"Metaphors for The Musician" , which chapter in Randy Halberstadt's book covers the 2+2 voicing system?

34. Page 228

Does this mean drop 2 voicing ?

No, it's a simple way to harmonize a melody where the LH plays 1-3 or 1-7 while the RH plays melody and the other 3 or 7 under.

2+2 is an excellent way way to harmonize a melody:
The LH plays 1-3 or 1-7
The RH plays melody and the RIGHT HAND THUMB plays 3 or 7 under the melody.

It ends up with the same notes a s in Levine's Chapter 3 "Three Note Voicings" , but the allotment between the hands is different

2+2 (Halberstadt)
1+3 (Levine)

Hi Knotty and Jazz+
Thanks very much for your clear explanation.
I just tried it for the 1st time with D min7, G7.
If I were to minimise LH movement, I might use a 1-7 for the D min7 and then a 1-3 for the G7 in my LH.
But just say the RH melody note is A (over the G7), then this might require me to stretch a 9th in my RH, do you agree ? I can't reach a 9th.

I agree
Your counter movement of the lh is good
You could play F G in te rh

I never noticed the bit about levine
I always played that chapter as 2+2, not knowing about MFTM
I wiuld think that's how everybody does it

F to A is a 9th? It's a 10th if you are talking about the A that is 13 keys above middle C . Is that what you mean? please be specific.

Play left hand 1-3 for D-7
and left hand 1-7 for G7

You can leave the right thumb note out. Or, play the right thumb B an octave higher and you can reach the high A melody. Or, play a higher position for the whole voicing.
... or suddenly switch to Levine's 1+3 (it's the same 4 notes just a different hand assignment).

Hi Knots
Thanks a lot for confirming I'm on the right track.

Hi Jazz +
Thanks for your suggestion for the G7. I just tried it and liked it. LH 1-7 and RH B,A sound good.

Do you dudes use this when improvising ?
Or do you use it more for when you pre-plan how you will play the head or when you write an arrangement ?

This technique works well and is simple enough that you don't need to really write down an arrangement. It's a good play to play a tune off a fake book.

Thanks Knots !
Yet another question from me.

Do you tend to use this for plain/ vanilla chords ?
For chords where you want to have a color e.g. min 4th, do you tend to do normal 4-note chords with your LH ?

Yeah
2+2 is chapter 1
Now you.re taking about the other 567 chapters

The easiest place to add tension is the dominant, you can really do a lot there. You can add 9, 13 or 5 and alter all these.
You also do a tritone sub or add passing sus chords.
When you find one you like, adding drop 2 opens it up a lot for solo piano

Thanks for your cool answer Knotty.

custard

what do you mean by normal 4 note LH chords?
We are talking about a solo piano texture with 2+2, also , not combo with a bass player voicings (4 note LH voicings?).
The next addition to 2+2 is to add the right index finger on the 9th or 5th so then it becomes 2+3

That's cool Jazz +.
To continue from the G7 example with A as the melody note, if I want to add a 4, I would usually play G B C F with my LH
(that's what I meant as a 4 note chord).
Doing it the 2+3 way (I didn't know this terminology before), I would play G F with my LH and B C A with my RH, creating a more open sounding chord.
I like this sound a lot.
Thanks for explaining the next step on from 2+2.

Jazz + and Knotty
How does drop 2 then fit in ?
If I drop the C so as to play it in my LH, do I then play the F with my RH (along with B C A) and leave out the root G ?
Or can my LH play G C G ?

This is very illuminating
I have explored levines three note voicings system but glossed over it favoring the rootless voicings and I tend to alternate these with chords built on the the third and fifth of the root.
only to later discover that the three note voicings render a satisfying sound.
and now I am attempting to back pedal to get those melodic concepts under my belt.

I have always used left hand shells 1+3 1+7 1+10 1+9 1+5



but my left hand always played a much thickeer chord which didnt always sound good. eithere a rootless voicing or a chord built on the third or fifth

chord systems are a great way to get an arranger started and I am sorry I didnt nail down this levine system or even this 2+2 system earlier.
I will attempt to do an arrangement of alice and wonderland
since I already play this rootlesess voicing wise.

I was wondering with this approach what do pianists typically do if they are playing with a bass player. Do they just not play the bottom note? Or would they use a different rootless voicing? Just wondering what is usually done here.

Cus, I think you mean D, not C.
C would make a sus chord, which is nice, but without the B, and you can resolve that to a B.

If you do drop 2, you can add the bass or not, that's up to you. In many cases, it works not to have it. And the sound is generally very open.

Ken,
The chapter goes on about various configurations. But basically yes, you'd play rootless voicings.

Hi Knotty
So do you generally drop down a 1,3,5 or 7 rather than an extension ?

The reason I said C was that it ended up as the 2nd top note for my example of the RH chord being G B C F where I used the 4 as a color note.

I guess what I was asking was is it normal for a pianist if playing with a bass to convert the 2+2 or 2+3 to a 1+2 or 1+3 by not playing the left pinky, or would that be considered kind of like a hack.

