changes to keep track of where you are at.

There is no question that Bill Evans was so harmonically advanced using this type of concept to reharmonize his arrangements on standards. I read he would spend months on tunes, trying out a variety of harmonizations and playing in several keys. I studied with a great teacher in LA who would show me endless possibilities harmonizing tunes like "Over The Rainbow, The Christmas Song and Danny Boy." He also would apply inner voices like Bill Evans had mastered which took it to another higher and complex level. katt

Chromatic bass motion is one way to creatively harmonize tunes. (In tunes the melody notes are generally not the same recurring note.)

RULE:

A melody note can be re-harmonized based on any note in the chromatic scale. (The quality of each chord -- major, dominant, minor, altered, suspended, and so on -- is not arbitrary)

Related techniques:
A bass line that moves around the cycle of fifths
Chromatically ascending bass line

OK - forgive my ignorance - taking this analysis further. Some of the chord qualities dictate that it be a dominant as I indicated below. However, it seems to me that 9, 3, 5, 13 don't necessarily have to be dominant. And some others have more than one possibiity. Am I wrong?


b9 - Alt
9 - ? Any Chord Quality?
#9 - Alt
3 - ? Major 7 or Dominant?
11 - Sus or min 7
#11 - Lydian Dom. or Alt, or -7b5
5 - ? Major, Minor, Dominant?
#5 - Alt
13 - ? Major or Dominant?
b7 - 7(9)(13)
7 or maj/min

Using the upper tone as a pivot point is a really cool technique, like in turnarounds:

Chris, how do you post your images of notations here on the forum? Do you have to have an independent site to store graphics files to do the uploads? If so, could you please give us a link? Thanks katt

I have my own site. That's where I put my images, then I just link the images using the Full Reply Screen.

You know the point of the exercise is to prepare you so you can use chromatic bass motion to harmonize standard tunes in real time without pre-arranging it

I have a bassist to do that.

Well clearly this is simpler than it seemed. Since most of the bass fits a Root-b7 shell, there's not much thinking required for a basic LH voicing. And chromatic approaches seem easy to remember. It's really only a question of what to fill in in-between, particularly with the RH. Plenty of them harmonize well on the RH with a note a 3rd below. I just saw a few exceptions. And when in doubt, don't harmonize a note in between when uncertain.

This is my quickie way of implementing this and it didn't require pre-arranging.

It's a great solo piano styling.

Jazz and the other cats, here is another approach to apply the jazz harmony concept on a tune.


Ok. Since the cats who responded and are interested in this jazz harmonic exercise, it's time to take it up a notch to another level. Now is the time to do the exercise in all 12 keys, but with only the same top melody note. I would concentrate on one key a week, take your time, and when you have a voicing you like, either record it and or notate it for reference. It's also possible you might have more than 12 voicings. And you don't necessarily have to play the root of the voicing in LH, as long as you are aware of what key you are in. If you are playing or learning solo jazz or cocktail piano or plan to just accompany a singer, then playing the chord root is fine. If you are in a group situation and have a bass player, then they can play the root of the voicing.

If you take one key per week chromatically, that's 12 weeks and you have just added 144 new voicings to your plan! Also, this is an accelerated way to really learn to play in all 12 keys and learn your way around those 88 notes with ease. Also, I would just stick to descending harmonic motion for the 12 weeks and then move on to ascending motion.

Let's apply the concept now to Autumn Leaves in G minor, Mile's key. This is a good tune to work with because the melody is mainly whole and quarter notes.

I'm going to give you the first eight bars, using mainly 2 voicings per bar. Again, since I haven't found a way yet to upload notation, I'll just give you the notes of each voicing for LH/RH. Try to get a chart or lead sheet of AL in G minor.

So I'm going to spell out 14 voicings using the single melody note, with the exception of harmonizing the parts of the melody that has 4 quarter notes.

The changes for the first 8 bars are: C mi7,F#7 9 13, F 9 11, F7 9 13, Bb ma7, E7b9, Eb ma7, Bb7 13, A mi7 (b5), Eb 13 #11, D7 b9, G mi7, B ma7, and end on G7#9 b13.

