Drop Voicings Part 1: Introduction

In part 1 of this article, we will identify a challenge that is inherent to the guitar and suggest a solution: Drop Voicings. Then we will go into depth about the most common example: Drop-2. 

In part 2, we will dissect all the types of drop voicings.

In part 3, we will learn a practical exercise that will incorporate the drop voicings into your harmonic vocabulary. 

If you are curious about what "Drop-2" or "Drop-3" means, this article is for you. If you do know what those terms mean, you might find some additional insight here.

To start, here are the four inversions of a C Major 7 chord:
 

Fig 1: Close Voicings

These are called the "close voicings" because the notes are as close together as possible. If you look at the top and bottom notes of each inversion, you'll find that the notes span an interval less than an octave. For example, root position has the interval C-B, which is a Major 7th. 1st inversion has the interval E-C, which is a minor 6th. This is one of the things that makes them "close", the other being that the interval between each member (note) is either a 2nd or a 3rd.

Having so many close intervals in a chord creates a problem. We have an instrument that is tuned mostly in fourths. Playing a sequence of 2nds and 3rds creates some very difficult stretches. For instance, the 3rd-inversion voicing spans from the 3rd fret, to the 9th fret, if played with no open notes. The most common solution to this is to use drop voicings.

Introducing: Drop-2. This means you simply take the second highest note of a chord and drop it an octave. In the root position chord:

Fig 2: Root Position Close Voicing

the second highest note is G. After dropping it an octave, you'll find that it becomes the lowest voice:

Fig 3: 2nd Inversion Drop 2

As a result, the root position chord becomes 2nd inversion. More importantly, look at the intervals of this chord. From lowest to highest, there's a 4th, major 3rd, and perfect 5th. Therefore, this chord is much more practical on guitar than the close version. Also, it's much more disjunct as it spans the range of a 10th, from G to B. I suggest playing each note individually and then all at the same time.

This process may be applied to all four inversions in Fig 1. After applying this process to the rest of the inversions, we get:

Fig 4: Drop 2 voicings of every inversion

I highly recommend writing each chord down on staff paper before and after dropping. And doing it for all varieties of chord: Minor 7, Dominant, Diminished, etc. That way you can see what's going on with each member of the chord.

Now, how can we evaluate a drop voicing? Or determine whether or not it's drop 2? Simply be reverse engineering. Take the chord in Fig 3. Raise the lowest note (G) by an octave. Then check if the notes are as close together as possible. In other words, do the four tones fit within an octave? If so, we've got a drop 2. If not, we might have a different variety of drop voicing which will be covered in part 2...