Frank Mantooth – Voicings for Jazz Keyboard | Piano Sheet Music Instruction Songbook | Jazz Chord Voicing Guide for Pianists, Arrangers and Teachers | Hal Leonard Jazz Method Spiral-bound – December 1, 1997

Review Voicing for Jazz Keyboard by Frank MantoothNOTE: THIS BOOK IS NOT A HEAVY TEXT ON MUSIC THEORY. THIS BOOK IS THE PRESENTATION OF A MEANS OF RAPIDLY CONSTRUCTING CHORD VOICINGS AT THE KEYBOARD.“Voicings for Jazz Keyboard” is an excellent, clear, concise presentation of fourth voicings for jazz keyboard. Frank Mantooth lays out basic rules, simply followed, for Major, Dominant, Minor chords. This is followed by “miracle” voicings which give simple variations on the voicings from Mantooth's rules. These rules and miracle variations are within the reach of every pupil who understands the basic chords. If the student stops at this point in the book, the student will greatly enhance his/her comping.There are also chapters on blues voicings, and diminished and half diminished chords, which are easy enough for pupils of all levels, although the second half of the blues chapter does go into the polychord material. Frank Mantooth does, in other chapters, go into altered and polychord functions, melodic soprano voice, and tritone substitution. His explanations are good, but for the more advanced pupil.For the jazz pupil who understands the basic chords, the discussion on the fourth voicings is excellent. Frank Mantooth gives the fastest and easiest approach to the 3-6/9 voicings I have seen anywhere. The C chord in Frank Mantooths voicing becomes E-A-D-G-C, voiced from the top down in fourths. This section alone is well worth the price of the book many times over.For the more advanced student who is into polychord harmonies and altered dominant chords, that material is well explained.The chapter on tritone substitutions and half step preparation is well done, and would benefit students of all levels who are working on progressions. Once the student understands II-V-I, it is only a short step to II-IIb-I.Frank writes clearly and cuts through the complex to make fourth voicings, which give 3-6/9 , applicable at the keyboard. He does not just give lots of chords and their variations, but explains the use of the various chords in easily understandable terms. Frank Mantooth gives a simple approach to constructing the 3-6/9 chords at the keyboard.Excellent book recommended for all students who want to move past learning just C-E-G-Bb for a C7 chord.

Firstly, as other reviewers have said, this is NOT a beginner book. This book requires an already fairly strong understanding of jazz theory to get anything out of it. Also, although the book says it's for pianists with minimal experience, I feel like an experienced pianist would get the most use out of the book, especially one who already knows all the major and minor 2-5-1's in three or four note voicings and can read well.I found the book very useful in my playing and construction of voicings, and a lot of what was said make a good amount of sense to me, but I did find the explanations for the voicings a bit overcomplicated. I feel like it could have been explained in a much simpler matter. When the explanations are actually studied and understood however, they do make a lot of sense and are very useful. It basically shows you a way of constructing quartal voicings starting on different notes that apply to different chords at once.The most useful section of the book for me has been the end of the chapters where the actual voicings are constructed over different progressions using proper voice leading.

Very cool book whose main premise is avoiding voicing chords based on the traditional tertiary way (chords built up of thirds); instead, the interval of a fourth is stressed here. This book is simple yet advanced at the same time. There are exercises included and of course the suggestion is to work the chords out in all twelve keys. The exercises cover a few common chord progressions and the author discusses the actual function of the given voicings, too. What I really love, though, is that at the end the author gives you a suggested semester-long syllabus you might use in learning this stuff. An interesting suggestion (and one I've followed) is to use Bela Bartok's "Microcosmos" as a reading exercise to help develop hand independence - so this book is aimed at non-pianists looking to get hip to jazz piano voicings, which is cool. At the same time as this book is aimed largely at non-pianists, the book never condescends, never seems to hold your hand TOO much, if you know what I mean. Although the harmonies discussed are advanced as compared to your vanilla root-third-fifth-seventh chords, it never seems too obscure to understand. Excellent book and one I'd recommend in a heartbeat to anyone interested in jazz. As another reviewer noted, this would make a great supplement to Mark Levine's "The Jazz Piano Book".

This is a good guide for some standard basic voicing. As we get to more complex voicing, it will take me some time to learn and internalize them. Some interesting "formulas" to remember.

My jazz professor and a trumpet player recommended this book to me as a way to expand my knowledge on voicings and comping. As a classical pianist, I have been learning a lot from this book about how to play for jazz! Every few chapters or so there’s an activity to help you see if you understand the concept. It’s in pretty typical music-theory book style with writing in chords. I got the spiral-bound which is bigger than most copy pages, so just beware if looking to do something with that. There is plenty of space to take notes and I know this book will get me through the end of the semester. It even has a potential lesson plan divider for a 16-week semester in there!Overall, I think it’s been a great book for learning more about jazz piano. Haven’t read all of it yet, but I’m taking my time to soak it all in. Great for independent study.