Chord voicings and comping

I'm always practicing my voice leading because it's essential for any jazz guitar player. It's also packed with theory, so I find it helps with every other aspect of my playing and understanding of music in general.

I'm sticking with the Stella by Starlight example since it's filled with all sorts of cool chords and possible voicings. I'm going to practice this by playing all four inversions of each chords, with and without tensions.

Starting with the Em7b5, we have the notes E-G-Bb-D. Now the goal is to play these in every (possible) order on the guitar. By this I mean I'm sticking with the four middle strings and being realistic about the fingerings. I've done plenty of work here so I'm familiar with the order. Here goes...

(listed with 5th string first, then 4th, etc up to second b string)

Root position:
E Bb D G

First inversion:
G D E Bb

Second inversion:
Bb E G D

Third inversion:
D G Bb E

I'm charting this stuff out by hand but would put it up on here if there was interest.

The process goes on for the next chord, and the next, and the next... Adding tensions is the next essential part to comping effectively. It's rare that you will want to play the first inversion of a major chord for half a measure without any tensions. That's because the fingering will cramp up your hands in no time. To solve this case, you can substitute the 6 in for the seventh, and the 9 in for the root.

An example of this can be seen in a Cmaj7 chord. One would play the first inversion on the middle four strings as follows:

E B C G

Oh yeah, it's difficult. Try putting the 9 (D) in for the root C, and the 6 (A) in for the seventh B. Then you get:

E A D G

That looks, feels, and more importantly even sounds amazing. Play that over a Cmaj7 chord and you'll instantly see the potential of tension substitutions.

So that's what I'm going to do for all of these chords. Chart em up, play em, vary them up, whatever. You can hear me doing them in my Stella By Starlight example. Happy practicing.