Dominant Arpeggio Treatments

Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. I hope everyone had a great weekend, and that your week is off to a fantastic start. Last week we looked at various melodic treatments and applied them to the minor arpeggio, the C minor arpeggio. We explored the various ways that jazz pianists throughout history. The last 100 years have traditionally harmonized orchestrated melodies. We looked at their melodic treatments, the five treatments that I introduced last week or the single note treatment that I associated with mud pow, the unison line treatment, Oscar Peterson, the right hand active with the added fifth treatment, red Garland, blocked hand blocked hands treatment, George Sherry, and the fourth the structure treatment, Herbie Hancock. This week, we are going to continue to discover, learn and play these five classic melodic treatments. However, this week, we are going to apply them to a dominant sound, a dominant chord, a dominant melody. Now some of you may be thinking, whoa, this information, these jazz piano skills, these melodic treatments are beyond my current level. To which I say So what? Right, so what if you are one of the ones out there right now listening, and currently having these thoughts, these thoughts that Wait a minute, this is way too complicated. I want to take a moment to stress to you how no jazz piano skill is beyond your attention. No jazz piano skill is beyond your study. And there is never no better time than the present, to be introduced to new and advanced jazz piano skills. In fact, you want you actually want your jazz piano knowledge to be way out in front of your physical ability. Always. Let me say that again, you want your jazz piano knowledge to be way out in front of your physical ability. Always. In other words, you want to know way more than you can play. And in doing so, you establish the proverbial dangling carrot that you are going to chase when practicing your advanced head knowledge will be what motivates you to consistently practice knowing the components of the big picture and their practical and contextual application is what validates the importance of practicing the fundamentals, your chords, your scales, your arpeggios for what I like to call the grunt work. So all of that to say, always take any and all opportunities to immerse yourself in the opportunities to explore jazz piano skills that are beyond your current knowledge base and skill level. This is always a prerequisite to getting better. So don't run away from perceived advanced jazz piano. Skills instead, run towards them and do so quickly. Now, on the other hand, if you think these five melodic treatments that we are going to discover, learn and play today are too easy for you, then I would say to you stop it. Stop lying to yourself. These melodic treatments are not too easy for you. And the reality is, the master mastery of these melodic treatments is something that all and I mean, all professional jazz pianists continue to strive towards achieving on a daily basis, and will do so for the rest of their lives. Bottom line another prerequisite for getting better is to learn how to be completely honest with oneself with regards to your current level, and what you can and cannot do on the piano. So See, this is why I said it last week, and I'm going to say it again this week. Today's jazz piano skills podcast episode. jazz piano skills podcast lesson is for the beginner, intermediate player, advanced player, and even the experienced professional. Before we dig in, I want to personally invite you to join jazz piano skills to become a jazz piano skills member. If you are already a jazz piano skills member wonderful. I'm thrilled. However, if you are not, please take a minute to join. You will be so glad that you did. 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I look forward to getting to know you and helping you in any way that I can to become an accomplished jazz pianist. Okay, it's time to discover, learn and play dominant arpeggio treatments. So today, you're going to discover five dominant arpeggio treatments, you're going to learn how to construct each dominant arpeggio treatment, and you are going to play the dominant arpeggio treatments used by many of the jazz greats, but POW Oscar Peters and red garland George shearing Herbie Hancock. So again, regardless of where you are, in your jazz journey, a beginner an intermediate player, advanced player or even an experienced professional, you will find this jazz piano skills podcast lesson, exploring dominant arpeggio treatments to be very beneficial. When we begin the process of learning how to apply various treatments to a melody. We begin to learn how to orchestrate and as defined last week, to orchestrate is the ability to arrange or direct the elements of a situation to produce a desired effect. In other words, we become An artist, we begin to take an artistic approach to the music we play. And this, of course, is our ultimate goal. You study music, because you want it to be in an artistic endeavor, because it is an artistic endeavor. It's an artistic outlet. It is a way for you to be expressive. And I said it last week, it's a way for you to be you. So when you move, when you begin to move beyond