Presented by Dr. Bob Lawrence: 🎹 Ready to take your piano playing to the next level?
In this video, I’ll show you how to master Two-Handed Voicings and instantly sound more polished, professional, and expressive at the keys. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to add more depth to your playing, these essential voicing techniques will transform your sound!

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Keywords
jazz piano, two-handed voicings, music practice, voicing techniques, jazz education

Summary
In this conversation, Dr. Bob Lawrence discusses effective methods for practicing two-handed voicings in jazz piano. He emphasizes grouping chords by family and focusing on two options for each sound. The discussion includes practical demonstrations and the importance of digesting voicings both visually and aurally. Dr. Lawrence also invites listeners to engage with his podcast and community for further learning.

Takeaways
Practice two-handed voicings regularly to internalize them.
Group chords by family for better organization.
Focus on two options for each voicing type.
Use a backing track to hear voicings in context.
Digest voicings visually and aurally before complicating them.
Challenge yourself by moving between voicing options.

Transcript
Okay, I don't think there's a week that goes by here at the Dallas School Music that students don't ask me, what's the best way to practice two-handed voicings so that I get them under my hands, I get them in my ears, I actually learn them so that they stick, I can count on them being there when I'm playing gigs, I can count on them when I'm playing at home. How do I do it? I always tell them, listen, I think the best bang for the buck is number one, voice, group all your. voicings by family, right? All your chords by family. So C major, C dominant, C minor, C half diminished, C diminished. Go to F, do the same thing, B flat, E flat, all the way around the circle, all 12 keys, right? Group your chords by family. Then focus on learning two options only for each sound. So an option A, option B for major, option A, option B for dominant, and so on. Now, if you are unfamiliar with two-handed voicings, I would recommend checking out my podcast, jazzpianoscales.com. release an episode every week. I've done several episodes on voicings and specifically on two-handed structures. So I would recommend checking it out, listen to that podcast. You'll find it to be very beneficial. But nevertheless, I want to model this for you. So let me go to the piano. I'm going to turn on a backing track because I want you to hear these voicings in a musical setting and in the context of time. so here's how I would do it. Starting with option a voicings. there's my major option a dominant.

Now, a couple of things that I want to bring to your attention that I think are important. If you notice the first couple of times through, right, when I played just my option A voicings, I played the option B voicings, notice I didn't do anything rhythmically with the voicings. I just struck the voicing and sat on it. The reason being is because I want to digest that shape, that sound. I want to digest that shape visually. I want to digest that shape. Aurally, right? So I'm not trying to do any comping patterns. I'm not trying to do anything fancy. I'm striking the voicing and sitting on it. Okay, bathing in it, as I like to say. I did that for my A options. I did it for my B options. Now, once you have, you feel you have a handle on both those options, then it's fun to challenge yourself as I demonstrated, start moving them around within the context of time.
How easily can you move in and out of option A, option B voicings for major, dominant, minor, half-diminished and diminished? It's a great challenge. And you'll find out very quickly how well you know those shapes. If you stumble or have difficulty doing that, back to the drawing board. Play those voicings, do nothing fancy with them, and just digest them physically, visually, and orally, okay? If you have any questions,

My contact information is down below. Feel free to reach out to me. Always happy to help. If you're not a member at jazzpianoskills.com, I want to invite you to join. It's a fabulous community. podcast episode comes out every week. Great content. Also a lot of educational materials accompany each podcast episode as well. And I also host a Thursday evening masterclass, live masterclass, I'd love to see you part of as well. Basically it's an hour lesson.every week on Thursday