Diatonic Improvisation Patterns

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.919)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Well, we've done it. We've completed our three-week study of the Jazz Standard Wave by Antonio Carlos Yobe. We've analyzed it harmonically. We've analyzed it melodically. And we looked at it improvisationally as well, just like we do with every tune.

that we tackle at Jazz Panel Skills. Our harmonic analysis takes a tune and determines its form, the chord changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, and of course the voicings, our left-handed voicings and our two-handed voicings. Our melodic analysis, as always, has us transcribing the melody, in other words, learning the melody by ear, ear training. We establish fingerings.

We identify the melodic phrases and the various target notes within those phrases, as well as exploring standard jazz treatments, a ballad treatment, a bossa treatment, and of course, the traditional swing treatment. Our improvisation study always utilizes various approaches for developing jazz vocabulary. And this month, we looked at the various diatonic shapes

hidden within the various chord scale relationships found within the bossa nova wave. We looked at the thirds, triads, the sevenths. We looked at them harmonically and melodically and how to practice those shapes in preparation for using them to create melodic ideas, to improvise. And today, we're going to put those diatonic shapes to work.

and begin using them to help us develop our very own jazz vocabulary. So today we are going to discover the importance of diatonicism. And we are going to learn how to use diatonic shapes to develop jazz vocabulary. And we're going to play a variety of improvisation patterns using diatonic harmonic and melodic

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:55.303)
shapes. Wow! Is this going to be fun or what? It's going to be a fun day at Jazz Piano Skills. You know what? It's going to be day of enlightenment, especially for those of you listening who are new to jazz improvisation and trying to figure out how it all works. Heck, it's going to be beneficial for you even if you've been studying improvisation for years. Makes no difference. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your

personal jazz journey, whether you're a beginner and intermediate player and advanced player, or even if you are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this Jazz Panel Skills podcast lesson exploring diatonic improvisation patterns to be very beneficial. But before we get started, before we jump in, I want to, as I always do, welcome all of the first time listeners to Jazz Panel Skills.

And if you are indeed a new listener to the Jazz Panel Skills podcast, you're new to Jazz Panel Skills in general, welcome. I want to invite you to become a Jazz Panel Skills member. Your membership keeps Jazz Panel Skills ad free, which has been my goal from day one, right? 100 % educational content, no ads. In addition to all that, your membership grants you many

many perks. Number one, as a member, you have premium podcast content, which basically means you get to listen to the entire podcast episode. The first half of every podcast episode is free for everyone to enjoy. We always deal with the question of the week, we lay out the educational agenda and the lesson rationale. In the second half of the podcast, we get down to business, we look at the lesson content, the demonstrations, we explore the various

the podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets to play alongs. And then of course, we always have our weekly rhythm assignment that we we deal with every week as well. As a member, you also have access to all of the past and the current future podcast packets. These are the educational materials that I designed and developed for every weekly podcast episode, the illustrations, the lead sheets to play alongs with the backing tracks.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:19.168)
You also have access to the online courses. These are comprehensive courses, self-paced, sequential, and interactive. You also, as a Jazz Panel Skills member, have a reserved seat in my weekly masterclass, which is held every Thursday evening at 8 p.m. Central Time. And I know that's not ideal for everyone around the world listening, but the masterclasses are recorded.

and you can always watch them at a convenient time and rewatch them as often as you wish. The videos are posted every week and you can enjoy the current week's masterclass or go back to any of the previous masterclasses and participate in those as well. You also as a Jazz Piano Skills member have access to the private online Jazz Piano Community, which hosts a variety of engaging forums. There are

episode specific forums, there are general jazz forums, it's a great place to meet new friends. Also, it's a great place to receive member feedback and assistance and also to give a little feedback and assistance as well. And finally, as a Jazz Panel Skills member, you have unlimited educational support, private, personal and professional support, whenever and as often as you need it.

All of these amazing privileges, these perks are waiting to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano. So check it all out at JazzPianoSkills.com. And of course, become a member. And once you get to the website, if you poking around and you have some questions, by all means, please reach out to me. I'm happy to spend some time with you, answer any of the questions that you may have, help you in any way that I possibly can.

I want to take this opportunity to let you all know that I have started posting educational videos on my Jazz Panel Skills YouTube channel. Man, talk about teaching an old dog new tricks. Wow. You know, these videos are approximately five minutes in length, and they focus on introducing and teaching a single and very specific jazz skill. All right.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:39.272)
One day it may be a harmonic skill, another day a melodic skill, another day an improvisational skill, and then another day a rhythmic skill, right? So I plan on releasing several educational videos every week. So take the time when you have the opportunity to go to YouTube and subscribe to the channel and you'll be notified whenever new videos are released. So...

