Drop2 and Drop 3 voicings

Never heard about it before - does it come from piano theory??
But does it matter what you call them? - its more a matter of what is possible on a guitar isn't it?

For instance what you refer to as Drop2 C7 would be xx5556 which is a perfectly normal way of playing a C7 chord. xxx987 would be another, so is xx545x and xxx121112 - my take on this, ignorant as that may be, is that they sound different and their use is dependent on the context - perhaps it is worth while to dig into which notes are where, but why? Perhaps you can enlighten me - no intention of highjacking your thread tho' ;)

Never heard about it before - does it come from piano theory??
But does it matter what you call them? - its more a matter of what is possible on a guitar isn't it?

For instance what you refer to as Drop2 C7 would be xx5556 which is a perfectly normal way of playing a C7 chord. xxx987 would be another, so is xx545x and xxx121112 - my take on this, ignorant as that may be, is that they sound different and their use is dependent on the context - perhaps it is worth while to dig into which notes are where, but why? Perhaps you can enlighten me - no intention of highjacking your thread tho' ;)

hehe, no problem about hijacking. Might help me get some more info on this stuff. :)

Well, firstly, I messed up, sorry. C, E, G, B isn't a C7 chord, but a Cmaj7 chord. C7 would be C, E, G, Bb. I wasn't aware though that you could play a C7 chord without the C note. For example, xxx987, xx545x...there are no C notes in those, so why would they be C7 chords?

Secondly, no, it doesn't come from piano theory. Well, it might, but that's not how I found about about it. I actually read somewhere that Drop2 and Drop3 chords aren't very useful for piano but I don't quite remember why. I think these kinds of chords are more usually used in jazz music but they are also used in blues and rock. I'm no expert though so I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong. However, I doesn't matter in what genre they're used, I guess. :p
And no, to play them on the guitar, technically speaking, I don't need to know how they're called. But if someone ever talks to me about those chords, I'd like to be able to know the possible ways to play them, you know. And yea, a lot of it is just plain old curiosity. :D

As for your question on the worth of learning where the notes are, I find that it's very helpful for playing arpeggios especially. But was that your question at all? I'm not sure I understood clearly.

Never heard about it before - does it come from piano theory??
But does it matter what you call them? - its more a matter of what is possible on a guitar isn't it?

For instance what you refer to as Drop2 C7 would be xx5556 which is a perfectly normal way of playing a C7 chord. xxx987 would be another, so is xx545x and xxx121112 - my take on this, ignorant as that may be, is that they sound different and their use is dependent on the context - perhaps it is worth while to dig into which notes are where, but why? Perhaps you can enlighten me - no intention of highjacking your thread tho' ;)

hehe, no problem about hijacking. Might help me get some more info on this stuff. :)

Well, firstly, I messed up, sorry. C, E, G, B isn't a C7 chord, but a Cmaj7 chord. C7 would be C, E, G, Bb. I wasn't aware though that you could play a C7 chord without the C note. For example, xxx987, xx545x...there are no C notes in those, so why would they be C7 chords?

Secondly, no, it doesn't come from piano theory. Well, it might, but that's not how I found about about it. I actually read somewhere that Drop2 and Drop3 chords aren't very useful for piano but I don't quite remember why. I think these kinds of chords are more usually used in jazz music but they are also used in blues and rock. I'm no expert though so I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong. However, I doesn't matter in what genre they're used, I guess. :p
And no, to play them on the guitar, technically speaking, I don't need to know how they're called. But if someone ever talks to me about those chords, I'd like to be able to know the possible ways to play them, you know. And yea, a lot of it is just plain old curiosity. :D

As for your question on the worth of learning where the notes are, I find that it's very helpful for playing arpeggios especially. But was that your question at all? I'm not sure I understood clearly.

OK, lets think aloud for a while then, trying to make each other confused until someone qualified chips in. ;)

For the B/Bb thing: I messed up too. The first and the last is a C7, the two in between are Cmaj7s of course. :D

Then, how can they be a C chord without a C - the answer is that the bass player takes care of the C I guess.

