Blues For Alice

Dr. Bob Lawrence  0:33  
Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence, it's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. In the last two weeks, we have looked at five different jazz improvisation patterns for the primary sounds of music major dominant minor, half diminished and diminished, plus the altered sounds deriving from the harmonic and melodic minor scales, sharp 11, flat 13, flat nine, flat 13 and fully altered flat nine, sharp nine, flat five sharp five. Not only did we apply these five jazz improvisation patterns to these iconic jazz sounds, but we also studied and applied proper fingerings to the patterns so that our jazz articulation was authentic. That's the goal of our fingerings as always, is to allow the continuous incremental shifting of our right hand across the keys. Right. Make sense? small movements are much more manageable and accurate. Then large leaps. understanding and applying this truth becomes paramount when when improvising and playing melodies of tunes especially melodies of bebop tunes. Yes, what we're gonna do today. You got it. We're going to put our fingerings to the test with a classic bebop tune from none other than the king of bebop himself, Mr. Charlie Parker. So today, you're going to discover the Charlie Parker bebop tune blues for Alice, you're going to learn chord changes, harmonic function, Melody and fingerings, for blues for Alice. And you're going to play multiple patterns extracted from blues for hours for developing classic jazz language that you can use when improvising. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are, in your jazz journey, a beginner an intermediate player, an advanced player, even if you are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're gonna find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring Charlie Parker's blues for Alice to be very beneficial. But before we dig in, I want to take a few minutes as I always do at the beginning of every jazz panel skills podcast episode two welcome, first-time listeners. And if you are indeed a first-time listener, and you are new to jazz piano skills, I want to welcome you and I want to personally invite you to become a jazz piano skills a member, all you have to do, visit jazz piano skills.com. And once you arrive at the homepage, you can begin to explore the abundance of jazz educational resources, materials and services that are available for you, waiting for you. To help you significantly improve your jazz piano skills. For example, as a jazz piano skills member, you have access to all of the weekly educational podcast packets. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets in the play alongs that I develop, produce and publish each and every week that go along with each and every weekly podcast episode. They're invaluable educational tools that you want to have in your hands as you listen to the podcast episode. And you certainly want to have sitting on your piano when practicing. As a jazz piano skills member, you also have access to the online sequential jazz piano curriculum which is loaded with comprehensive courses, all of them using a self-paced format. There are educational talks for you to enjoy. There's interactive media to help you accurately assess your conceptual understanding of the jazz panel skills. There are video demonstrations of the skills in all 12 keys there are play alongs and much much more. You also as a jazz panel skills member have a reserved seat In the online weekly masterclasses, which are in essence, an online lesson with me each and every week. As a jazz panel skills member, you can also access the online interactive Fakebook which grants you access to jazz standards from the Great American Songbook, you'll be able to enjoy chord changes, lead sheets, or harmonic function, lead sheets, play along files, historical insights, inspirational recordings, and much much more. It's an ever-growing collection of tunes that you should absolutely discover, learn, and playing. You also as a jazz piano skills member have access to the online jazz piano skills community, which hosts a variety of engaging forums there are podcasts specific forums, course-specific forums. And of course, there are just general jazz piano forums as well. You'll have access to all of them. And you'll be able to contribute to them, which I encourage you to do, I want you to get out there I want you to share, engage and grow. And last but certainly not least, as a jazz piano skills member you have access to unlimited, private, personal, and professional educational support provided by me whenever and as often as you need it. Again, I want you to just take a few minutes visit jazz piano skills.com To learn more about the excellent educational opportunities that await you, and how to easily activate your membership. Now, there are several membership plans that you can choose from, and I have no doubt that there is one that is perfect for you. But nevertheless, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. Let me know I'm always happy to spend some time with you always happy to help you in any way that I can. Okay, let's discover learn to play jazz piano. Let's have some fun with Charlie Parker's blues for Alice. You know, it's funny, all of us. And I mean all of us, including me. At the beginning of our jazz journeys, we invest a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of energy, searching for the secrets to learn how to play jazz, right? We try all kinds of approaches all kinds of gimmicks, in hopes that we discover a shortcut that will shave years off of our developmental timeframe. In fact, here's a funny story. I remember watching this interview with Oscar Peterson years ago. And the individual conducting the interview, asked Oscar about squeezing tennis balls, he said asker I've heard that a good way for developing hand strength needed for playing piano. A good way to develop this hand strain is to spend time squeezing tennis balls every day. What do you think about this? Ask her with a very puzzled look on his face, I might add. Politely responded by saying I think that if you want to get good at squeezing tennis balls, then you should spend time squeezing tennis balls. And if you want to get good at playing the piano, you should spend time playing the piano.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  8:49  