I'd love to get your feedback. Check out some of the videos and let me know what you think. If you have any requests for a skill that you would like me to teach in a video, happy to do so. You can easily submit your request through the Jazz Piano Skills website. You'll find the request link on the home page. It's about halfway down. You'll see a button and submit your request and I'll do my very best to honor your request.

and get a video put together for you as soon as possible. check it out, Jazz Piano Skills YouTube, and let me know what you think and be sure to subscribe. Okay, so here we go on to the question of the week, which comes from Abe Rubio. Abe Rubio living in Miami, Florida. Abe writes,

You have mentioned many times in various podcast episodes the importance of practicing four note arpeggios with an intentional hand shift. This makes total sense to me and I'm wondering if you have some practical ways to practice this skill beyond simply isolating each individual four note chord. Wow. Wow. Hey, great question.

And I love how you think. You know, it tells me that you actually have a handle on the basic concept, the basic skill, and you are ready to begin applying it in a way that actually will pay huge dividends for you when playing and when improvising. That's great. That's fantastic. So the answer to your question is, of course, I have some practical ways to practice a skill. What do think?

Dr. Bob Lawrence (09:58.698)
That's what I do man. So I do have some practical ways to practice this skill That will have you seeing results quickly and in fact Guess what I'm do. I'm going to do a YouTube video for you because honestly you know what a picture is worth a thousand words and I Want you to be able to see I want you to be able to actually see

the exercises that I recommend. want you to be able to see the fingerings and I want you to see how the hand moves when practicing intentional hand shifts. Now I'll do this video for you over the next couple of days and I'll send you an email when it's up and live on my YouTube channel so you can check it out. But for now, but for now I will talk, talk you through it the best I can.

So let's begin with the exercises themselves. These are exercises that I actually continue to do. I still do on a daily, weekly, if not a daily basis. So exercise number one. I like to take my chords. I like to group them by type. So in other words, all my majors, all my dominant, my minors, my half diminished, my diminished chords.

And then I will practice weaving through them using arpeggio movement with an intentional hand shift using chromatic movement. So if I take my major chords, I'll start on C major, for example, and I'll work my way through all 12 majors chromatically. So I'll move C major to D flat major to D major to E flat major using ascending and

descending movement, alternating ascending and descending movement as I move through each of the major chords using arpeggio motion with an intentional hand shift. So it's going to sound something like this. Check it out. C, Db.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:14.878)
flat.

F G flat

Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:29.034)
Bye!

Now each one of those arpeggios, you can't see it, right? That's why I'm going to do the video for you. Each one of those arpeggios, ascending and descending, had an intentional hand shift within the arpeggio, right? So I'll do the same thing, still with the chords grouped by type, but instead of using chromatic movement, I'll move around the circle of fifths, of course, going counterclockwise. And I'll do the same

type of deal, right? Uscending, alternating, ascending, and descending motion as I move through each chord. C major to F major to B flat major to E flat major. So that will sound something like this. C.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (13:37.481)
workout. And again you can't see my hands moving but you will when I do the video that each one of those four note arpeggios ascending and descending have an intentional hand shift. Another way I like to practice this Abe is I'll take chords grouped by key. So if I'm in the key of C I'm going to be working with the C major 7, D minor 7, E minor 7, F major 7,

G dominant 7, A minor 7, and B half diminished. And I'll utilize the same approach, right? I'm going to start with my one chord, and I'm going to ascend and descend through the seven chords of the key, right, using arpeggio motion, alternating ascending and descending motion with arpeggio with the intentional hand shift built in, right? So that will sound something like this.

C major?

Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:42.472)
7

Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:47.54)
C, right? Weaving right through the all seven chords of the key, right? And of course do all 12 keys. Then I'll turn my attention to doing chords by what I call progression. So obviously the most important progression in all jazz, the 2-5-1 progression. So if I'm in the key of C, I'll be working with my D minor 7, my G7, my C major 7,

And what I will do is start the D minor in root position and weave through, again, using ascending descending arpeggio motion with the attentional hand shift. I'll start with D minor in root position, weave through my five and my one, right? Then I'll do D minor with in first inversion, weave through all three chords, D minor in second inversion, do the same thing.

weave through all three chords using ascending descending arpeggio motion with the intentional hand shift. And finally, I'll start the D minor in third inversion and move through all three chords. So that's going to sound something like this. Root position.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (16:03.058)
first inversion.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (16:09.224)
second inversion.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (16:15.592)
third inversion.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (16:21.316)
Yeah, and of course not just for the key of C, but A, do it at all, 12 keys. And finally, I would recommend taking any tune. I love doing this where I'll take the chord changes from a standard and then I will weave through those chord changes alternating again, ascending, descending, arpeggio, movement.

with the intentional hand shift built in. So if I just take the A section of wave, take the chord changes found in the A section of wave, it's going to sound like this. Check it out. D major. E flat diminished. A minor. D7. G major.

