The Voicings: Shell or Core?
Shell Voicings are shortened four-note chords. If you are not certain what a four note chord is or how basic guitar chords look like you can update your knowledge in the Introduction to Bossa Nova chords.
To create a Shell Voicing, a note is removed from the four note chord. This results in fairly easy chord types that are ideal for accompanying Jazz and Bossa Nova songs.
[VIDEO EMBED: Tom Jobim’s One Note Samba
The construction of a shell voicing for guitar is quite simple. We take a basic four note chord that consists of Root, 3rd, 5th and 7th. The fifth is removed from the four note chord as it is not relevant to the quality of the basic seventh chords (Major7, Dominant7 and Minor7). The fingering is then adapted to be useful all around the neck.
[DIAGRAMS/NOTATION: Illustrations showing basic Cmaj7, fifth removed, and common fingering are missing.]
The Six Common Shell Voicings
Familiarize yourself with the six most common Shell Voicings. The fingerings indicated next to the chord diagrams are only a suggestion and may not always be the best solution.
- Root Note on the E-String [CHORD DIAGRAMS MISSING]
- Root Note on the A-String [CHORD DIAGRAMS MISSING]
You can apply these voicings to any common Bossa Nova song or Jazz standard. They work best with more traditional style songs though, as their strength lies in outlining the basic voice leading.
One Note Samba
“One Note Samba” by Tom Jobim. The simple Shell Voicings are ideal to outline the chromatic voice leading and still keep up with the tempo. Also, little details like the AbMaj7 in bar 3-4 are easily integrated. You will find the whole song in the PDF at the end of the page. [MUSICAL EXAMPLE 1 MISSING: Bars 1-8]
Água De Beber
The Verse consists of two common chord progressions: in the first line is an II7-V7-Im cadence in A-Minor. In the second line you have another II-V-cadence, this time resolving to the parallel key of C-Major. The Shell Voicings fit perfectly! [MUSICAL EXAMPLE 2 MISSING: First 8 bars of the Verse]
Summertime
If you want to play George Gershwin’s “Summertime” in the style of the famous Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong recording, you will find Shell Voicings very useful: [MUSICAL EXAMPLE 3 MISSING: Bars 1-8]
Get the PDF ON Shell Voicings! [PDF DOWNLOAD LINK MISSING]
A Paz
Gilberto Gil has an amazing resume. In addition to his career as a musician, he also served as Minister of Culture in his home country of Brazil in the early 2000s. One of his most famous songs is “A Paz”, here it is in an intimate “Home-Video” setting:
Gilberto Gil mainly uses so-called “shell voicings” in his guitar accompaniment . These shortened seventh chords (the fifth is missing) are very useful and easily expandable chord fingerings. They are also often used to accompany jazz standards.
In his song “A Paz” Gil extends these vocings to include the high open strings. Combining fretted chords in the higher register with open strings is a simple “trick” to produce unusual sounds:
In the following sequence, the plucking pattern is continued. The modulation to C major towards the end of the first part is interesting . Here Gilberto Gil uses the common tones B and E to the original key A major in order to carry out the key change organically.
The Fretboard Theory
After the basic chord forms in the first position were covered in the introduction to the bossa nova chords, the following lesson is about learning the basic four-note chords across the entire fretboard. In addition to internalizing these chord forms, a solid fingerboard orientation is necessary. This begins with locating the root tones of the chords on the low strings.
In order to be able to know your way around the fretboard, some music theory is essential. The following illustrates a C major scale, the tone sequence is: C D E F G A H C. The interval between these tones is not always the same. Between E and F as well as between B and C the interval is a semitone. Between all other tones it is a whole tone. On the guitar, a semitone step corresponds to the distance of one fret, a whole step corresponds to two frets.
If you now look at the low E string, note that there is a semitone right between the open string and the first fret (E to F). The tones then follow in whole-tone steps until the next half-tone step is between B and C at the 7th fret. Also internalize the intervals on the low A-String!
The Chords
This prior knowledge is necessary in order to be able to apply the following chord diagrams to chord progressions. As a reminder, there are 5 important types of seventh chords:
- a major triad with a major seventh (maj7)
- a major triad with a minor seventh (7)
- a minor triad with a minor seventh (m7)
- a diminished triad with a minor seventh (m7b5)
- a diminished triad with a diminished seventh (dim7)
While the basic chord fingerings from the first part can often only be used to easily realize Major7, Minor7 and Dominant7 four-tone chords, these chord fingerings create a complete scheme. We sort the 5 chord types according to the position of the root notes, starting with the low E string.
- The 5 Chords e-String [DIAGRAMS MISSING]
- The 5 Chords A-String [DIAGRAMS MISSING]
- The 5 Chords D-String [DIAGRAMS MISSING]
Dindi
Dindi is a bossa nova song by Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. In contrast to many of his pieces, the song has a very short and clear form and is therefore very suitable for a simple guitar arrangement. Here are the first eight bars in the key of C major. The four-note chords can be used particularly well in the first part. Three of the five different chord types are four-note chords with the root note on the E or A string. [MUSICAL EXAMPLE MISSING]
Insensatez
How Insensitive (original: “Insensatez”) is one of Tom Jobim’s most beautiful ballads. Joao Gilberto’s version in the key of B minor is very suitable for working on the guitar chords. Here is an example of bars 5-8: In addition to the Major7 chords that you have already seen in Dindi, there is also a half-diminished and a minor 7th chord with the root note on the A-string. [MUSICAL EXAMPLE MISSING]
In the following PDF you will find the guitar chord diagrams to the four-note chords as well as the examples discussed above and other well-known Bossa Nova songs! [PDF DOWNLOAD LINK MISSING]
Here are some common exercises to familiarize yourself with these chords and to train your muscle memory:
The Chord Scale Exercise
Play the chords as if they were a scale, up and down the neck. Here is the C-Major Scale in Shell Voicings with the Root Note on the A-String: [MUSICAL NOTATION/DIAGRAMS MISSING]
The Turnaround Exercise
A very common chord progression in Jazz and Bossa Nova songs is The Turnaround (or the I-VI-II-V). In C-Major this chord progression is: C (I) – Am (VI) – Dm (II) – G (V). Here is how it looks with Shell Voicings: [MUSICAL NOTATION/DIAGRAMS MISSING]
The Turnaround in two positions on the fretboard. You may have noticed that the Am7 chord is substituted with an A7 chord in the above example. This is common practice in jazz music. You will find this example as well as the basic exercises and more variations in the PDF linked below. [PDF DOWNLOAD LINK MISSING]