I mean, how funny is that? Right? How true. But, but that just illustrates my point. We spend a lot of time a lot of effort, a lot of energy, searching for shortcuts, searching for those little secrets to how to learn to play jazz bottom line. If you want to get good at playing jazz piano. There is no better way than studying it historically. And historically speaking, there is no better period of jazz that will help you develop your time feel articulation, fingerings and improvisational vocabulary. Then the Bebop period. So for those of you who may be listening and are new to bebop, or bop as it is often referred to. It is a period of jazz that developed and flourished during the 40s 1940s, and the Bebop style of jazz features tunes. Using fast tempos, challenging melodies, tons of chord changes some complex that move move in and out of numerous key centers, all within a single tune. Wow, this is important. I want to go through that list again bebop, fast tempos, challenging melodies, tons of chord changes, some of them being complex, numerous key centers within a single town. Wow. Bebop sounds like the perfect formula for developing jazz chops. And guess what? It is. My point is, there is no need for you to look any further your search for various approaches and gimmicks to help you develop into a jazz musician, jazz pianist. It's over. No more squeezing tennis balls, how exciting. Everything about jazz that you need to know and develop is found within the melodies of bebop tunes. Who knew right? Right there before our very eyes. I like to call it jazz gold. So guess what, we begin our gold-digging today. That will continue throughout the rest of this year every month as we tackle a standard from the Bebop era. So the educational agenda for today is as follows number one, we will explore Charlie Parker's blues for Alice. Number two, we're going to examine the chord changes and harmonic function of blues for hours. Number three, we will of course, play the melody of blues for hours, and explore proper fingerings. Number four, we will extract five classic patterns from the melody of blues for Alice to use for discovering and develop developing our very own jazz vocabulary. And number five, we will be playing some various tempos today, from 120 to 160. I believe that the temporal Charlie Parker played blues for Alice was around 160. Now, if you are a jazz piano skills member, as always, I want you to take a few minutes right now to hit the pause button wants you to access, download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations the lead sheets, the play alongs. Again, your membership as a jazz panel skills member. Your membership grants you access to all of the educational podcast packets for every weekly podcast episode. As I mentioned, every week, you should be using these podcast episode packets when listening to this episode, and of course, when practicing. So if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories and there are many out there, from Apple to Google to Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora on and on and on. Then I want you to go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com to access download, and download your podcast packets, and you'll find the download links within the show notes. And one final but very significant note that I take the time to bring up and mention every week. If you are listening, and if you are right now and you think that the various scales that we are about to discover, learn and play as we explore Charlie Parker's blues for hours. If you're thinking these skills are going to be over your head, and then I would say to you sit back relax. No worries. Please continue to listen. Grow your jazz piano skills intellectually by just simply listening to this podcast episode. Every new skill is technically over our heads when first introduced. But this is how we get better. We place ourselves smack dab in the middle of conversations. And when we are hearing things that we've never heard before, and we're forced, we're forced to actually grow intellectually. I say it all the time. All musical growth begins upstairs mentally conceptually, before it can come out downstairs physically in your hands. So sit back, listen to this podcast. Listen now to discover and learn. The play as it always does, will come in time. Okay, now that you have your lead sheets in front of you in your hands, I want to just quickly walk you through them. You will see that lead sheets one and two. Present the chord changes and harmonic function for blues for hours. Now to help you study and digest the changes in harmonic function for blues for Alice, I strongly recommend using the lead sheet templates found in your illustrations podcast packet. Now each lead sheet three has the chord changes for blues for Alice along with the melody plus the fingerings that I use when playing blues for hours. Spend time, a lot of time playing the head the malady over and over and over, especially at slower tempos. And I mean slower temples under 100. Okay. I will be modeling for modeling this for you here shortly. But I think I'm going to be playing at about 120 today. But I would encourage you to play even at much slower tempos, lead sheets four through eight deal with five patterns that I have extracted from the melody of blues for Alice, we're going to use these melodies as launching pads for developing our jazz vocabulary, which is needed of course for improvising. Okay, so we we have a ton to get through today. So let's get busy. All right, the very first thing I want to do, for those of you who are not may not be familiar with the tune. Let's listen to Mr. Charlie Parker. play the melody of blues for hours. All right, you ready? Sit back. This is fun. It's gonna go by fast. Listen up. Okay. So here's Charlie Parker, playing blues for hours.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  17:13  
