Create New Sounds in Your Improvisations with Interlocking Polychords (on "Like Someone in Love")
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As pianists, we have an option that most other improvisers don't have: polyphony! So it's always fun to look for musical ways to use polyphony and play more than just single notes.
Polychords are a hip polyphonic sound - a chord superimposed over another chord. This is a great way to get extended harmonies into your playing. Sometimes you can use upper structure 7ths (i.e. Gmi7 over Cmi7), and other times especially when in the higher register you can use upper structure triads (i.e. G over Bb7). But the question is: how can we use polychords in a musical way? Rather than the typical ways of arpeggiating up as single notes or simply playing the full chord, notice here how we use 4 note polychords as interlocking pairs: alternating between the 2nd+4th and 1st+3rd notes. This also gives us a very musical 1/8th note triplet rhythm, which sits well especially at this medium tempo: the RH plays the interlocking pairs on the 1st and 2nd partials and then the LH interjects on the 3rd partial. This excerpt is from “Like Someone In Love” (Jimmy Van Heusen) from the recent Bijan Taghavi Trio Residency at Cliff Bell’s (Detroit, MI) ft: Bijan Taghavi 🎹 John Webber 🎻 Keith Hall 🥁 To watch the full cut, CLICK HERE. |