The Bill Evans major chord move on Blue in Green

Reader,

This is Part 2 of a series on Bill Evans inner voice movements. In part 1 we learned a movement on minor chords. This week, I want to show you a super simple move for a major chord.

Don't let the simplicity of this turn you off of it. It's a crucial sound worth practicing in every key.

Here's a simple movement for a major 7 chord.

On our minor chords, we discussed ways to introduce tension into a chord, by starting with one of the notes "out of place" and then resolving it down "where it belongs."

This movement on major is the same idea. We're going to start by substituting the 5th of our chord with the 6th. This puts the chord slightly in tension, and when we resolve it back down to the fifth, the chord settles.

This simple move down a whole step is classic, but there are other variations of this move you can make by exploring this tension with some melodic movements. Like this:

The Wednesday Woodshed

Here are the three things you should practice to get this sound into your playing this week.

1. Play my first example above. See if you can recognize the movement potential in the 6th. It's not nearly as harsh of a tension as we heard in the minor one, but it has movement just the same.
2. Take this through the circle of fifths, playing this same 2-5-1 in all 12 keys, in both A and B voicings.
3. Explore different melodic movements like in our 2nd example, by trying these in whatever song you are currently learning. See if you can make this inner voice melody a response to the melody of the song.

We're learning The Nearness of You in our Zoom workshops. That tune is full of 2-5's where you can work this in. How are you going to play it?

Workshop this Friday, June 12

This Friday is our last week working on Nearness of You. We'll be putting all 3 of the different parts together, coordinating them between our hands. Josh is at an event this week, so this week will be guest hosted by Martyn.

You are signed up, so I'll see you Friday, June 12, at 1:00 Eastern.

Happy Practicing,