Open Voicings

A triad in close position has its three notes as close together as they can be — inside one octave, thirds stacked. Move the middle note up an octave and the same chord spans a tenth: an open voicing, or a spread triad. Same three notes, same chord, but the sound is wider, the voices are separable, and it rings where a close triad sounds crowded. Above is C major open on the guitar; the capsule switches to minor, the root chip changes the key, the picker the instrument, ‹ › walks the voicings. The figure follows the text from here.

One voice moved an octave

C E G, however far apart

Close position C major is C E G within an octave. Take the E and put it an octave higher and the chord reads C G E, bottom to top — the same wedges on the wheel, because a chord is a set of pitch classes and the wheel doesn't know about octaves. The instrument does: the open voicing is a different shape entirely, wider, with a gap in the middle where the moved note used to be. Every close triad has three open voicings, one for each note you could move.

Why spread

Three notes a third apart in the low register sound muddy; spread them and each voice is heard on its own. An open voicing also gives a chord a top note you can choose — the melody note — and a bass note far enough from it that the two read as two parts. On a guitar the open triads on non-adjacent strings are how a triad rings like a chord and not a cluster; on a piano the same chord is split between the hands.

Close and open, side by side

C major close and C major open: the same three degrees, 1 3 5 in the same colors, in two shapes. Change the root and both slide; change to minor and the third drops a semitone in both. The inversions are the close voicings in their three orders; this page is the wide ones.

In a progression

Open voicings are the arranger's triads. A I–vi–IV–V with the top voice held or moving by step is the sound of most ballads' pianos and most rhythm guitarists' upper-register parts, and the explorer's nearest-shape rule finds the next chord's open voicing closest to the last. Chords in a key with the useful family on draws the row.

On the guitar

C major open on the guitar: the triads on strings 1, 3 and 4, or 2, 4 and 5 — a string skipped in the middle — with the middle voice up an octave. These are the shapes behind the "spread triads" every jazz and country player learns after the close ones.

On the piano

C major open on the piano: root in the left hand, the fifth and third above it in the right, a tenth wide — or root and fifth in the left, the third alone on top. The open triad on the piano is the most basic accompaniment there is.

On the ukulele

C major open on the ukulele: with four strings inside an octave and a half, an open voicing is what the high G string gives you for free — the reentrant tuning puts one voice above where a guitar would have it.

On the bass

C major open on the bass: a triad on a bass is nearly always open — root, fifth, then the third an octave and a bit up — because close triads in that register turn to mud.

On the mandolin

C major open on the mandolin: the fifths tuning makes an open voicing the natural one — root and fifth on adjacent courses, the third across a gap.

Hearing them

An open voicing is its chord with air in it. The app's Build Shapes game with the useful family on deals a triad and asks for the spread shape; the browser version here does the same without a microphone.