>Step by step
Creating varied chord progressions using drop voicings
1 In the purest Easy Guide tradition, here’s our old favourite, the C major scale. Eight notes, played on the white notes of the piano keyboard, from C to C. What we’re going to do next is harmonise this scale to produce a set of seven diatonic triads – three-note chords that only contain notes from this scale. 2 Here’s our harmonised C major scale. We’ve constructed each chord by stacking up alternate notes from the C major scale –for example, C major is C-E-G, missing out D and F. Continuing along in this fashion gives us seven diatonic triads that we can use to construct a basic chord progression. 3 Let’s take a closer look at our first diatonic chord – a regular, root-position C major triad. For the purposes of working out the drop voicing for this chord, we need to number the notes in the chord from the highest pitch down. So the top note, G, would be given the number 1, the middle note, E the number 2, and the lowest note, C, the number 3. 4 The most conventional drop voicing for a three-note chord is known as a ‘drop 2’ voicing. This means that we take the note number 2 – the one in the middle – which in the case of our C major triad here is E, and drop it down an octave. This changes the character of the chord to a more ‘open’ sound. 5 To see how this idea might work in the context of a song, let’s look at a simple C major melody made up of notes from the C major scale. What we’re going to do next is harmonise this melody with diatonic triads – in other words, add notes from the scale of C major to the melody to form chords that support the tune. 6 Here’s our harmonised melody, with a set of accompanying diatonic triads that change every bar: C- F - C - G. Currently, all of the chords are in what’s known as root position – in other words, the root note of the chord is at the bottom of the stack each time. While the chords work well enough, in this state the progression sounds a little ‘jumpy’.
7 We can even things out a little with inverted chords. If we work through the progression inverting the chords so that the melody note is the highest note in each chord, we end up with something like the above. The melody floats on top of the progression, supported by the inverted chords beneath. 8 Now we can bring our drop voicings into play. Counting down from the top of each chord, we find the second note each time and drop it down an octave to give them ‘drop 2’ voicings. This is a separate process from inverting the chords – we’re dropping notes out from the middle of the chord, rather than shifting the top note down or bottom note up. 9 Now that we’ve covered the basic idea, this technique doesn’t just apply to three-note chords. Four-note chords like sevenths can use ‘drop 2’ to ‘drop 4’ voicings, in which the second and fourth note down from the top can be dropped an octave. By way of example, here’s a
Eb- Bb) Cm7 chord (C- G- in both root position and drop 2-4 voicings. 10 Let’s look at a more contemporary example using a synth pad part. Here’s an original progression as a starting point. With a chord change every bar, it
Ebmaj7, goes Cm7, Fm7, G7. The voicings here are pretty closed-off, though, so to open things out, we’re going to translate these chords into their equivalent drop 2 to drop 4 voicings. 11 Starting with our root position Cm7 Eb- Bb), chord ( C- G- we take the second and fourth notes down from the top ( G and
C) and drop them both down one octave. Our next chord is a second inversion of Eb- Ab), Fm7 ( C- F- so we do the same thing here with the second and fourth notes ( F and C). 12 Our third chord is a second-inverson Ebmaj7 Bb- Eb
( D- G), so to get our 2-4 drop voicing, we apply the same formula
Eb Bb, to and dropping them one octave. Our final chord, the first inversion of G7 ( B-D-F-G) drops F and B down from the top of the chord, as shown. The difference in the sound, even though the chords are essentially the same, is noticeable.