what I called last week, the dot button approach to music, right? That when you're looking at a piece of music, that note, that dot means to push that button. And that note that that next to it means to push that button, when you begin to move beyond the dot button approach to music, to play in the piano, and you move toward the application and context of shapes and sounds, you begin to think about musical treatments, the musical treatments that we're going to discuss today, right, you begin to think like an artist. So we are going to begin this journey today. With the very first treatment, the single note treatment. And I'm going to be modeling everything using the F dominant seven f dominant seven chord today. So I'm going to be focusing on the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh, f A, C, E flat, F dominant, and the single note treatment. It's pretty straightforward, right? It's your ability to play that sound, that dominant sound, the F dominant sound, the root, third, fifth and seventh, ascending and descending with ease, right? with ease, and in making it sound musical, and not like an exercise. So what I'm going to demonstrate now is just simply practicing ascending and descending, the F dominant sound the root, third, fifth and seventh, focusing on playing with a really nice feel, or really nice articulation. And again, I'm going to, when you hear me play this, you're going to hear me play it first using half notes, then quarter notes, then eighth notes, followed by a little improvisation. Now when I practice arpeggios, I do not just practice going up, coming down, going up, coming down, right, that would be like an exercise. Instead, what I do is I'll practice ascending motion. When I get to the top, I will rest for a measure in order to make some assessments. What did I do? Good, what was bad, what was ugly? What adjustments Do I need to make, right? Then I'll play the arpeggio descending. And when I get to the bottom, again, I take a moment of rest, like a measure of rest. And I go through the assessment process again, what was good, what was bad, what was ugly, what needs to be changed, what adjustments need to be made. This is called practicing, right? My mind, my ears and my hands are all actively engaged and in sync, interacting with one another. Making these assessments. It's called practicing. If any one of those components, mind, ears, hands are not actively engaged, you're not practicing. You're going through motions in your you are not practicing and you will not you will not achieve the goals that you're hoping to achieve. So when I bring the ensemble in here, I'm going to practice my f dominant sound single note treatment, right? I've just got my voicing in my left hand any voicing will do if you want to do a traditional shell you can a contemporary shell if you want to do just a straight up block voicing you can do that So some voicing in your left hand. And I'm going to practice ascending and descending on that F dominant, I'm going to use half notes, the first time, quarter notes, the second time, eighth notes the third time, then a little improvisation using only those notes, using only those notes right. Now, keep in mind, I'm only going to do the half note, use half notes, one time, but if I was practicing, I would do it several times. I'm not going to play quarter notes one time. But if I was practicing, I would do repeat that several times. And the same with the eighth notes, you're going to hear it just one time. But in reality, I would be going through that sequence multiple times when practicing. So okay, so let's, let's bring the ensemble in. Let's listen to the single note treatment of the F dominant sound, ascending and descending through the root, third, fifth, and seventh. Let's check it out. Here we go. Wow, very nice. write some thoughts. Okay, just some thoughts. Number one, you can make a whole lot of music, right, just using the root, third, fifth, and seventh have a sound. When I improvise there, I did not use any enclosures. I didn't use any approaches, half step approach mints to any of the notes. I didn't use any notes outside the key or outside the scale. In other words, I didn't do any fancy schmancy stuff. I was just using the notes of the sound. And you can make a whole lot of music doing just that. I mentioned earlier, that when I was demonstrating that there, right, I played through the dominant sound using half notes only one time. And then quarter notes and eighth notes. I hope that makes sense to you what i was what I after you heard the demonstration what I was doing there, right. In other words, if I was practicing, I would go through each of those segments several times. But for the sake of the podcast, so this is not a three hour podcast. Right? I'm only doing it one time. I also mentioned about the voicings in your left hands, you know left hand using either like a traditional shell or contemporary shell or even a straight up kind of block format. That either any of those voicings would are fine when practicing. So if you need some help with any of those voicings, there are previous podcast episodes that I have done where I talk specifically about the traditional shells and contemporary shells. And there are educational guides available