Music never ceases to amaze me. I've been playing with using the fourth in a major key with the third. Here I've stuck close to half step and fifth voicings (bottom up), for example, I'm in the key of E, so my voicing would be 3-4-8(1) or G#-A-E. I can use the same voicing for the five chord too. I stick to this shape voicing throughout the piece.
I've purposely stayed away from using this type sound for the typical theoretical reasons - not using fourths and fifths together as (more so in major) the fourth is such a strong leading/passing tone to the third. Of course as a jazz player you get used to all these half step voicings and sounds, but this one I've come around to later than most others. I think part of the reason is my heightened interest in folk music of late. In fact I think this sound is rather distinctive to folk music. As I was playing this today I was thinking about americana music and also how this could be used in a Joni Mitchell tune or the like. It also gets the piano to sound a bit like a guitar.
In a past post I played and talked about resolving to the fourth note in a major key. This fits in with that for sure. I think Joni uses this too as I think back to what I perceived back then as quirky but cool sounding resolutions. I have designs on blues, minimalist, and folk album projects I hope to start recording soon, and this technique can be used in these and any genre of music I can think of.
I've purposely stayed away from using this type sound for the typical theoretical reasons - not using fourths and fifths together as (more so in major) the fourth is such a strong leading/passing tone to the third. Of course as a jazz player you get used to all these half step voicings and sounds, but this one I've come around to later than most others. I think part of the reason is my heightened interest in folk music of late. In fact I think this sound is rather distinctive to folk music. As I was playing this today I was thinking about americana music and also how this could be used in a Joni Mitchell tune or the like. It also gets the piano to sound a bit like a guitar.
In a past post I played and talked about resolving to the fourth note in a major key. This fits in with that for sure. I think Joni uses this too as I think back to what I perceived back then as quirky but cool sounding resolutions. I have designs on blues, minimalist, and folk album projects I hope to start recording soon, and this technique can be used in these and any genre of music I can think of.