Rock and Roll Chord Voicing Tips

Video Transcript

In this clip, we're going to be talking about how to properly voice the chords that you're playing so that they sound right on the organ, and so that it fits within the rest of the band--you know, the rock and roll sound that you guys are getting. We've been using the really heavy--we've been using that really heavy sound for a lot of these examples. And that's a good one to use for this because we can learn about what to play and what not to play. If you are playing with two hands, you really need to simplify the left hand to the point that, say, you're playing an E Minor chord, you need to play, like if you're playing piano or if you're playing solo, typically piano because that's probably where most of you guys are coming from, you would play at least like the octave, the fifth and the octave again. So, you'd be playing, like that, for the chord, right? And that's ok. But if you got a bass player doing everything else, doing his part, and you never even know where the guitar player's going to be because you can't trust those guys, you definitely want to take this middle one out. Just play the root. Just start with the root for your left hand, which sounds a little bit cleaner. And especially when you get down here. When you get down to the lower octaves, you may not be able to hear that right with the speaker, with the microphone that we're using, but it's just the simpler you can get things, the better. And then, with the distortion that we have going on here, then that makes it--that muddies up that sound even a little bit more. So, you might just want to use one note for that bottom hand, if you are even using that at all. You'll get the hang of it. A lot of it is just a matter of listening to what everybody else is doing. Now, as far as the right hand goes, you can keep things simple. Use just your first position voicing, or whatever. One thing that I like to do is, as you're changing chords, you kind of find the note that you want to keep in there. So, let's say you're going like a C to a D Minor to an F. Right? So, normally, that would just be...or like this. One thing I like to do is just kind of hold the note in that's not exactly part of the chord, and this gets into like some crazy kind of music theories, so you just got to play the one that sounds right. So, I'm going to hold down, I'm going to keep this C in there during that D Minor, even though it's really not part of the chord, it just keep the whole thing--it makes it just kind of, instead of going chord, chord, chord, it makes it go--it give this kind of, I don't know, just this nasty transition between the things and kind of holds it all together. So,...well, I didn't do that exactly right, but you saw even I threw that G in there, which is interesting, too, because it's not in all those chords. Let's put that in there for some of them. It just--it gives a little bit more ambiguity to it, and it adds some texture and some color to the organ playing. And you're only playing three or four notes, and you saw that I brought the left hand in because there's no sustain pedal on the organ. So, when you're playing these chords, and you're adding these textures to it, don't be afraid to play one or two notes in that right hand "chord" with your left hand.

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