for you to open and download and utilize when practicing to help you with these voicings. That is of course if you are a member and you have access to those guides if you're not a member join and then you can utilize those guide those guides dealing with the voicings to help you. Okay, so now let's move on to treatment number two, right the unison line treatment or what I call the asker. Peterson style, right. So instead of just playing the F dominant now in a single Go, line. Now we're going to double that with the left hand. But again, I want to keep things very simple, I'm only going to use the root, third, fifth, and seventh through the entire demonstration, right. And again, I'm going to start off, playing it in half notes, ascending motion and half notes, descending motion and half notes, then doing the same thing for the wit using quarter notes. And then the same thing using eighth notes. Again, I'm going to rest at the top of the arpeggio, I'm going to rest at the bottom of the arpeggio, why? To assess, I want to know what I'm doing good, what I'm doing bad, what I'm doing ugly, and make those changes. How is my feel? How is my time? How is my articulation? Do I sound like a jazz pianist? All of that I'm quickly assessing, and then making adjustments. Okay, so now let's bring the ensemble back in. And let's listen to our F dominant arpeggio using the octave unison, octave treatment between the two hands the Oscar Peterson style, okay, let's check it out, then we'll talk about it. Here we go. Nice. You know, it never ceases to amaze me by just doubling the melodic line between the two hands an octave apart. Or you can spread it out even further right to octave apart. But I would, I would just keep it an octave apart for right now. But it never ceases to amaze me. When doubling the melodic line and octave apart. How that radically changes the sound of the melody that we're playing. Whether that melody be a arpeggio, or maybe the melody of a tune, like for instance, if you take Duke Ellington's a try. single finger right? single note treatment of the melody. Now, what if I double that melody is not different, that sounds changes everything, right? It's amazing. Just the octave just the octave alone. But that's the whole point of these treatments, right? We have a melody, whether it be a simple arpeggio like we're demonstrating today or melody of a tune. And we add a treatment to that melody, and it changes the complexion of that song. That's what we mean by orchestrating right adding a treatment, thinking like an artist. It's really fantastic. I know we are covering a lot of ground today a ton of ground it well as we do in every jazz panel skills podcast episode. And that is why because we do cover so much in such a short period of time. That is why I developed the educational podcast guides for each episode. Right these guides are developed to help you digest this information in a more thorough and complete way. Right I developed three podcast guides for each episode, the illustration guide, the lead sheet guide and the play along guide and again if you are a member of Jay Piano skills you have, you have one, click access to these amazing resources right there, they're waiting for you to utilize. And if you're listening to this podcast or the jazz piano skills website, then you can see right below the podcast player there, you can see those three orange buttons, discover, learn and play, simply click on the button to open each educational guide. And you can use the guides right there on the screen of your smart device. Or you can download them, print them and take them to your piano. incredibly easy, incredibly invaluable. So if you're not a jazz piano skills member, join, it's easy fast, and you'll have access to these educational resources immediately. And for you new listeners, the illustration guy just so you know, it helps you discover the jazz piano skill conceptually, the imagery The graphics are amazing. Your physical growth as a jazz pianist depends 100% on your mastery of the jazz piano skills mentally, it's your conceptual understanding that fuels your physical development, right. The illustration guides will help do exactly that for you. The lead sheet guides use traditional music notation to help you successfully learn the jazz piano skill physically right under your fingers. And if you're a reader, which I strongly encourage you to become at least a functional reader, then you will love seeing these concepts placed upon the musical staff. The lead sheets are perfect to have seen on your piano as a quick reference when you are getting these, these treatments under your fingers. Right. So there are 12 lead sheets for each podcast episode for each jazz piano skill, right one for each of the 12 keys. So I just don't demonstrate demonstrate in one key right. But the guides all of the guides, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play lines, they're all laid out in all 12 keys. And speaking of the play along guide, the play alongs are perfect to help you successfully play these treatments or the jazz piano skill being taught in the podcast episode. The play along tracks will help you develop a strong sense of internal time. Plus the proper jazz feel and articulation. I say it all