Making chord voicing practice more musical

I use jazz voicings a lot in my routine. Dan Haerle’ s book Jazz Piano Voicings was the huge one for me — discovering chord shells opened the whole new world for me, and I’m still digging through it almost every session. But at some point you may find that simply taking a pair of voicings around the cycle of 4ths (or circle of 5ths) could be a bit boring and, well, its musicality wears out as you get used to the sound of these chords.

I try to keep my exercises musical (following Rick Beato’s advice), so I always combine Mr. Haerle’s skills with different left hand patterns. Currently I’m practicing broken 10ths and other extensions, so I use them as an accompaniment as I go around the circle, and sometimes throw in some block chords (in order to not to get lost in intervals). It embellishes the overall sound and allows me to work on both hands’ technique at the same time. Smarty pants, huh? Here’s what I mean.

Screenshot 2019-03-08 at 21.37.53.png

 

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