Right, how can you not listen to that? Listen, if you're, when you listen to that, if you're not tapping your foot and smiling something seriously wrong. That's that is some swing in music right there. So okay, so now that we have an idea how blues for Alice goes, let's take a look at lead sheet one, skill one. These are the chord changes that you just heard, right, the 12 bar blues, but it's a little fancier than our standard 12 bar blues progression. And you can see by these chord changes, right, here we are with a 12 bar blues progression and look at all the chord changes going by. Right I mentioned that earlier characteristic of the Bebop era and tunes in the Bebop era, numerous chords, also some complex, so we have like a flat, a seven, flat nine in there, that that has an altered upper extension, right. The other thing that you should look at and notice right away or that I want to draw your attention to right away look at all the circle motion in this tune right in these changes, which is very, very common in bebop music, right, so you get e to a circle motion, A to D circle motion D to G, C to F, F to B flat, B flat, the E flat circle motion, A to D, a flat to D flat, G to C, C to F right circle motion D to G G to C I'm just reading through the chord changes here on your lead sheet. That's all circle motion. And in fact, if you were to take a yellow highlighter and in highlight all the circle motion in this, in this 12 Measure piece of music, I think your jaw would drop because of all the yellow that you'd be seeing on the page. Okay, so now look at lead sheet number two, lead sheet number two deals with the harmonic function. Now harmonic function is always based upon the parent key of the peace. Blues for Alice is in the key of F so everything is in relationship to the key of F. So it starts with F major. So you'll see in your harmonic function we have listed one major seven goes to the second measure E minor seven, E minor in the key of F is the seventh. So you see that our harmonic function lead sheet notates it as a seventh minor seventh, that very next chord the a dominant seventh in the key of F a is the third degree of the scale. So you'll see on our harmonic lead sheet that it is notated as three, seven, so you get the idea. of how harmonic lead sheet is put together. So, lead sheet one lead sheet to it as always, the chord changes harmonic function, I cannot stress enough to you how important it is to spend time digesting any tune not just believes for Alice but any tune in this manner. Okay. I've included some lead sheet templates in your illustration podcast packet to help you use his worksheets to map out the chord changes and the map out the harmonic function several times many times to help you get a conceptual and functional command of the architectural structure of blues for hours. So what I want to do right now before we go any further, I want to play through the chord changes just the chord changes for blues for hours, and I'm going to do it at 160. I'm going to do it at the temple that Charlie Parker plays the tune just because for the sake of time and I'm only going to be playing the chord changes but I'm going to play the chord changes four ways. I'm going to play through the the, the changes two times using just block voicings, then two times using traditional shells two times using contemporary shells and two times using two handed voicings and for all of you regular listeners know that we spent all of last year with a pretty deep dive into our voicings, our blocks our traditional shells, contemporary shells and two handed shapes for all 12 keys. So let's listen to blues for Alice let's bring the ensemble in let's listen to the chord changes played using these various voicing types Okay, here we go let's check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  24:16  
Very cool now. Again I played this at 160 Just for the sake of time I would encourage you to use use the play alongs which I have several tracks play along tracks, exploring various temples I would definitely practice my voicing types at slower tempos until I had them under my fingers. Then, of course, you could begin increasing the tempo after that. Alright, so now let's take a look at lead sheet three. lead sheet three. You'll see right away we have the melody for blues for hours, but not just the melody we also have the fingerings I've marked in all the fingerings for every single note, for blues for hours, spend time exploring these fingers fingerings at slower tempos, and you have the liberty to make some modifications, slight modifications. But again, our fingerings are designed that we are constantly shifting our hands, right small increments, so that we remain true to an authentic jazz articulation. So what I want to do is I'm going to bring the ensemble back in, and I'm going to play through this, the melody here using these fingerings at a tempo of 120, much slower than the 160, but at a tempo of 120. And I'm going to play through it four times the melody four times. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in and let's check out the melody of blues for Alice using these fingerings here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  27:42  
