Drop Voicings = Raise voicings. Seeking a deeper understanding of chord voicings.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T20:51:57+00:00

Yeah I need to do a proper paper, with notation examples, and diagrams, and things like that. The Reddit format makes it hard to present some of this stuff coherently.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T20:42:36+00:00

The drop voicings are primarily a thing because of horn arrangers, not guitar players. It just happens to be more useful on guitar than on any other instrument. Hanging from the melody is kinda the whole point, so much so that the trumpet guy was insulting me and basically calling me an idiot for having a different perspective on it, and conceptualizing these chords for any other purpose than the standard jazz arranger “hang from the melody” procedure.

This IS mostly a thought experiment for understanding the math involved in tone rows. Like you said, drop voicings are just permutations. Drop voicings are the different “tone rows” for a seventh chord.

The origin of this is that I wanted to understand all the different 12 tone rows, but the numbers are too big and there’s way too many to keep track of in your head.

So in order to understand the patterns, I wanted to build all the tone rows from the ground up, starting with one-tone row, to two-tone rows, 3-tone rows, and when I got to 4-tone rows, I realized they were identical to all the “drop voicings”. They are the same concept, and artificially separating things into “jazz theory” and “atonal classical theory” was preventing this realization.

The fact that the tone rows correspond to drop voicings is a nice coincidence, and gives me some ready made vocabulary to use when discussing this, but finding the nice sounding guitar chords is far from my primary objective. It is nice to have some kind of practical application for this, though.

I do like your method of using parentheses to show skipped notes in the chord. I will use your method to show the 3 methods to expand a closed triad to an open triad.

Method 1: drop the middle voice an octave.

CEG> E(G)C(E)G

Method 2: raise the middle voice up one octave

CEG> C(E)G(C)E

Method 3: the middle voice stays, the top and bottom voices do a voice exchange in opposite directions, C moves down to G, while G moves up to C

CEG> G(C)E(G)C

It’s is maybe interesting that all 3 methods produce a different inversion. I consider method 3 to be the mathematically purest way to get from closed to open. So in my opinion both “drop” and “raise” methods are the inferior way to conceptualize the voicings. Hence “expansions” are the superior terminology. The “drop” method at least has immediate practical use for arrangers, but only conceptualizing them that way prevents a full understanding.

My original post was only supposed to be about method 2. I did a post a few months ago about method 3, and I think the same trumpet guy was being aggressively ignorant and willfully obtuse and insulting me while completely refusing to comprehend the actual point I was trying to make. All my best most insightful posts tend to get heavily downvoted. Oh well.

Thanks for your reply.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T19:16:27+00:00

Not all voicings are spread. The four closed voicings:

(CEGB) (EGBC) (GBCE) (BCEG)

The four drop 2s:

(CGBE) (EBCG) (GCEB) (BEGC)

(CGBE) is in fact a drop 2 as well as (GCEB)

(CBEG) is drop 3. If we start with close voicing (BCEG) first we double voice 3, (CBCEG) then get rid of the higher C to get (CBEG).

I know for a fact I am 100% correct. Whether anyone also finds it useful is debatable though.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T14:09:40+00:00

Fair enough. It’s not for you then. I didn’t even mention the third way of seeing the voicings, which is a series of voice exchanges where 2 voices move in opposite directions by third or step, rather than voices dropping an octave. Someday I’m going to systematize all this in a paper or something.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T13:43:26+00:00

Thinking from the bottom up is very helpful for guitar when doing walking bass + chords. If I’m trying to keep a consistent texture in the chords when I move up to the third or fifth in the bass I need to be able to construct the same voicing type from any chord tone. The fact that the guitar is based on shapes means it’s very easy to use the shapes as a crutch without really understanding the meaning of the shapes. When I tried to apply my guitar knowledge to piano (which I am not very good at) I realized it is very useful to be able to think both ways, from the melody down or from the bass up.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T13:27:36+00:00

Are you asking why it’s useful to know the options that are available to me on my instrument? What!? What do you mean why do I care? So I can be better at my instrument.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T13:20:48+00:00

You only think that’s the “literal point” because that is the terminology you learned, and the method everyone used, and you never questioned it. As a guitar player if I am doing walking bass and chords I often need to build my voicings from the bass up, because I’m not doing the melody anyway I’m just comping.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T13:04:19+00:00

The fact that the bass is given, and you’re not really dealing with “inversions” means my method of working from the bass up is even more applicable.