Cus,

you can drop anything you want. Some are just going to sound better than other. There's such a thing as Drop 3.
Lets say a 2 hand chord might be
G C D F A for you Gsus with A in the melody. Drop 2 might not work great here, but drop 3 would have a very nice open sound.
D G C F A. Sometimes known as So What.
Just take a chord under your melody, and try dropping either 2nd or 3rd from the top. You get surprising nice open sounds.

Ken,
I think it would be more typical to do what you said earlier, which is to play rootless voicings. But you do what you can.

Hi Knotty
Thanks for your D G C F A example. Yes that's a nice distribution of the notes to create an open sound.
So it seems to me that drops are all about voicings, I am free to use the notes in whatever order to create the desired sound.

Thanks. One thing I notice with 2+3 is that it doesn't really work when for large intervals like when you have a chord progression like DMI7 G7 | C / | GMI7 C7 etc. It goes too high on the piano. What do pianists do in cases like that? Do they play another kind of voicing system, or maybe play a different kind of 2+3?

Ken,

I'm not sure what you mean. You can certainly play the LH lower on the keyboard. In that case, for the g-7|C7, I might play the C-E of the C7 one octave below middle C. Rootless voicings can be like that do, get in the way. Randy's got a little trick about that too. Essentially, you choose an inversion that works good. For example, an F#-7 might work better starting on the 7, than starting on the 3rd. Same with G-7. A closer type voicings works generally better because starting on 3 and stacking 3rd goes up too high.
Unless you are accompanying, and then those wider chords work better.

Cus,
The old saying that it's good as long as it sounds good applies here.
The buckets such as So What voicing / Drop 2 / 3 make it easier for us to categorize voicings, and learn them. In the end, you will most likely have your favorite voicings, and refine them.
Levine's got an entire book about Drop voicings btw, but I don't own it.

I actually meant the interval going from the C to the GMI7. Basically there are times when playing through the changes that there is a large interval and playing the same 2+3 voicing sounds too high when you take it up the keyboard, or too low when taking it down. So I guess you would change the voicing in some way. Like instead of playing 1 7 3 5 9 play something else. I was just wondering what that would typically be. Like you say probably an inversion, a less open voicing.

If you folks spend the time to master 2+2 and 2+3 and 1+3 on a wide variety of tunes, lots of ballads especially, then you probably would be figuring out the answers to all these questions on your own.

Yup that is next on the agenda. After Lady Bird, Knotty has given me Beautiful Love.
I just like to pick Knotty's brains as he's got a lot of them to dish out around the world.

I do think that there's a good value in simply playing through half a dozen tunes and applying 2+2.
The Levine book has a nice selection of such tunes in chapter 3. Several Coltrane tunes like Giant Steps, Countdown and Moment's notice I think. Tune up, Darn that Dream, Come Sunday, Little B's Poem and a few more. If you apply 2+2 to all those tunes, you'll have all the answers you need. Should take just a couple of week to record all those tunes (have them nice and polished). And then you'll have 2+2 for good.

Yes, same here. No harm in asking questions.

Ken,

I still don't really see the problem with that progression though, which is quite standard I should say. If you want to show me the notes, I can take a look and see if I'd do things differently.

Try 2+2 then 1+3 on every ballad in the Real Book

Hey Knots
Do you recommend I buy the Levine book or Randy's Metaphors book to learn and apply these buckets of 2+2, 2+3, drop 2, drop 3 ?

I love both these books. They are great.
For learning 2+2 and 2+3, you really don't need either. Those are quite simple concepts. Drop2 is covered quite a bit in the Jazz piano book.

Both books are not the same, they don't have the same goal. Metaphors is more like talking to a teacher, he gives a lot of great tips. Many are in line with JOI.
Levines' is more of an encyclopedia of voicings and scales. More of a theory book. Both are well written, but the jazz Piano book is really superior in terms of writing.

You know when I learnt the 2+3 voicing, it was within the context of the A/B rootless voicing and drop 2.

My teacher basically got me to play the rootless voicing in the right hand, drop the 2nd note to the left hand thumb alla drop 2, and play the bass note with the pinky in the left hand. Its essentially the same 2+3 voicing but allows you to think about it in terms of the basic rootless voicing. Curious if other people do it the same way

Fair enough. I guess I was just looking for a different option that would be more like voice leading rather than jumping up a 5th. I came up with a few options.
- Play 2+2 instead of 2+3
- Drop the top note an octave
- Drop 2

I learnt about 2+2 and 2+3 from Jazz Keyboard for Pianists and Non-Pianists by Jerry Coker many years ago when I first started using piano so that is the two handed voicing I use.

s_winitsky, I never thought of it like that.

I graviate towards the 6+6

I've been using the 2+2 (aka shell voicings) as the base (not bass) for my solo playing. What I've been working on lately is playing this way without look down. The goal is to be able to play any tune from a fakebook solo.



If you play the root and seventh in the left hand, you can play the B and A in the right. Or you can use a rootless or other voicing whenever you come to a problem like this.



I rarely use this approach when playing with a bass player.
That was an epiphany I had: You don't need to use the 2+2 for every chord. Check out this video:





As long as you only play a few chords up high, I think it sounds great. That is, it provides some variety from having the chords in the same area of the keyboard.

Thanks for sharing -- most helpful!