Days of Wine and Roses, Improvisation

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Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn and play. Jazz Piano. Hard to believe. Here we are week three of our three week exploration of the jazz standard days of Wine and Roses. Man do these weeks and months fly by or what? I mean, wow. Week one, two weeks ago, we took a deep dive into the harmonic foundation of the tune, followed by last week's dissecting of the melody to be followed up today with the challenging look at various ways to use days of wine roses to develop our improvisational skills. You know, what's great about our three tier approach to learning tunes, right? Harmony, Melody improvisation is that it quickly reveals and I mean, quickly, our strengths and weaknesses regarding the various essential jazz piano skills that we need in order to play tunes. How important is that, right that we know our strengths and weaknesses. The bottom line is that there's no way to improve our playing without having an accurate understanding an accurate assessment of our skills, the last couple of podcast episode lessons and today, today's lesson, they do exactly that they give us a very, very accurate report card if you will,

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on how we're doing. We know pretty

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quickly where we stand with our ability to play critical jazz piano skills. When we begin dissecting the tune harmonically, melodically and improvisationally. I made a point to mention several times since the start of the year that that there is a sequential order to learning how to play jazz piano, which really shouldn't surprise you. I mean, after all, I cannot think of any high level skill that you can successfully develop without having a strategic game plan. I can confidently guarantee you that a scattershot approach or YouTube approach which is so popular today. Trying to use that kind of approach to learn how to play jazz piano will only cause frustration, confusion, and ultimately, ultimately given up. So my goal is, as is always been from day one with jazz piano skills, is to not only introduce you to the essential jazz piano skills, discover, right but to also provide you with a way to successfully study those skills to learn. Learn those skills, and a process for developing a physical command of those skills. Play, write, discover, learn play. It's an educational process. I also mentioned several times since the start of the new year that if you have been a faithful jazz piano skills listener over the past four plus years, you have become intimately familiar with the skills needed to begin to study. I also mentioned that if you haven't been grinding along with this over the past four years, it's no big deal, right? No worries. This is a great time to jump on board and begin developing and enhancing your jazz piano skills. The tune study that we are going to be doing every month will help you sift through and prioritize the last four years of podcast episodes so that you can begin maximizing your musical growth your jazz piano skills immediately. So if you are a jazz piano skills veteran or a jazz piano skills, rookie makes no difference. Right? You are in the right place the right time to begin a jazz journey that will have a profound impact on your understanding of music, and of course, a profound impact on your jazz piano playing as well. So today, today, you're going to discover an improvisation approach four days of Wine and Roses. You're going to learn improvisational zones, patterns and motifs for days of Wine and Roses. And you're going to play a common tone and common zones solo through the changes of days of Wine and Roses. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner and intermediate player, an advanced player or even if you're a seasoned and experienced professional, right, you're gonna make you're gonna find this jazz piano skills podcast lesson, exploring days of Wine and Roses, and improvisation to be very, very beneficial. But before we get started, before we dig in, I want to, as I always do welcome first time listeners to jazz piano skills. And if you are a new listener to the jazz panel skills podcast or if you're new to jazz piano skills, I want to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. Your membership will grant you access to the premium content for this podcast episode and every weekly podcast episode. premium content will help you thoroughly and correctly discover, learn and play the jazz standard. We are currently exploring that as the old saying goes a whole lot more. For example, as a jazz panel skills member, you have access to the past current and future educational weekly podcast packets. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs or backing tracks that I develop. For each and every weekly podcast episode will help you these packets will help you get the most out of every jazz panel skills podcast episode, so they are a must. You will also have access that as a member to a self paced and sequential jazz piano curriculum, which is loaded with comprehensive courses containing their educational talks interactive learning medium, their video video demonstrations of the jazz panel skills and all 12 keys and a ton more. You also have a reserved seat as I like to say in my online weekly masterclass, which is held every Thursday evening. Now if you can't attend the class on Thursday evenings, no problem right master classes are recorded. So you can watch the video of the class and rewatch the class whenever and as often as you wish. As a jazz piano skills member you also have access to an online interactive Fakebook containing must know jazz standards with excellent chord changes chord scale relationships, harmonic function analysis, listening suggestions and historical insights. As a jazz panel skills member, you can also hang out with some old jazz friends and make some new jazz friends in the online private jazz panel skills community, which hosts a variety of engaging forums. And finally, as a jazz panel skills member, you have unlimited, private, personal and professional educational support whenever and as often as you need it. So all of these amazing privileges are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazz piano skills.com. And of course, become a member to enjoy premium podcast content, as well as all of the other privileges that I just mentioned. Of course, if you get to the site, you're poking around and you have some questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'm happy to spend some time with you and answer any questions that you may have. Okay, speaking of questions, it's on to the question of the week. This week's question comes from Ted Riker, Ted Riker live in in Des Moines, Iowa.