Bar 1, 2 voicings in half notes Cmi7 LH C Bb RH Eb G Bb Eb (top melody note)
F#7 9 13 LH E Bb RH D# G# D# (Eb)
Bar 2, 2 voicings F9 11 LH F Bb RH Eb G Bb Eb
F7 9 13 LH Eb A RH D F C
Bar 3, 2 voicings Bbma7 LH Bb F A RH D G D
E7 b9 LH E G# RH D F G# D
Bar 4, 2 voicings Eb ma7 9 LH Eb G (10th) RH C F Bb D
Bb7 13 LH Bb Ab RH D G D
Bar 5, 2 voicings Ami7 (b5) LH A G RH Eb C
Eb 13 #11 LH Eb G RH C F A C
Bar 6, 1 voicing D7b9 LH F# C RH Eb C

Bar 7, 2 voicings Gmi7 LH G F Bb RH D Bb
Bma7 LH Bnat Eb Ab RH Db Gb Bb

Bar 8, 1 voicing G7 #9 b13 LH G F RH Bnat Eb G Bb

Now the rest is up to you to experiment on coming up with your own sound using the concept. I'm only giving my one example. There are many other possibilities. katt

So Katt -- again simplifying your explanation, your approach here on many of the bars it seems is to chromatically approach the next chord. That's easy enough to figure out the root of the chord to use. Then you made it really interesting on bar 7/8. More unexpected there.

BTW - on your original example of voicing 11 (b7), you had indicated b9 there but that's not implied by the melody, nor did you use a b9 in the chord.

Hi Katt, forgive the questions as I want to really know if I'm understanding this. On Voicing 11, since the melody note is a b7, it would mean that you could voice the dominant any way you want. I suppose it could even be a minor 7 or half dim too. Just note that your example didn't voice the Eb, but I understand that you could have.

The difficulty in doing this in real time is if the melody notes are shorter than a half note and there's not sufficient time to figure it out harmonically. I realize it's different if worked out in advance.

The difficult is in filling in the middle harmony. Doing a Root-b7 on the LH is a no brainer. Figuring out what the chord is and harmonizing it within a beat is a little challenging if you haven't thought of it before

However, it seems like harmonizing the RH can be memorized. Several cases of Perfect 4ths, thirds, and minor 3rd below the melody can be figured out. I have to admit though that when actually playing, some of it comes out without thinking but maybe I'd get a wrong note here or there (if playing this in real time).

Can you come up with these full voicings in real time? Is it automatic? And tips on quickly developing the middle voices?

Hey jazz. Although the C melody note and the chord that already is the 5 chord of the Gm D7b9, the voicing works. Of course there are other possibilities to explore. Since bar 11 has a 4 quarter note melody, it's not always necessary to harmonize all the melody notes, especially if you are playing uptempo tunes.

The middle or inner voices of a voicing could be be made up of chord tones, tensions, etc. An experienced jazz pianist will have an arsenal of voicings to apply in real time after spending years at the piano learning, experimenting and practicing them on tunes. katt

We were playing Autumn Leaves at a jam last night and I ended up harmonizing the solo. But I remembered what we discussed here and I forgot to apply some of those chromatic bass line moves. I'll woodshed and remember next time. But won't it be more of a challenge doing it on a free flowing solo and also not clashing with the rhythm section if I vary from the original changes?

Autumn Leaves - Jam
http://www.box.net/shared/cao2b53lxb00mycj1me4

Hey jazz, Cool jam you guys had on AL, a latin feel with harmonica, guitar, etc. You have to keep in mind if you are playing with another chordal instrument like guitar, your comping voicings will be different than when playing in a trio or solo piano venue. Also if a singer is involved, a piano player should avoid playing the melody..

And also, you have ta tune. o keep in mind you have only been studying this concept for a short time and it will take a lot more time of practicing the concept until you get all 12 keys down, It could take 3 months or 3 years, who knows. But there is no time limit. Sometimes I keep a voicing sheet on the opposite of a lead sheet on voicings I plan using on to refresh my memory. Also you have seen on charts, play regular changes on melody, then there are the "blowing" changes which could be different. katt

Yeah but thinking about conflicts on the spot between the guitar, bass and whatever reharm you're doing, that's too iffy.

I guess this stuff (chromatic reharms) are better done on a pretty sparse bass. In my case, with a guitar player, I'm limited really to more diatonic voicings.

But really this style is more for solo piano or on rubato intros. I was doing just block chord playing (which I rarely ever do but felt like doing it last night).

Jazz, I wouldn't think of the melodic harmonizing as a style per se, but rather a learning technique to build up an understanding of sound and how voicings work in all 12 keys. Stay at it and you'll see results soon that will filter into your playing almost on auto pilot. katt