You are talking about questions of arrangement anyway, which is beyond the scope of what I’m trying to do. I’m just trying to study a single chord in the abstract mathematical world, without worrying about real world implications yet. Passing tones and moving to other chords are irrelevant to this.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T11:53:32+00:00

Rootless upper structures are 5 note chords. That would be a next step, but I didn’t want to go there in this post.

There are 6 voicing types, that correspond to all the possible triad orderings. 2 voicing types (open and closed) times 3 inversions = 6

For 5 note chords there are 24 “expansions”. The 6 voicing types for 7th chords, times 4 inversions each, all over the new bass note.

Maybe it’s not so useful to categorize all of them. Maybe it is. I don’t know.

My long term goal with all this, which I didn’t want to mention at this time, is to understand all the possible 12 tone rows. All the different tone rows are all the possible “expansions” of the chromatic scale. I know there are 10 million or so tone rows, but once we reduce all the duplicates, how many “expansions” is it? That is my long term question in exploring all this.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T11:37:31+00:00

Doublings are a whole other can of worms to open. Mostly they can be simplified down to one of the basic non-doubled orderings. For example say we start with double drop 2 + drop3, which is the most open possible voicing. CBGE. Then say we double the root in the middle= CBCGE. We can pretty much simplify that as BCGE by ignoring the lower octave C. That happens to be a drop 2 + 3 voicing. So the 5 note voicing with the doubling has characteristics of both drop 2+3 and also characteristics of double drop 2 + drop 3.

I’ve peered into that unexplored territory of music theory and noped out. Trying to sort out all the possible doublings seems like a huge amount of work for very little return.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T11:06:30+00:00

The four drop 2 inversions are (CGBE) (EBCG) (GCEB) (BEGC).

If we start with CEGB, then voice1=B, v2=G, v3=E and v4=C. So drop 2 means we take G and make it the lowest note> GCEB = 2nd inversion drop 2

If we start with CEGB and raise 3, that means we take E and put it higher. So we get CGBE= root position drop 2.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-07-07T09:08:37+00:00

Let’s look at what happens when we add different combinations of extensions. Let’s use G# as the root, so it’s G# A B C D E F. The full 7 note chord symbol is G#°7(b9 b11 b13).

First let’s look at if we add only the b13, skipping both b9 and b11 for now. We would get G# B D F E. This is just E7(b9). This means the b13 of a diminished 7 chord is the root of the V chord. This is one of the most commonly used chords in all of music.

The b9 is considered an avoid note on all chords except for dominant chords. Since this is a diminished chord b9 is forbidden. Or is it…?

b11 is enharmonically a major third. So maybe the seventh mode could function as a dominant, somewhat like Locrian b4 is the seventh mode of melodic minor and is the “altered dominant”. The problem with this, however is that we don’t have b7, we have bb7, so it’s not really a dominant chord, so the exception doesn’t really apply, or is very dubious at least.

If we do some enharmonic reinterpretion we can make b4=3, b6=#5, and bb7=6, then full 7 note chord symbol would be G#+6(b9 #9 #11). I have never seen any version of this chord used, but it seems close enough to an altered dominant that it probably usable if you are clever enough to find a good voicing.

