Talk:Voicing (music)
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This article is a complete waste of space. The aesthetic ramifications of choosing different voicings is inappropriate for an article like this, which should focus on explaining what voicings are. The fundamental concept isn't explained at all (or rather is mis-explained). I'm inclined to trash the whole article and start over, but I don't want to get caught in an edit war like I guess happened with the Inversion page. 69.235.206.113 08:00, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I went ahead and wrote an article for this. It's a good start, though some subsections might benefit from more detail. At least the actual concept is presented now. Some examples would be good though, both on piano and guitar, especially with a discussion of two-handed piano voicings and how alternate tunings and fret-board layout affect guitar voicings. Guitar voicings could be (and perhaps is, I didn't check) an entire other article, of course. On piano, there are entire systems of how to devise voicings, and it might be reasonable to mention them (I know of two, I assume there are others). Also, I was really focused on instruments that play chords, and didn't really talk about arranging for string or brass. Anybody who wants to go through and add links, that would be great. I was just trying to replace the utter junk that was there before with a reasonable start. 69.235.206.113 10:10, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
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- Right now, I'm not sure if it's more hassle than it's worth. I just saw a particularly poor article which had a request for somebody who knew something about the subject to help out. I won't claim that what I wrote was amazing, but I think it was cogent, mostly. I'm not a super music theory expert, being particularly weak with counterpoint and the classical approach, and I don't know how they might do a treatment on the subject. I come from the Mark Harrison school of music theory (author of "Contemporary Music Theory" vol I-III), and would be quite content to see the contemporary viewpoint presented alongside the classical viewpoint (if they even have much to say on the subject). Also, the article may be misnamed, as I am only really talking about chord voicings. If people use the term "voicings" in other contexts, though, I've not heard it, and I would expect the article to be named "Chord_voicings" or "Voicings (chord)" or somesuch. Finally, the study of voicings is deep, and I'm not sure what level of detail you consider appropriate for an article like this. Voicing techniques vary by instrument and potentially warrant their own articles, if their is enough interest. That would allow the main article to merely explain what voicings are and defer all examples and discussion of how voicings are created/chosen to individual instrument articles. Anyway, I'll keep an eye on this to see your response, and if things seem to be sufficiently collegial, then I'll log in. 69.235.224.93 18:27, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Jimmy Amadie wrote a great book on piano chord voicing technique. It is titled "Harmonic Foundation for Jazz and Popular Music". He uses a five note voicing technique that greatly simplifies piano chord voicings for jazz musicians. (http://www.jimmyamadie.com/) I learned this technique from Frank Puzzullo of Ball State University who was a Jazz piano instructor there back in 1997 (http://www.bsu.edu/music/profile/0,2017,5216-1182-168172,00.html). A crude summary of his approach is as follows: Choose two notes from the chord for your left hand, which can be the root and the 3rd, root and 5th, root and 7th, or the root and the 10th. You can even use the 3rd and 7th because the bass player will normally cover the root. Next you pick three notes for the right hand. You should try not to double any notes. So if you chose the root and 5th in the left hand, then you would play the 3rd, 7th, and 9th in the right hand. This works for any chord. This book is full of exercises and great examples of piano chord voicings. 214.13.173.15 00:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Appalling little article
This is an embarrassment, and should be deleted or completely rewritten. The tone is wrong, the information uncited, prescriptive, and shallow, since it provides no reasons for its assertions. IV6 clouds IV? Hello? Tony (talk) 14:32, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