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And Ted writes

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many jazz sites and teachers recommend using a simple blues as a way to begin improvising. Likewise, they recommend using modal tunes as well, like impressions. And so what, which have a couple of chord changes. I have used both approaches for practicing my improvisation and honestly, I find both approaches to be difficult. Do you have an approach to recommend that I can try with hopes of having more success than I do with the blues or modal to? Wow, great question Ted. And I'm right with him. I gotta be honest, I'm right with your 100% I feel your pain. I feel your struggle. And I say this because when I started out, I was given the exact same advice. And like you I found it to be very challenging.

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Why is this All right,

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great question that you asked. I mean after all a simple blues right has three dominant chords, modal tunes like so what and impressions have only two chords so, so one would think right? Perfect 111 style the blues a simple blues, three chords, modal tunes, two chords, perfect.

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Right? Not so much right? As you found out.

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So again, why

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so challenging? The answer, I believe, because you have to deal with form. Simple blues has a form. Modal tunes have a form. Both both

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have forms that you have to track when playing. And Tracking Form is not easy to do when first starting out. Especially trying to track form and improvise. So I would recommend isolating a sound and a chord When beginning to learn how to improvise. In other words, pick a sound, major dominant minor, half diminished, diminished, then pick a chord, like C minor, F minor, B flat minor. Once you have a sound, once you have a chord isolated, then you can determine a style or groove and a temple. Right use a backing track. So you place the sound and chord in time and begin improvising using

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chord tones only. So again, the lineup is this TED one isolated sound to isolate a chord. Three, establish a groove for establish a tempo. Five, we're going to use chord tones only. So again, pick a sound, pick a chord, pick a groove, pick a tempo, and know that you're going to use chord tones only. This lineup removes form and allows

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you to focus on important elements of improvisation.

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elements like rhythmic development, using space and repetition outlining chord tones in time, and three, development

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of correct feel and articulation. Right so you remove the form now you can focus on rhythmic development, space repetition, you can focus on outlining that chord using chord tones. And you can focus on development of correct feel an articulation. Ted once I started isolating sounds and chords, my improvisation skills immediately

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began to develop.

