DROP 3 VOICINGS

Lesson by: Camilo Velandia

What is a Drop 3 Voicing?

Ok, so let's recap a little bit! If we take a look at a regular Cmaj7 on piano, we can stack the root (R), the 3rd, the 5th, and the 7th diatonically on top of one another. This is called a close position voicing, and it looks like this with it's four inversions:

                                                                                                                                 C    E    G    B

Taking the first inversion up the scale, you would get:

We've already seen what drop 2 voicings are. So now we take the 3rd note from the top and drop it down an octave, hence the name Drop 3 Voicing.

If we drop the 3nd note from the top on each one of these voicings, we get the following inversions: (notice I've placed them in intervalic order)

Here is a look at Drop 3 Voicings and their inversions on a chord chart.

MAJOR 7 DROP 3 VOICINGS

MINOR 7 DROP 2 VOICINGS

DOMINANT 7 DROP 3 VOICINGS