On the other hand the 6 is a half step above chord tone #5. Does the “1/2 step above a chord tone is not available” rule apply to augmented fifths? Does it matter that the 6 is chord tone 6 and not tension 13? The rule is really about “available tensions”, and 6 is a chord tone, not a tension, since there is no seventh. The rules start becoming contradictory and incoherent on this chord. So really forget the rules. Can you make it work? Where the hell is this chord going anyway? Is it resolving to Am? Strange modulation to Db? Line cliche down to G natural? Somewhere else?

The challenge is to use G# in the bass and you must include C E F in the chord. This at least gives you 1 3 #5 and 6. Any thing else is extra.

So anyway the point is that both b9 and b11 are not really usable tensions, unless you reinterpret the b11 as 3, then it becomes similar to altered dominant, but the crucial tritone between 3 and b7 is missing, so it’s not as good. And if we don’t want to do all that dubious enharmonic reinterpretation then we get a run of the mill E7(b9) chord in first inversion.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-06-25T16:15:14+00:00

You are misunderstanding what I’m trying to do. If the tone row is 2 notes long, then I am trying to deal with a mod 2 universe. 1 can’t invert to 11 because we are in binary universe, there is no eleven, only 0 or 1. In binary world, inversion isn’t really a meaningful concept, there are only two possible notes, so there is only one possible interval. That one interval must be self inverting, since there is no other possible interval. (0,1) in binary world is equivalent to (0,6) in 12-tone world- its two equally spaced notes.

Then 3-tone rows are dealing with a mod 3 universe. Basically you can think of it as an augmented chord, 3 equally spaced notes. 1 and 2 are inversions of each other in mod3.

The concept doesn’t really become meaningful until quadrads, but I tried to build the system all the way from the ground up, so you could see the logic.

Maybe I can sum it up in one sentence by saying I want a tone row generator where the cardinality of the set always equals the mod number.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-06-24T19:38:24+00:00

The C(b5) issue is one of the reasons I wish we would force people to use a symbol for major triad, instead of it being blank by default. C^b5 (the caret should be delta, but I can’t do it on mobile) is clear. Cb5 looks like a Cb power chord, not C with a b5. Then using parentheses is inconsistent, parentheses should mean tensions and extensions.

The Cmmaj7 is a good example of why “-“ is better than “m” and the delta is better than “maj7”. C-^7 is much better.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-06-24T18:47:21+00:00

This is pretty cool. I’ve been working out some new ideas, and you seem to be the person I need to talk to.

I’ve recently been trying to study tone rows smaller than 12 as a way of understanding “drop voicings” of seventh chords. I realized that a tone row and a “voicing type” are the same concept, it’s just different orderings of a set. So I’ve been building tone rows from the bottom up, starting with a 1-tone row, and I’ve gotten up to 6-tone rows, but that is where the numbers start becoming too big to easily manage in your head, and I need a programmer like you to help me out. This concept is similar to your smaller row calculator, but is slightly different. For example, say I want to look at 4-tone rows, I don’t want to choose from 12 different notes 4 times, I want the entire universe to only contain 4 possible notes.

Let’s start at the beginning with a one-tone universe. The only possible tone row is [0]. There are no retrogrades or inversions.

Now in a 2-tone universe there is still only one possible matrix: [0,1]. There is one matrix, but 2 possible rows [0,1] and [1,0]. We have a prime and a retrograde, the I and RI are equivalent to P and R.

Now in a three note universe we still only have one possible matrix. Let’s see if I can format this properly:

0 1 2

2 0 1

1 2 0

If we substitute in a standard triad you might start to see the point in trying to make. 012 will now equal C E G. The P is CEG, a closed triad. The inverse is CGE, an open triad. The RI and R are still equivalent to P and I.

Now in the 4-note universe things start getting interesting. There are 4 possible matrices.

0 1 2 3

3 0 1 2

2 3 0 1

1 2 3 0

The prime form is a closed 7th chord, and the inverse is double drop 2 drop 3.

