All You Need To Know About Shell Voicings

Today, we’re diving into the fascinating world of jazz piano with a focus on a fundamental concept: shell voicings. If you’re a beginner jazz pianist or someone looking to enhance your understanding of chords, you are in the right place.

In this post, we’ll explore the structure, types, and practical applications of shell voicings. So, feel free to grab your keyboard and work along as we begin!

What Are Voicings?

A voicing in music refers to the specific arrangement of notes or tones within a chord, dictating its harmonic structure and overall sound.

There are several ways to voice chords. You can use inversions, drop 2, quartal harmony, tertial harmony, rootless… The list goes on and on, but today, we will be focusing on shell voicings.

What Are Shell Voicings?

Shell voicings are a method of voicing chords that only includes the most important notes of a chord. (1-3-7)

The fifth is not as important as the other intervals because it doesn’t help to define the tonality of the chord. The root tells you what chord it is and the 3rd and 7th tell you what TYPE of chord it is. (Major 7, Minor 7) Because of this, the 3rd and 7th are also referred to as “guide tones”.

Shell voicings are also referred to as “Bud Powell” voicings because he (as well as other bebop era musicians) used them quite extensively in their playing.

Ways To Play Shell Voicings

There are several ways to play shell voicings that can either include one or both guide tones. Let’s take a look at them.

Closed Position: Play all three essential tones (root, third, and seventh) within a single octave. This is the closed position voicing for a C7 chord.

Open Position Voicings: Spread out the essential tones over more than one octave, allowing for a broader, richer sound.

3-7 Voicings: Play the third and seventh of the chord in the left hand, while adding the root and optional extensions in the right hand. In the example below

Root-7th Voicings: Play the root and the seventh of the chord in the left hand, while playing the third and optional extensions (like the ninth or thirteenth) in the right hand.

Playing 2-5-1s Using Shell Voicings

Let’s take a look at how the most common chord progression in jazz (2-5-1) can be played using shell voicings. In order to maintain good voice leading, we will mix 2 different methods of playing shell voicings. In the example below, the voicings for the 2 and 1 are the same (root-7th), but the voicing for the dominant chord is just the root and third.

Using Shell Voicings In Standards

To show an example of using shell voicings in jazz standards, I created a simple piano arrangement of ” C Jam Blues” using shell voicings.

This arrangement, makes use of closed position, root-7th and open position voicings, in a way that promotes good voice leading. It also makes use of another concept called tritone substitution, where a dominant 7th chord is replaced with another dominant 7th chord whose root is a tritone away.

Click here to learn more about Tritone Substitution.

Conclusion

To conclude, shell voicings are a great tool for jazz pianists of any skill level. They are simple to play, so you can have the ability to put more focus into whatever you’re doing with your right hand, whether it’s adding extensions, improvising or comping.

It is important to start practicing them slowly, around the circle of 5ths. Start with major 7 and then go on to minor 7, dominant 7th, minor 6th, etc.

Have fun practicing, and enjoy the learning process!