And, sure I know the benefit of locating notes - it's always good to know where the root note is etc. I have just never really thought about there being a system of names referring to different voicings - I just think like "D7 shape for a C7 chord" etc. But obviously some people will be more sophisticated than that...

Then, the problem with such a system it seems, is that it is indeterminate on a guitar - on a piano (I guess) a voicing of a chord like V-I-III is unique and played in one and only one way (albeit in different octaves) - whereas on the guitar it can be found many places with different fingerings

But now I'm really just thinking loud - think I'd better go put on a flameproof suit...

LaRS

OK, lets think aloud for a while then, trying to make each other confused until someone qualified chips in. ;)

For the B/Bb thing: I messed up too. The first and the last is a C7, the two in between are Cmaj7s of course. :D

Then, how can they be a C chord without a C - the answer is that the bass player takes care of the C I guess.

And, sure I know the benefit of locating notes - it's always good to know where the root note is etc. I have just never really thought about there being a system of names referring to different voicings - I just think like "D7 shape for a C7 chord" etc. But obviously some people will be more sophisticated than that...

Then, the problem with such a system it seems, is that it is indeterminate on a guitar - on a piano (I guess) a voicing of a chord like V-I-III is unique and played in one and only one way (albeit in different octaves) - whereas on the guitar it can be found many places with different fingerings

But now I'm really just thinking loud - think I'd better go put on a flameproof suit...

LaRS

Where do you find those flameproof suits? Could use one myself, once in a while. ;)

At least we both messed up with the B/Bb, it's fair. :roll:

I didn't know there was a system for different voicings either. I just knew about inversions (which I guess, are kind of different voicings). But then, I stumbled upon Drop2 chords and voila, I needed to know more. Here's a link you can check out that might explain them better than I did, if you're interested: http://www.guitarlessonworld.com/lessons/lesson43.htm
They even have movable patterns for Drop2 chords, it's great. So it makes it easy to switch from one chord to the other, especially as only 4 notes are played in the chord and there's no note doubling as in barre chords.

I don't think the fact that you can play them different ways on the guitar is a problem at all. It just gives a reason to explore every way (or various ways, anyway) and so it makes self-expression easier. But maybe that's just a downright corny reason. ;)

Hey, I'm not even going to try to sort through this for now, but I will recommend two good resources which might -- or might not -- be relevant:

Howard's Introduction to Guitar Chord Theory and Howard's Unsurpassed anywhere on the net guitar chord dictionary.

Oh jeez - another made up bit of theory. No wonder musicians on other instruments think guitarists are idiots; we keep coming up with 'discoveries' they've known about for hundreds of years.

There's no such thing as a 'drop 2' chord. In theory, we already have a name for this that's served well for centuries: inversion.

A chord with the root note in the bass is in 'root position'. A chord with the third in the bass is in 'first inversion'; put the fifth in the bass and it's 'second inversion'; put the seventh in the bass and it's 'third inversion'.

Inversions identify the bass note. Any notes above it can come in any order. The chord retains the same name; the inversion can be noted with a slash (C7/Bb) or with a subscript set of numbers called 'figured bass' that shows the distance from the bass note to the other notes in the chord - C7 (2-4-6) would show you a C7 chord played with a bass and notes played a second, fourth, and sixth higher than the bass - in other words, Bb-C-E-G.

Musenfreund, thanks, I'll check those links out. Might help for other stuff.

Noteboat, thanks, you pretty much cleared it all up. It did confuse me a lot cause I figured 'drop 2' chords were just inversions but they were on some theory site so I thought they might be different after all. I'm glad they're not though. But why did someone come up with some new name? Always trying to make things more complicated. :roll:

Puke:
There is a good book published by Mel Bay regarding Drop Two. As Noteboat says it is a particular method to learn inversions.It is not something new or esotheric.

just to clear something up - if you play a 7th chord without the root, you're playing a diminished chord of what was the third.....

ie C7 - C, E, G, Bb.....play this without the root (C) and you have E G and Bb which is Ediminished - in the scale of E, E is the root, G the flat third and Bb is the flat 5th....

:D :D :D

Vic