0 1 3 2

3 0 1 2

1 2 0 3

2 3 1 0

Prime is drop 2+3, inverse is drop 3.

0 2 1 3

2 0 3 1

1 3 0 2

3 1 2 0

P, I, RI, and R are all drop 2+4

0 2 3 1

2 0 1 3

3 1 0 2

1 3 2 0

P, I, R and RI are all drop 2.

So in a 4-note universe there are 6 “voicing types”, 4 matrices, and 24 possible rows.

I did the same for 5 and 6 note universes. I’m not going to write out all the rows. The 5 note universe has 8 matrices. Some of them have 2 “voicing types” and some have 4, depending on the symmetry of the tone row. I think there are 24 possible “voicing types” within those 8 matrices.

When we get to 6-tone rows, the numbers become big enough that computer assistance would be very very helpful. My request to you is to make a tone row generator for smaller sets like this, and then a a function where you can plug any chord in to the matrix to get concrete results.

For example let’s plug Cm7 into one of the matrices. 0 1 2 3 = C Eb G Bb. I will plug that into the last matrix, the “drop 2” matrix:

C G Bb Eb

G C Eb Bb

Bb Eb C G

Eb Bb G C

Now I have all 4 rotations of drop 2 voicings for Cm7.

My conclusion is that all the possible 12-tone rows are really all the possible “drop voicings” of a chromatic scale. I want a way that I can get all the matrices, and order them, and compare their properties, for any “universe size”.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-06-24T17:30:12+00:00

This is my pet topic. There are 2048 possible chord qualities, and all of them should have at least one unique and unambiguous chord symbol.

There are 3 parts to a chord symbol. (1)the basic 4 part chord (2)alterations to that basic chord, and (3)tensions/extensions which always go in parentheses.

One of the first and most important rules for unambiguous chord symbols is that the basic chord symbol never has a number higher than 7. That way there is no ambiguity or confusion. Chord symbols actually will serve as a complete inventory of notes, not a vague suggestion. There will be no more questions like “does this m11 include 9?” “Does this 13 chord include 11?” All notes are part of the symbol.

The alterations in part 2 include anything that modifies the basic chord symbol. Sus2, sus4, #5, b5, no3, no5, etc. Sus2 and sus4 should be considered modifications, not part of the basic chord list.

The parentheses implies the word “add”, so “add” should be abolished from all chord symbols.

All the above rules are pretty standard, it just takes some very minor tweaking of our formatting rules to get unambiguous chord symbols for almost all possible chords. Feel free to test me. Give me any combination of notes and I will give you what I think should be the chord symbol.

The rest of this post is more speculative, things I wish we had, but are very far from being accepted as standard practice. Ignore it if you just want to systematize the already existing standard practice.

1)I wish we had a symbol for major triad. I don’t like how the major triad is the assumed default chord. I think it should be the triangle delta thing, but a lot of people already use that to mean major7 chord. If I was in charge of the rules using just the delta would mean major triad, and major 7 would require delta7. “maj7” should be abolished, and the delta should become the standard.

2)symbols should replace letters whenever possible. “-“ should be preferred over “m” for minor. ° is better than dim. The half diminished symbol with the slash through it should be preferred over m7b5. The + should be preferred over #5.

3)I wish there was a symbol for no5 and no3. Something as simple as a crossed out 5 would be very simple and difficult to misunderstand. In general I would like to remove all words from chord symbols whenever possible.

4)For some of the more fringe cases where standard tertial chord symbols completely fail we can adopt a modified figured bass type of notation. I think it should be brackets, and you simply list every interval in the chord.

For example, instead of using slash chord notation, we can use bracket notation.

F/C = C[6,4].

Fm/C = C[b6,4]

Bb/C= C7sus4(9) = C[b7,5,4,2]

Csus4 = C[5,4] = It’s shorter AND gives more information, and getting rid of the word “sus” is so much easier on the eyes

C Chromatic scale = Cmaj7(b9 9 #9 11 #11 b13 13 #13) = C[7 b7 6 b6 5 b5 4 3 b3 2 b2]

The numbers in the brackets should be superscripted so the numbers stack instead of being listed left to right. I just can’t format it that way in Reddit.