the time. A teacher cannot teach you these essential elements of playing jazz piano you must experience them in order to properly develop them. And there's no better way to do this than to use quality play along tracks. Bottom line as a jazz piano skills member, you should be using these educational podcast guides these educational resources to to expedite and maximize your musical growth. Additionally, as a jazz piano skills member if you ever need help, right, if you ever need help, I'm always one click away, you can send me a quick voicemail message using the speakpipe widget that is nestled directly beneath each podcast player on the jazz piano skills website. Send me a voice message and I will send you one back with an answer. It's cool technology. Don't be a scaredy cat. Use it. Reach out to me and I'll get right back to you. If you are a scaredy cat and you don't want to do a leave me a voicemail message. You can Hey, you can get help through the private community through the skills forums or the private Facebook group. Always a great place to get assistance as well. or pay attend the Thursday evening masterclass that I host every Thursday evening online. The class is from 8pm Central Time to 9pm it's an hour long, plenty of time to get all of your questions and answers laid out for you so, so many ways to get help. And again, my entire goal here is to provide you with the best jazz piano lessons, the best jazz piano educational materials and resources and the best jazz piano support that's available anywhere. today. Oh Okay, so now let's move on to treatment number three. Treatment number three is our octaves. In the right hand, our melody being played in octaves in the right hand with a fifth inserted between the octaves. So now our F dominant instead of our melody being played just F, A C, E flat, we're going to play that melody and octaves. But now we're going to drop a fifth in between each of those octaves. So now my f has a C in the middle, my a, my octave, a has an E flat in the middle, which is like a diminished fifth, right to try tone. Then my octave C has a G in the middle, and then my octave E flat has a B flat. So it gives us a really nice chime effect. Again, this treatment was utilized by the jazz piano great red Garland, a lot, right? So it sounds like this. Pretty right. And again, you can put any voicing in your left hand any shell snapping, that sounds nice. What a sound. So let's bring the ensemble and let's listen to this. And again, I'm going to practice ascending and descending through the arpeggio through the melody using this octave with the added fifth treatment using half notes first one time, then followed by quarter notes, then eighth notes, and then a little improvisation. Okay. And again, when I'm improvising. I'm only using the notes of the arpeggio, the F, the A, the C and the E flat. So let's bring our ensemble and let's check it out. And then we'll talk about it. Here we go. Wow, what a great sound right? You know, earlier I demonstrated this the single note treatment and the unison treatment on a train. Well listen to this. If I did the same thing here if I added this octave with a fifth and played a little bit of the melody of a train. Wow. A little asker. Right. So there you see those two treatments side by side, you see the red garlin the active with the fifth in the middle, followed by the unison line the Oscar Peterson treatment that we discussed earlier. You see how that contrast in those contrasting treatments really transforms the melodic line. Right? It when you orchestrate. Wow, it takes your plane to another level. So let's let's continue the fun here right. Let's go on to our fourth treatment. The locked hands Time. And again, I this this style is always associated with the jazz, great George sharing. So now we're going to play our melody, our arpeggio in octaves, but we're going to split that octave between our right hand and our left hand. So in my left hand, I'm playing my F, with my thumb and playing the octave above with my right hand, my little finger. So I have octave split between both halves. And I'm going to in between those octaves fill in with additional notes of the chord or the scale. Okay, so between my F's, I'm going to have a, C, and E flat. Now I'm going to go to my A's. I'm going to have in between my a octave A's, C, E flat F, my C, octave C, and between my octave C, I'm going to have E flat, F, an A. And then finally, my octave e flats. And I'm gonna have f a c in between. So when I put that together, I get right, what a pretty sound. Fantastic. So now, let's bring our ensemble back in. And let's, let's listen to the locked hand style. The George shearing lock hands using our F dominant seventh as our melody our arpeggio f A C, E flat, again, half notes, followed by quarter notes, followed by eighth notes, followed by a little improvisation. So here we go. Let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check it out. Wow, I absolutely love the locked hands treatment. You know, let's go back to a train for a second. So single No. unison wide here. Going into the bridge. How about a little George sharing locked hands? About a little red darlin. Wow, you see the difference? You see what it does to a melody when we can start