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So I would suggest stepping away from the blues step away from modal tunes so that you do not have to worry about form. Give it a try. And let me know what you think. I'm curious to hear how this goes for you. So please, please send me an update better yet. Better yet. Send me a quick recording of you improvising over an isolated sounding chord. And then if you do, I'll be able to share with you some more insight about your approach and offer up some additional tips to help you begin developing mature improvisation skills. Well, I hope this helps Ted and as always, as always, if more clarification is needed, do not hesitate to reach out to me. Always happy to spend time with you. Always happy to help you in any way that I can. Okay, let's discover learn and play jazz piano lists, discover, learn and play days of Wine and Roses. Part three, write an improvisation approach. Okay, since the beginning of the year, I have presented my outline for studying and learning tunes on multiple occasions, and again, right my process. My outline is the same regardless of genre, right genre makes no difference again, whether it's a jazz tune or rock tune, pop country folk, r&b, no difference. So here's a quick refresher once again, number one we listen. Listen the various artists performing the tune. Number two, determined form Is it an A, ba, ba, B, etc. Number three, learn the chords, the harmonic structures of the tune voicings right and common harmonic movement like 251145 and so on. Number four, learn to melody and practice treatments right so we learn melody using guide tones phrases target note fingerings right different treatments like ballad Bossa swing. And number five, explore improvisation approaches that we're going to do today, right, like zones, patterns, motifs, tension, right, those are the five steps. That's it. Listen, determine form, learn chords, voicings, learn melody treatments, and learn explore improvisation approaches. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. So two weeks ago, we focused on gaining gaining a harmonic familiarity and command of days of Wine and Roses. So we listened, we determined form and explored the chord changes our monic function and voicings for days of whining roses. Last week, we focused on In Depth melodic analysis of days in wind roses, we listened again, was zoned in on some guide tones and phrases, target notes, interpretation fingerings. Right. Our goal has been and will always be to keep things right as much as possible, clean and tidy with our approach, whether it is a skill study or tune study. Again, it makes no difference our conceptual understanding of all that we do musically must be structured and simple so that it can be replicated over and over and over again. You all can attest to the fact that I have said it many times and will continue to say it many times. If your conceptual understanding of music or any musical skill is not structured and simple, then it's unorganized and confusing. And if it's an organized and confusing conceptually upstairs, you have no shot zero. I'm just being honest with you a zero shot of executing it in your hands downstairs on the piano. Therefore, we keep our tune steady, just like all things in music. We keep our tune steady, structured, simple and replicatable. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. So we are going to number one, we are going to begin part three of our exploration of days of Wine and Roses. To discover learn in plain improvisation approach. Number two, we are going to listen as we always do to a definitive recording of days of Wine and Roses. Number three, we will discuss zones patterns motifs, what are they? How are they different and why are they important for developing improvisation skills. Number four, we will unveil two patterns that you must absolutely and unequivocally have a command of conceptually and physically if you hope to develop improvisation skills. Number five, we will explore how to turn patterns into motifs. Number six, we will discover learn and play patterns through the changes of days of one heroes. Number seven, we will discover learn and play motif through the changes of days of Wine and Roses. And number eight we will be we will be playing all demonstrations today at a nice comfy swing tempo of 120. Right, classic swing 120. So we have a lot to get through today we have a ton as always to do. So if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to just I want you to hit the pause button. I want you to take a few minutes right now to download and print your podcast packets, your illustrations, your lead sheets, and your play alongs. Again, your membership grants you access to premium content for every weekly podcast episode. And the premium content includes all your educational podcast packets. And I mentioned it every week you should be using these podcast packets when listening to this episode to get the most out of it. And of course you should be using these podcast packets when practicing as well. So if you're listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast, podcast directories such as Apple or Google, there's a gazillion of them right Spotify iHeartRadio, Amazon Pandora and so on. Then go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com And you will find the app Download links for the podcast packets in the show notes or you can log into your jazz panel skills account. And from your Dashboard, navigate to this episode, where you will find one convenient link to download all three podcast packets in one convenient bundle. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets in your hands, I want you to grab your lead sheets, and you should have six lead sheets in your packet. Now lead sheet one provides you with a root position arpeggios for the chord changes of days of Wine and Roses lead sheet one, if you got lead sheet two there, you will see that it provides you with root position scales, the chord scale relationships for days of Wine and Roses. The lead sheet three provides you with us sending patterns and motifs focusing on various targets and tension notes for days of Wine and Roses. And a lead sheet for provides you with descending patterns and motifs focusing on various target intention notes again for days of Wine and Roses. Now lead sheet five is a new lead sheet that I have stuck in here. This is a lead sheet that gives you'll see it's got a common tone. And then it has thirds above it and below it. I'll explain that more when we get to that lead sheet how we're going to use that for improvisation development. And then lead sheet six is Alicia, Alicia. Well, I can be careful.

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lead sheet six has the zones, common zones or neighboring zones, if you will, for the chord changes for days of Wine and Roses. So right no question about it. We have some invaluable tools to go through today that are going to help us discover learn and play days of Wine and Roses. So let's get busy. All right. What is the very first thing we do when studying and learning to tune? You got it? Right we listen. We did it last week. We're going to do it again today. Because we should always be doing it. Always. My stress last week that listening to various renditions of a tune is not only the first but the most important step at least I think so. I can't even imagine attempting right? I can't even imagine attempting to learn a tune before spending time becoming familiar with it, absorbing it through the various renditions by various artists. So listen, I typically listen as you know to vocal renditions first, followed by instrumentalist, followed by pianists bottom line, I listened. And that's what we're going to do right now before going any further. Two weeks ago, we checked out Sinatra with the Nelson Riddle orchestra, performing days of Wine and Roses last week, right the great Oscar Peterson trio, performing days of Wine and Roses, and today we we listened to another great role listen to McCoy Tyner performing days of Wine and Roses from his nights of ballads and blues album, which was released on the impulse label in 1963. It features McCoy with Steve Davis on bass and Lex Humphries on drums. So as always, as always grab your favorite beverage. Sit back and enjoy the great McCoy Tyner performing days of Wine and Roses. Here we go.

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so tasteful. Wow. If you're not familiar with this album nights of ballads and blues, I want to strongly encourage you to check it out. Every cut is fantastic satin down. We'll be together again round midnight, just to name a few. Of course these are wide rows. It will quickly I promise you it will quickly become one of your favorite jazz albums. So now let's explore those lead sheets. Grab lead sheet one, let's discover how to properly begin developing our improvisational skills with days. Thank you for listening to jazz panel skills. The remaining premium content of this episode is available to jazz piano skills members at jazz piano skills podcast.com Visit jazz piano skills.com To learn more about membership privileges, and become a jazz piano skills member. Thank you.