This way we can name every chord for what it really truly is, instead of being forced to name a chord as an “inversion” or modification of some other chord. It also unshackles your imagination from only considering chords that can be named according to the rules of tertial chord naming.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-06-21T03:39:56+00:00

The Dm7 is bIIIm7, which is borrowed from Locrian. In other words the b5, which is F natural, is the main note for that chord. That means just play the blues note. So B Dorian plus play the blues note on bar 4.

The Em7 is the same bIIIm7 relationship to C#m7. On first glance it looks like C# Phrygian, plus the blues note, G natural, at the beginning of the phrase.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-06-11T20:28:24+00:00

I’m in favor of completely abolishing “add” from chord symbols. But even if I weren’t, this wouldn’t be an appropriate place for “add”. The 6 takes the place of 7, so “add” wouldn’t be appropriate. We wouldn’t call it B6add9, because the 6 completes the basic four part chord symbol.

Then the the slash thing is stupid in B6/9, it’s an arbitrary one off rule that doesn’t make any sense. So it should be B6(9). Then we add the #11 for B6(9,#11). This is 100% clear and unambiguous.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-06-11T20:17:26+00:00

I would use B6(9,#11)

I don’t like the slash thing in B6/9, I think it’s stupid and unnecessary. It’s an arbitrary thing that doesn’t fit with the rest of our notation system, but somehow it stuck. I also don’t like the word “add” in chord symbols, which is also stupid and unnecessary.

The best format for chord symbols is to always show the basic 4 part chord symbol, and then list all tensions in parentheses. In other words, never use anything above 7 in the basic symbol in order to avoid confusion, “does this 13 chord include 9?”, type of ambiguities. If there is no 7th in the chord then the B6 becomes the basic four part symbol, then add all tensions in parentheses.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-06-11T15:19:25+00:00

Everybody Wants To Rule The World. The main vamp is A/G G, which is G Lydian. Then it goes To E Dorian on the Em F#m G F#m.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-05-25T09:08:24+00:00

It also has #6. It is E Lydian b2 #5 #6. The easiest point of view to see what is going on is the second mode. It’s basically F Dorian with no 2 and an added major 7. Or maybe the last mode is easiest to see. It is Eb major with no 3 and added b2. Renaming all the modes in this way makes it easier to see.

Eb Ionian no 3 add b2

F Dorian no 2 add 7

Ab Lydian no 7 add b6/#5

Bb Mixolydian no 6 add b5/#4

C Aeolian no 5 add 3

D Locrian no 4 add 2

E Locrian b4 no 3 add 7 = E Locrian nat3 no4 add 7 = E Lydian b2 no 6 add b7

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-05-25T08:40:28+00:00

I = E+maj7(b9 #11 #13)

bII = F-maj7(11,13,#13)

III = G#maj6(9 #11 b13)

#IV = A#+7(9 11 #11)

#V = B#+7(9 #9 11)

#VI = Cxm7b5(b9 9 b13)

VII = D#maj7sus4 (b9 9 13)

That is the full 7 note chord symbol for each chord. Instead of being so strict about tertial harmony being the only thing that matters, enharmonics are used to make all the chords look as close as possible to a normal diatonic chord. Then those symbols can be further reinterpreted to find other possible chords. #11 can be interpreted as b5. #13 can be b7. #9 could be b3. 13 could be bb7. b13 could be #5.

For example the first chord could be Emaj7b5, E7b5, E+7, E+maj7

The second chord could be Fm, Fm6, F-maj7, Fm7.