C7, F sharp 7, B7, E7, B flat 7, A7, D minor, G7, C. Again, it will make sense when you see it on the video, but this should give you an idea of the type of exercises that I do aid to practice arpeggio movement with an intentional hand shift.

going beyond just isolating the chord and practicing it, putting it into various patterns, right? Chords by type, chords by key, chords by progression, chords by tune, right? Ascending, descending movement, various patterns within those groupings, right? Chromatic movement, circle movement. So there's a lot of ways to approach practicing this skill and

I tell you, time well spent, right? The dividends that this pays with getting your hands moving comfortably, crawling comfortably across the keys, absolutely invaluable. So it's a great question. So glad that you're thinking about this and wanting to dive deeper into how do you actually practice it so that it translates over into your playing naturally. These exercises will

Dr. Bob Lawrence (18:39.409)
will indeed do that. So again, as soon as I get a video put together, and get that uploaded to my YouTube channel, I will send you an email so that you can check it out. Okay, great question, Abe, as always, and if further clarification is needed, by all means, do not hesitate to reach out to me. Okay, so let's talk about diatonic

improvisation exercises using harmonic and melodic shapes.

Okay, so where do I begin? Well, let's begin this way. recently came across a jazz article. I get quite a few of them that just are delivered every day into my email box, more than I can, more than I actually have time to read. But this one caught my attention because this article was encouraging us to escape the

diatonic trap. That's actually how they reference that escape. I think it was like, it was like five tricks or five tips to escaping the diatonic trap. And my first thought was, well, why is diatonicism considered a trap? Because it's not. It's actually the very thing that provides us

melodic freedom. And without a command of diatonicism, right, there's, there's actually no melodic composition. In other words, you will not be able to create a melody. If you do not have a control of or command of diatonicism, you will not be able to improvise. It's just that simple.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (20:44.187)
You see, diatonicism allows us to clearly, clearly see the harmonic shapes hidden within the scale. The scale that produces the sound or the chord that we are wanting to use for creating our melodies. If this is true, which of course it is true, then why would we want to escape the diatonic trap?

fact, we shouldn't be one to escape diatonicism, we should actually be wanting to embrace it. Now I get it, right? I get it that it's very popular in jazz education to talk about playing outside the harmony to create tension. But I would recommend I would recommend learning how to play inside a diatonic approach. In other words, I would

I would suggest learning how to play inside really, really, really, well before stepping outside. Because the reality is this, if you cannot easily recognize the inside notes, again, diatonic playing, then how in the world, how in the world would you successfully identify and play the outside notes?

Well, the answer to that question is you won't. The bottom line is this. A command of diatonic plane inside arpeggio and scale shapes. That's what inside, that's what diatonic plane is. A command of diatonic plane is 100 % necessary if you ever hope, if you ever hope to successfully incorporate outside notes tension into your plane.

So this is why I unveiled last week in our improvisation study, I introduced various harmonic and melodic diatonic shapes found in each chord scale relationship within the Antonio Carlos Jobeim standard wave. And today we are going to use those shapes to construct several improvisation type patterns to begin helping us

Dr. Bob Lawrence (23:10.68)
learn how to develop jazz language. And again, today is going to be a fun day. I mentioned it earlier, right? A day of enlightenment for all of us wanting to improve our jazz skills, our improvisation skills. So the education agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we are going to review the harmonic and melodic shapes introduced last week. Number two,

We will construct eight melodic patterns using those shapes to help us develop jazz vocabulary. Number three, we will place our newly constructed jazz improvisational patterns into a musical context. And finally, number four, we will secure our ability to formulaically use diatonic, harmonic, and melodic shapes

begin formulating new improvisational patterns. Wow. In other words, we're going to become empowered. Wow, how cool. This is going to be a very fun day. Now, if you are a Jazz Piano Skills member, I want you to take a few minutes, hit the pause button, I want you to take a few minutes to download and print the podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets and your play alongs.

again, your membership grants you access to this material and you should actually absolutely have it in your hands when listening to the podcast episode to get the most out of it. And you're going to want them sitting on your panel right when practicing as well. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets in your hands, I want you to grab the illustrations. And of course, I want you to grab the lead sheets.

I just kind of want to walk you through these here and how we're going to use how we're going to use it today. Okay. So in your illustrations, let's start with the illustrations. Okay. And you'll see it's titled diatonic improvisation patterns, harmonic and melodic shapes. You'll notice right away at the top of the page, I have melodic shapes, harmonic shapes,

PREMIUM CONTENT FOR MEMBERS ONLY