Practicing Intervals, Chords and Jazz Voicings
MidiStickers Pro offers you an unique methodology for mastering intervals, basic chords (triads, tetrads and their inversions) as well as more complex chords (such as jazz voicings for extended chords). Using the Intervals Trainer, Chord Dictionary, Jazz Voicings Dictionary and 12-Key Chord Trainer you can practice intervals and any chord or voicing in all 12 keys, with auto-accompaniment generated on the spot.
In this guide, we’ll explore the Jazz Voicings Dictionary, which shares a similar user interface and practice methodology with the Intervals Trainer and Chord Dictionary.
The Jazz Voicings Dictionary lets you browse through different types of voicings for each chord type, filtering
them by tags. When MIDI Input is enabled, playing a chord on your MIDI controller will auto-select that chord and display voicings for it.
Click the Input combobox to set this behiavor to Off, so you can experiment voicings without changing the currently selected chord.
When you hover a voicing, additional buttons will apear. Clicking the
button will launch the `12-Key Chord Trainer` tool, which transposes the selected chord to all 12 keys:
The 12-Key Chord Trainer tool displays the voicing in all 12 keys in different patterns (“Chord Order”). The default order is
chromatic transposition, which emphatizes moving the chord to nearby positions and will help you getting
a feel for the different hand positions of that voicing.
The
button starts the practice session. During your practice, an auto-accompaniment will be generated
in a variety of musical styles and your progress on correctly playing through all the voicing transpositions
will be tracked. During the practice session, you won’t be able to see the music notation before you acuratelly
play the voicing, so that the focus is on hands-on transposition and not note reading.
Once you master moving the voicing chromatically, we suggest using the “Seconds” pattern. Playing by seconds is a greater challenge than playing chromatically and will improve your tactile memory.
MidiStickers records the Achievements obtained in your chord practice, recording your current progress for each chord and in all chord orders.
At this stage, you might want to try playing the voicing around the Circle of Fifths, by using the “Fifths” pattern. This is the most difficult pattern, as it will require moving your entire hand position and immediate recall of the voicing. For best results in complex voicings, try breaking the voicing in chunks, ie, left hand plays a fifth starting on the root, while right hand plays a fifth starting on the third.
Once you are confortable playing through of the Circle of Fifths, we suggest you to try the “Random” ordem, which will generate a different random order each time it is selected. This mode will be the ultimate recall test!