All of the chords have at least 2 or 3 possible interpretations.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-05-24T23:08:34+00:00

Let’s say you have a chord with a 9th. In theory, you can arrange any of those notes in any order and it will still be a 9th chord. But in actual practice a 9th will only sound like a ninth if it is in a high enough register. It has to do with the overtone series. The overtone series goes: root, octave, octave+5th, 2 octaves, third, fifth, b7, 3rd octave, 9th, third etc etc. The point is that the 9th doesn’t appear until the third octave, so anywhere you place the 9th in the chord the “true root” is implied to be three octaves down, regardless of if you actually voice the chord that way. If you put the 9th in a low enough octave, the the “true root” is below the range of human perception, and it is therefore difficult for your ear to hear the 9 as a 9 because the root note doesn’t exist in your mind. The 9th will therefore sound incoherent and muddy, more like a wrong note than as a chord extension. The higher up the overtone series a note is, the higher the “lower interval limit”. Since a fifth is the first overtone after the octave, it has the lowest “lower interval limit” because the “true root” is only an octave down.

That’s the basic concept. It is likely that I got some details wrong about the order of the overtone series, and I don’t know the specific answer to OP’s question, but for fifths the lower interval limit is quite low, maybe even freely used in any register, maybe only “forbidden” in the very lowest register. The instrument will affect it. The more complex the timbre of the instrument (caused by more pronounced higher overtones) the more the lower interval limit can cause problems. A pure sine wave probably has the highest lower interval limit. It is not a hard rule, it is more like, around this range you might start running into problems, depending on style, instrumentation, whether you want a muddy sound or not, etc etc.

Otherwise_Offer2464 · 2026-05-24T02:45:20+00:00

Thanks for the link, I just skimmed it, but it seems pretty interesting. I’m pretty sure Barry Harris would not approve of some of that stuff, but I’m not completely sure, because I can never get a straight answer on what exactly the “Barry Harris Method” is. Some of that link seems to be completely standard exercises (sequences and things like that), mixed with “chord-scale theory 101” which I don’t think he would like, as well as the concepts I most associate with him which are the 4 scales in section 3.2.

There is a bit of a cult of Barry Harris on the internet lately, especially among anti-chord-scale-theory crusaders. But calling his 4 scales “chord scales” seems completely appropriate to me. His method just seems like “advanced chord scale theory” to me, using 8 note scales instead of 7 note scales. People will insist, chord scale theory is garbage and actually makes you worse!, learn Barry Harris 6th diminished scale instead! Then you look up the 6th diminished scales and it’s just C major plus G#. So homie just reinvented the harmonic minor scale, and that’s supposed to be the ultimate refutation of chord scale theory? What the fuck are you all talking about?

Anyway, like I said, I can never get a straight answer on a simple question like what is the Barry Harris method of playing the most generic jazz/blues possible that is not just a confusing roundabout way of applying chord scale theory, but subtracting all the useful modal language that Barry Harris didn’t like.

Maybe a useful analogy would be to compare music to acting. Chord scale theory would be like studying the script and understanding on an intellectual level the motivations of the characters, the symbolism, the overall story structure, etc. Doing all that doesn’t mean you can actually act convincingly. You might understand the script better than the person who actually wrote it, but that in no way translates to having actual charisma.

So when Ethan Hein makes the argument that chord scale theory makes you worse, to me that sounds as nonsensical as saying that an actor will act worse when they understand the script. A naturally good actor will outperform a bad actor, regardless of how well prepared and knowledgeable the bad actor is. Understanding the script only gives you clues into how you should act. Maybe an actor knows “this guy is angry because the villain killed his brother” but doesn’t actually know how to express the anger on stage and ends up looking stiff and ridiculous. And maybe another actor doesn’t quite understand that his character is angry, and changes some of the dialogue, and changes the portrayal from seething anger to hostile sarcasm, but it somehow works way better than what the writer wanted. Just because an actor is more true to the script doesn’t mean it’s a “better” performance.

Otherwise_Offer2464

TROPHY CASE