How Bill Evans plays the most colorful chords

This weeks workshop: This Friday we're continuing our series on My Romance, adding colors to major and minor chords. RSVP below.

Reader,

What does it mean to play "colorful notes?"

The 4 notes of a 7th chord are safe. They’ll never clash. But they don’t move the music forward either.

When we extend or alter chords, we introduce “tensions.” They create dissonance, the kind of sound beginners often fear because out of context dissonance feels like a mistake.

But in the hands of a skilled player, dissonance is opportunity. Tension and release create movement and satisfying resolution.

​Last week we explored this on dominant chords, whose job is to create tension and set up resolution. This week we are adding those tension colors to major and minor chords, harmony that usually feels resolved.

That's going to take a bit more exploration and experimentation. So, lets start by taking at the king of colorful voicings, Bill Evans, and how he plays the opening line of our tune this week:

Bill Evans on My Romance

From Here's how Bill plays the opening line of My Romance from the Album Waltz for Debby.

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Here's a few things to keep an eye on in this.

1. Both times he played the G7 dominant chord, he voiced it two ways in sequence. In both cases, he started with a "smoother" voicing (sus or non-altered) and moved into a much more colorful, dissonant altered chord.
2. Look for dissonant intervals (major and minor 2nds, major 7ths, tritones ), and then look where they go. For example, check out the left hand over the F major chord. Its a cluster of 4 whole steps. But then, one beat later, that cluster "expands" into a simple, root position E minor 7.
3. Bill loves to put dissonances in his left hand thumb. Like that E minor 7, where he plays both the D and E together with one finger. Or the E/F on the Eb dim.

What else do you see? Bring your observations to the workshop this week.

RSVP For the My Romance Workshop

This Friday at 1pm Eastern, Sep 5, on Zoom. The workshop is free, just please let us know you are coming.

We'll be working on these movements over major and minor chords, exploring tension within individual chords, and how to exploit that to create beautiful movement.