How to Play Upper Structure Triads on Piano

How to play upper structure triads on the piano? 1. Find the correct chord/chord-scale pairing for the chord. 2. Classify your notes into inside note and outside notes. 3. Within the inside notes determine which is the root, the guide-tones, and the available tensions 4. Find triads that are all built with inside notes and contain at least one available tension 5. Play that triad on your right hand while playing the root on the two guide tones on your left hand

February 25, 2022 0

Upper Structures over complete Jazz Standards Progressions

There are many ways to expand and develop a chord-voicings vocabulary. A standard approach is to stack simple structures (triads, quartals, dyads) on top of other simple ones, thus creating a richer color palette for your voicings. These structures are usually called Upper Structures. In the Upper Structures over complete Jazz Standards Progressions book collection... Continue Reading →

November 2, 2019 1

How to play chords using Upper Structure Triads. “An original approach by mDecks Music”

For a piano player, knowing how to voice chords is an essential skill, not only for comping (accompanying or laying the chord progression for others player to improvise over), but also to use those voicings as an improvisational aid. All piano players get many melodic ideas or lines from their voicings. Other instrumentalists also take... Continue Reading →

September 5, 2019 0

How to play Piano Voicings using Upper Structures. Introduction

Here's the complete lesson in video format https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8NmmG08M-k In this series we are going to talk about Piano Voicings, specifically voicings that use upper structures. It’s said that the average piano player spends 2 to 3 hours daily, searching for cool voicings over different chords and harmonic progressions. Finding new voicings, cataloguing, memorizing and... Continue Reading →