Nice, not an easy melody, not an easy melody at all. So that's why I would encourage you to begin at much slower tempos. And you know what? This is interesting. I always like to play through the head of tune several times, I played it four times. But I'll do it a lot more than that, right? And I'm always consciously aware of how many times I can play through the melody of that tune. Time after time after time, with consistency, right? How consistent am I? How many mistakes Am I making? Am I making any mistakes? How's my articulation? I want it to be consistent. And my consistency is what determines the consistency is what determines how well I really know the melody and how well the fingerings are working for me. Right with poor fingerings consistency will be very difficult. Good fingerings consistency becomes doable. Okay. So keep that in mind as you're practicing the melody. Keep that in mind as you're using these fingerings consistency is the name of the game, which leads to proper articulation. Okay. All right. So now let's take a look at lead sheet for lead. In fact, lead sheet four through lead sheet eight is where I extract fragments of the melody from blues for Alice, to practice to help me develop jazz vocabulary. So lead sheet for skill for pattern one I am pulling from measure to measure two now, I could have pulled for measure one. But what I what I'm doing here with all these patterns, these are all to five patterns that I'm using today that I've extracted, I focused on two five patterns so that I can establish like a 251 progression. So you'll see here, I'm taking the measure to the E minor SEVEN and a SEVEN. In the lead sheet, I resolve it the D major because I'm setting up a 251 as opposed to as opposed to resolving to the D minor. So I'm resolving to D Major for my 251 again, like I'm in until that could have I love measure one, that's a great little melodic motif to play over major chords through all 12 keys. But again, I'm just focusing on two five relationships here today with with the melodies that I'm extracting. So you'll see on the lead sheet, I'm playing through my E minor seven, a seven D major and playing this idea in the key of D, and then check out what I do, I move it right from the key of D to the key of G. And I play a couple times through the kid D key G, and then guess what I do, I move into the key of C, and I play through to five, one using the same motif, same melodic idea in the key of C. And on your lead sheet, you'll see that I've noticed I'd put a note there continue moving around the circle of fifths, that's what I'm doing, I'm moving counterclockwise around the circle. So I start in the key of D, I go to the key of G, I go to the key of C, the idea is that you would be moving through all 12 keys, do not I do not have time to do that today for all five of these examples, that we're going to be going through these patterns, but you're gonna get the idea, I'm going to be moving them through three keys today, here as I model them for you. So let's bring the ensemble one. And let's listen to measure two, let's extract measure two from blues for Alice, let's play this motif. And let's move it through several keys, again, paying attention to our fingerings. And notice I don't have the fingerings marked in on this, because I want you to do that. Okay, the idea your fingerings regardless of what key that you're playing in your fingerings should allow you to articulate the idea the melodic idea, the very same way regardless of the key. All right, so let's bring the ensemble, and here we go. Let's check this out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  32:43  
J jazz gold right. There it is measure to a blues for Alice is such a great little idea to move around through all keys to practice to let it serve as kind of a launchpad for you to start developing your own melodic ideas off of this 251 progression. It's jazz gold, and it's just sitting there for us to utilize right there measure two blues for hours. So you know what, let's find some more gold in this piece. So the very next measure D minor to G seven. This little idea here. What a great little line, right. So you'll see on your lead sheet, skill five, lead sheet five, you'll see I'm taking that little motif to five one starting to key of C, I move it to the key of F I moved to the key of B flat again, there's a little note there telling you continue moving around the circle of fifths, we want to have fingerings that allow us to articulate in the same way regardless of the key that we are playing in. If you're having struggling struggling a little with fingerings go back to lead sheet three, check out the fingerings that I'm using for the pattern in the melody notated in lead sheet three. See how you can make that work in this lead sheet for the key of C for the key of F for the key of B flat. See what you can find out so let's bring the ensemble in. And let's listen to this great idea. Measure three of blues for Alice. Let's play it through a few keys. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  35:16  
Jazz gold need, right? How nice and you know what we don't have to look very far further went on to dig very further for some more jazz, go check out, check out measure three, I love this right measure three some kind of altered sound there, right in the melody right? And check this out triplet eighth note triplet. And you know what, if you look at the lead sheet, if you look at the melody right, you notice all the eighth notes, eighth notes, quarter notes, eighth note triplets, we have a quarter note triplet in this melody, we have eighth notes that fall on the backside of of beats, right? All these rhythms that we've studied throughout the year, it seems like Charlie Parker's using all of those rhythms in just 12 measures of music. Okay, so let me get back to this. This melodic line here starting in measure four, C minor seven, F seven sharp five to B flat major seven, we have this nice idea. And then we go to the one. Wonderful. So we're going to move this through B flat, move it through E flat, move it through a flat, three different keys. Again, there's a note there saying continue moving around the circle of fifths. So let's bring the ensemble in. Let's listen to scale six, pattern, pattern three, here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  37:41  