adding various treatments to the melody while we're playing. When we can start that orchestrate a melody we can think like an artist changes everything I mentioned earlier the educational podcast guides the illustrations the lead sheets the play alongs that are available for all jazz pianists. members to use and I strongly suggest that you do. They're invaluable. And again, they will maximize, they will expedite and maximize your musical growth and help you successfully digest today's lesson. But I also want you to check out the jazz piano skills courses. And again, they're easily accessible for all jazz piano skills members. Right The Jazz panels core skills courses make up a tremendous sequential jazz curriculum that utilizes a self paced format, packed with all kinds of phenomenal goodies, detailed instruction and illustrations in depth educational talks, interactive learning media, traditional guides and worksheets that you can download and utilize as well. high definition video demonstrations of me playing the jazz piano skills and all 12 keys, play along tracks, lead sheets, professional and personal educational support. And of course, mobile access to all the courses and lessons using any of your smart devices, whether it be your desktop or laptop, your tablet, your phone, your TV, or your watch. So check them out, be sure to check out the jazz piano skills courses. Again, if you are a jazz piano skills member member, you should be using these courses right and these lessons, they're there for your benefit. So check them out at jazz piano skills.com. Okay, our final treatment melodic treatment for today, we're going to take a look at fourth the structures, right kind of a Herbie Hancock approach to treating a melodic line. So now we're going to take our F dominant melody, our F dominant arpeggio, our F A, C and E flat, but we are going to support that melody with fourths underneath it. So for example, our F I'm going to start with my F and my right hand followed with a C directly below it, followed by a G directly below that, followed by a D below that. In my left hand, the D is played in my left hand, followed by an A in my left hand. So I have three notes in my right hand, F, C, G, and in my left hand I have D and A. Right? If it's easier to think left to right, my left hand is gonna have a, d, my right hands gonna have G, C, with the note f my route on top. Okay, five notes total, I'm going to go to the third my a directly beneath it, f which is a third. Okay, but then everything else underneath that is a fourth. So now I have a C followed by a G and my left hand, followed by D in my left hand. Again, from left to right, and my left hand I'm going to have D and G, my right hand C, F. So my third My Melody is on top. Next, I have my fifth my C, directly below that g directly below that D or force now my left hand a, which is a fourth from the D followed by E flat. So again, going from left to right, E flat, and a and my left hand and my right hand D, G, C, right. And then finally the seventh, the E flat is on top, directly below that B flat directly below that F in my right hand, my left hand is going to have a C and my thumb there, and then a G and a fourth below. Again moving from left to right, my left hand will have a G and A C followed by F, B flat and E flat in my right hand. So I put that melody together that arpeggio together, it's gonna sound like this. Really nice. does sound very different, right? So let's bring the ensemble in Let's take a lesson. Let's check it out and see what we think. Here we go. Very, very, very Herbie. Write really nice. Again, I know that's a lot right there to throw at you. But in the illustrations in illustration guide, the lead sheet guide has these voicings all mapped out for you, not just for F but for all 12 keys. So jazz piano skills members, use the lead sheets guide right? They will be a great help, especially with these 40 structures. Wow. We have covered a ton of ground a lot of information right in this short podcast. So I hope you have found I hope you have found it to be incredibly insightful and beneficial, taking time to explore the dominant arpeggio treatments. Don't forget if you're a jazz piano skills member, I will see you online Thursday evening at the jazz piano skills masterclass. 8pm, central time to discuss this podcast episode lesson in greater detail and to answer any question that you may have about the dominant arpeggio treatments, or any questions that you may have regarding the study of jazz piano in general. Also, as a jazz piano skills member, be sure to use the educational podcast guides for this podcast lesson, and the jazz piano skills courses to maximize your musical growth. Likewise, make sure you are an active participant in the jazz piano skills forums and private Facebook group get involved and make some new jazz piano friends. As always, you can reach me by phone 972-380-8050 extension 211 by email Dr. Lawrence, Dr. Lawrence, Dr. Lawrence at jazz piano skills.com or by speakpipe found on the jazz piano skills website in the educational podcast guides and throughout the jazz piano skills courses. Well, that's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the journey. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano