Block chord

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Block chords are notated chords or voices in the octave range below the melody in order to build a four-part harmonized melody. Playing on the piano is also called the locked hands style , because the right and left hands share a single chord, which often goes beyond four voices, and lead it in parallel in the same direction. Block chords with an octave doubled melody are often used to support swinging melody lines so that they can stand out from the rhythmic background. The pianist Milt Buckner is considered to be the developer of the block chord style of playing . An early master of this technique was the pianist George Shearing , who gave it his name: "Shearing Voicings ".

Block chords can be found succinctly in the play of Red Garland and Bobby Timmons , varied in Phineas Newborn Jr. and Lennie Tristano , who maintains distinct block chord sequences in alternation with his typical "linear" style.

Brass sections in big bands can be performed in block chords, for example with Glenn Miller ("Moonlight Serenade", since 1938), with the late Count Basie Orchestra and with Thad Jones .

methodology

  • General block chord (Generic block chord). It is played as described above.
  • Double melody (commonly called shearing voicing) with an additional fifth voice, the melody doubled an octave lower
  • Deep octave of the second part (drop 2, strictly speaking no more block chord), the second part, counted from the upper part, is played an octave lower (dropped). This results in a much clearer sound, as high dissonances are eliminated.

If the melody note is already a chord tone of the underlying chord, chord-specific tones are also used for the remaining three voices.

The technique is suitable for diatonic (non-chromatic) melodies and uses diminished chords for non- chordal notes of the melody. If the melody note is interpreted as a passage tone , the harmony is formed with a diminished or a chromatically shifted chord. Before the harmonies are formed, triads can be added to form sixth chords , but this is not a fixed rule.

Audio file / audio sample Milt Buckner Locked Hands Style [1] ? / i

In principle, the whole diatonic scale can be harmonized with a sixth chord. For the simple basic principle, a simple triad is therefore extended to a sixth chord, then you already have four chord-specific tones of the scale. The reduced chord takes on the function of the dominant , thus has (below the second line in the first example) function harmoniously the sequence I - V - I - V - I ... Therefore, one can ensure also altered dominant use, and even a minor chord, the second stage intermediate slide until the harmonic sequence bIII - II - V - I is obtained. The bIII chord - diminished or not - substitutes the VI chord (chord of the sixth degree). You then have a VI - II - V - I turnaround . However, this is an extension of the technology described here. Barry Harris uses the tone selection of the two chords I and II dim in a different way for his bebop scale .

Another pianist famous for his block chords was Red Garland , who used seven- to eight-part block chords, often striking a particular chord rhythmically in the left hand (low notes) while doubling the melody to an octave in the right; he often added one or two other notes (di fifth) in between. It's not a virtuoso variant, but it can still sound good. There are some fine examples of this on the recordings in his trio, with John Coltrane or the Miles Davis Quintet.

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Even for young jazz pianists (e.g. Geoff Keezer ) it is now standard practice to harmonize the melody in parallel chords. One or more octaves can be left between the low and the high chord.

Examples

The following is an example of harmonizing a C major scale into block chords. The example uses three diminished chords with the melody notes D, F and H. In the second line, the diminished chord in G sharp is added. This results in a rhythmically symmetrical harmonization of this key, and two additional semitones that can be used melodically by using all four diminished chords:

Example of harmonization

The next example shows how a melody in F is led in block chords using one of the three methods described above:

Example of a melody in block chords

Clif Kuplen points out that each diatonic scale extended by an eighth chromatic tone can be harmonized with only two block chords by playing the tones 1357 and 2468 alternately. This technology is used, among other things, in bebop , where z. E.g. in a C major scale the G sharp is used as the eighth tone. Due to the five possibilities by which accidental one can supplement a diatonic scale, there are a total of five such harmonizations.

variants

Modified diminished chord of the block chord technique

Mark Levine suggests changing the Drop 2 voicings for the diminished. It increases the third tone from the top by a whole tone, which falls into the same whole tone semitone scale. This allows the characteristic diminished sound to be broken up and enriched under control by the ear (you get major thirds in minor, but the diminished chord brings a sub-second).

Bobby Timmons brings block chords in the major octave with the root note at the bottom when changing the chords diminished in the left hand, while he can leave the melody in the right much simpler and improvise over blues scales with a diminished fifth, which can also be used in the simplest form with the possible any diminished chords that occur.

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  1. ^ Billy Taylor : Jazz Piano. A jazz history. Trade edition. WC Brown Co. Publishers, Dubuque IA 1983, ISBN 0-697-09959-8 (Includes the example).
  2. ↑ Expanded Chord Scales
  3. ^ Mark Levine: The Jazz Piano Book. Advance Music, Rottenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89221-040-3 .
  4. ↑ Online lessons from Geoff Keezer, for a fee

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