Drafts go you know, again, I want to stress play these patterns at slower tempos. And then of course, challenge yourself playing these ideas at faster tempos as well. Again, you can use to play alongs at the play along tracks that are in the play along packet that are laid out in several different temples for you to utilize. So, okay, so you know, what's next, we don't have to look very far again, right? I want you to take a look at measure six, we have a B flat minor seven, E flat dominant seven. So I have a two five relationship, I'm going to have that to five relationship, my resolve to a major again, because we're focusing on two five ones developing language for our 251 progression. So if you look at lead sheet seven, skill seven, you'll see that I've extracted this melodic idea that is starting with the B flat minor seven E flat major a flat dominant seven going to A flat major I move it then from a flat into the key of D flat from the key of D flat I played in the key of G flat. Again, I have a note there continue moving around the circle of fifths. And again, we want our fingerings to be such that allows us to articulate this melodic motif. The very same way regardless of the key that we are playing in. So it makes no difference whether it's a flat key of A flat kid D flat key A G flat. We want this melodic idea to roll off our fingers in the same way the same manner. Again, if you need to look at back at skill three lead sheet three to check out some fingerings to get started. Wonderful. Please do so. So now let's bring in our ensemble and less. Let's listen to skill seven pattern four. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  40:29  
See what I what I tell you so much. So much great material within 12 measures of a bebop melody of a bebop head that is waiting for us to extract waiting for us to utilize to learn from and to serve as a tool for us to develop our own jazz vocabulary. So now I want to draw your attention to measure 10 We have a nice little idea that is played over C seven, right we get and then it resolves. But we're going to insert I want to insert a G minor in front of that. So we create a two five relationship G minor seven, the C seven. And then instead of going to the F seven like it does in blues for Alice, we're going to resolve it to F major seven. So we set up this to five one relationship. So this is just an example of how you can extract something out of a melody the melody of a tune and modify it a little bit to to suit your needs, especially if you're focusing on a specific type of movement like 251. So I want to bring the ensemble, and I want to take a look at this idea melodic idea and measure 10 Right insert the G minor seven in front of that C seven and resolve a 10 F major, then we're going to play the same idea in the key of B flat followed by the same idea in the key of E flat again moving around the circle. And once again, there's a little footnote there, reminding you to continue around moving the idea around the entire circle of fifths. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in let's listen to measure 10 Extract, measure 10, and turn it into a 251 progression. So here we go. Let's check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  43:10  
No doubt our gold-digging today is going to produce a lot of results. Right? Not only in terms of, of fingerings and articulation but also in helping us develop some ideas for jazz vocabulary, which of course is needed for improvising. And we could go on all day, but we've already unpacked as we always do a ton of information in one very short and very fast hour. Again, I cannot stress enough the importance of practicing bebop heads melodies for developing fingerings technique, time articulation, there are absolutely no better etudes for developing your jazz plane than bebop to the best. So do not skim over studying and learning the core changes in harmonic function for blues for hours before tackling the melody right after all, the changes the harmonic function. They're the foundation that the melody rests upon, so it needs to be solid. Again, use your illustration illustrations podcast packet to help you gain a command of these essential skills. And once you do have a command of the changes in harmonic function, then begin practicing the melody. And of course, do so as I have pointed out throughout this podcast episode, do so at slower tempos. Right. And finally, I want to encourage you, I always love to take apart bebop melodies to find invaluable models Arctic ideas I love to go digging for gold that I can convert to jazz improvisation patterns. I then use those patterns to discover, learn and play my own jazz vocabulary. Right? So keep all of this in mind as you tackle blues for Alice this week. All right. And, as always, as always Be patient, and developing mature professional jazz piano skills takes time. Right. As I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast episode, there's no shortcut. Right squeezing tennis balls not going to get it done. So begin structuring your study and practicing after the plane demonstrations that I modeled for you. In this podcast episode, and I guarantee it you will begin to see you will begin to feel you will begin to hear your musical progress. Well, I hope you have found this jazz piano skills podcast lesson exploring Charlie Parker's blues for hours to be insightful and of course, I hope it's been very beneficial. Don't forget if you are a jazz panel skills, ensemble member, I will see you online Thursday evening at the jazz piano skills masterclass. That's going to be 8pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode lesson exploring Charlie Parker's blues for Alice in greater detail and to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general. Again, use those educational podcast packets that you have access to the illustrations the lead sheets the play alongs not only for this podcast lesson, but for all of the podcast episodes that I have published throughout the last several years. Also take advantage of the jazz panel skills courses to maximize your musical growth. And make sure that you are an active participant in the jazz panel skills online community get out there, get involved contribute to the various forums make some new jazz piano friends. Now, if you have any questions, you can reach me by phone 972-380-8050 My extension here at the Dallas School of Music is 211 You can also reach me by email that's Dr. Lawrence drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or you can utilize the nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is found throughout the jazz piano skills website. One Oh, there's my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, enjoy Charlie Parker's blues for hours. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano!