Don't Blame Me, Harmonic Analysis

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Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence, it's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. It's the first podcast episode of the month. And we all know what that means. It means we're going to turn our attention to a new tune!

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I don't know about you, but it's always great to move on. Right? Always great to say enough is enough. And it's time to move on. In other words, the philosophy the the approach to study in jazz, of not letting grass grow under our feet is 100% Spot on. In fact, if you do let the grass grow under your feet, when study and jazz, you better love where you are in your development, because that is where you are going to remain for a very long time. This is exactly why we move on. From tune to tune to tune each and every month, we get in, we get out. Each tune helps illuminate the jazz panel skills that need our attention so we can play with greater ease. I want to say that again, because it's very important. It's very important that you get this. Each tune helps illuminate the jazz piano skills that need our attention. So we can play play tunes with greater ease. In other words, the emphasis is always, always on the development of our skills, and not playing tunes, no scales. Now terms of difficulty playing scales, difficulty playing tunes. It's that simple. Trying to learn tunes without awareness of the essential skills needed to play tunes is a futile effort.

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And this is why we use tunes to help us discover, learn and play the jazz piano skills we need that we need to gain a command of in order to play all the tunes that our heart's desire. So there will never be another you from January over Indiana back in February over these foolish things in march over no greater love last month, April over it's time to explore and apply our skills to a new tune. And what a great tune it is. This month

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we're going to use the old 1932 1933 standard by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy fields. Don't blame me. I love this tune. Great chord changes. Great melody. Great lyrics. The trifecta of composing a masterpiece, create chords. Great melody, great lyrics. So today we start with a harmonic analysis of Don't blame me. Form chord changes harmonic function common progressions and voicings. And next week, we follow up with a melodic analysis, which will involve learning the melody of Don't blame me of course by ear, plus fingerings and various treatments. We will then enjoy the grand finale week, week three, focusing on improvisation development using patterns and motifs, common tones, common zones, and of course, a little tension. As always, our three week exploration is a process a systematic approach to discovering, learning and playing a tune. Another perfect trifecta. As all of you who have been faithful jazz panel skills listeners know we are taking all of those essential jazz piano skills that we have studied over the past four plus years, and now applying them to tunes

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Right to help illuminate our weaknesses. All of our chord work or voicing study scales, arpeggios, improvisational approaches, right? And a ton more are now being put to the test. They're being put into action. All the grunt work we have done over the past four plus years, right necessary for developing the musicianship needed to legitimately learn tunes, is hopefully paying off. Right, and I love it. Now, if you haven't been a faithful listener for the past four plus years, it's no big deal snow and like I say, no worries, right? The tune study we are doing, and the process we have implemented will help you help you sift through and prioritize the last four years of podcast episodes. So that you can hone in on the skills that need attention and begin maximizing your jazz piano playing. Right like now immediately. So as mentioned last month, it it makes no difference whether you are a jazz piano skills veteran or a jazz piano skills, rookie, you are in the right place at the right time to begin a jazz piano journey that will profoundly impact your understanding of music, and, of course, your jazz piano playing. I'm thrilled and I hope you are too because having established a systematic approach to tune study means that we now have an assembly line that we can use over and over and over again, with every tune that we tackle. This means our learning process will only get faster. Why? Because our skills are getting better. Right now, that's exciting and liberating news, indeed. So today, today, we begin our harmonic analysis of Don't blame me, you're going to discover that classic 1932 33 standard Don't blame me. You're going to learn for chord changes a harmonic function for Don't blame me. And you're gonna play don't blame me using my suggested voicings plus common harmonic progressions for ear training development. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are, in your jazz journey, a beginner intermediate player, advanced player or even if you are a seasoned and experienced professional, you will find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring Don't blame me to be very beneficial. But before we get started, right before we jump in, I want to as I always do welcome first time listeners to jazz piano skills. If you are indeed a new listener. If you're new to jazz piano skills, I would like to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. Your membership grants you access to the premium content, not only for this Podcast, episode four, but for every weekly podcast episode. Now, premium content will help you thoroughly and correctly discover, learn and play the jazz standard in the jazz piano skills that we are currently exploring. Now, for example, your membership will grant you access to the past, current and future educational weekly podcast packets. These are the illustrations the lead sheets in the play alongs are the backing tracks that I designed and developed to help you get the most out of every weekly podcast episode. You will also have access to a self paced and sequential jazz piano curriculum which is loaded with comprehensive courses containing educational talks interactive learning media, there are video demonstrations of the jazz panel skills in all 12 keys and so much more. You also have a reserved seat and my online weekly masterclass which is held every Thursday evening. Now if you can't attend, it's no big deal because the master classes are recorded. So you can watch the video and rewatch the video of the class whenever and as often as you wish. As a jazz panel skills member you also have access to an online interactive Fakebook containing must know jazz standards like Don't blame me with excellent chord changes, CT scan relationships, harmonic function analysis, listening suggestions, and so much more. As jazz panel skills member you can hang out with old friends make some new friends in the online private jazz panel skills community which hosts a variety of engaging forums. And finally, your jazz panel skills membership grants you unlimited private personal and professional educational support whenever and as often as you need it. So all 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 so that you can access the premium

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content. Now, once you get to the site, if you have any questions, any questions at all, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to spend some time with you answer any questions that you have and help you in any way that I can. Okay, on to the question of the week and this week's question comes from Terry Miller, living in Anaheim, California. And Terry wants to know, why is scale practice so important? And what scales should I be practicing other than the major scales?

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I love your question, Terry. It's straight to the point. And honestly, it's a question I think everyone asked at some point, when learning how to play the piano. And I will try to answer this question as simply and as direct as possible. First and foremost, scale practice, is without question, the granddaddy of all technique exercises, no doubt about it. Being able to play scales, ascending and descending in time with ease is a must.

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There is no better way. No better way that I can think of to gain the agility, the mobility and fingerings needed in your hands. So that you can play the piano. Right scale practice does the trick. And I'm I'm talking about good old fashioned straight up and straight down scale, practice nothing fancy. After all, there is a reason why all piano teachers and I mean all piano teachers in the world, since the beginning of time, have stressed scale, study, and practice. There's a reason for this.

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Number two, I would say scale study scale practice helps solidify your understanding of keys, which of course is needed because every song that you want to play is in a key. In fact, I tell students all the time that I use those two terms synonymously. When I'm talking about a major scale, I'm talking about a major key. And when I'm talking about a major key, I'm talking about a major scale, they are one in the same, so there's no better way to begin understanding the construction of a key than practicing scales.

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Now for jazz musicians, mastering scales is essential for improvisation. Understanding chord scale relationships is the gateway to developing advanced improvisation skills. If you do not understand chord scale relationships, improvisation will simply be a guessing game and a guessing game unfortunately, with very, very low probabilities of guessing correctly.

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Now with regard to what scales other than the major scales, should you be practicing Well, here's my quick list for aspiring jazz pianists. I've broken them out into two lists the a list and the B list. The a list of course your major scales, but the alias will also contain harmonic minor scales, melodic minor scales, the chromatic scales, the chromatic scale and the blue scale the major and minor blues. The B list would consist of bebop scales whole tone scale, half whole diminished scales, major minor pentatonic scales, so let me do that again. The eighth list harmonic minor scales melodic minor scales chromatic scale, major minor blues scale, the B list bebop scales, whole tone scale, half whole diminished scales, and major minor pentatonic scales. Now there are other scales of course, but I would start with my a list and then move on to my B list. Not only will you be developing strong technique, but you will be assembling melodic patterns skills needed for developing jazz vocabulary necessary for improvising.

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So, Terry, again, it's a great, succinct question, and I hope my answer provided you with some insight that is helpful for you as you continue to study in practice scales. As always, if you have additional questions or further clarification is needed. Do not hesitate to reach out to me as always, I'm happy to spend some time with you. Answer any additional questions that you may have and help you in any way that I can.

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Okay, so let's discover, learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover, learn and play. Don't blame me. Okay, quick review. Here's my outline for learning any time. And again, as I mentioned, every month, the genre makes no difference. Right? Doesn't matter whether it's jazz tune, rock tune, pop tune, country tune, folk tune r&b Tune makes no difference. Here's how I go about learning to number one Listen, always begin with listening. Listen to various various artists right vocalist, instrumentalist, and of course pianists. After I've listened to the term to the tune, I like to determine form, right, A A, B, A, B, A, B, etc. Every two has a form

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that I turned my attention to learning chords and voicings, the harmonic structure of the two common harmonic progressions like 251145, and so on. After I have control command of the chords, my voicings turn my attention to the melody, right, I learn the melody and I do so by ear I want my melodic interpretation of this tone to reflect all the listening that I've done. Alright, I want it to be very natural. So I avoid reading melodies. And finally, I like to explore various treatments of the tune, right like ballad swaying Bossa so on. And I like to begin exploring the tune

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improvisationally. So that's it. I listen. Determine form, learn chords and voicings, learn the melody, explore various treatments and an improvisation. Again, that's it, nothing more, nothing less. So this week, we focus on harmonic analysis, right, which we will lesson will determine the form or learn the chord changes harmonic function and voicings for Don't blame me. Next week, of course, we turn our attention to and focus on a melodic analysis and in two weeks improvisation, as always, are keeping things very structured, very organized, very clean, very tidy with our discover, learn and play approach, right? Whether it's a skill study that you're doing or tune study, right, it makes no difference as well. Our conceptual understanding of all that we do musically, must be structured must be simple, so that it can be replicated over and over again. I've said it many times. And it's worth saying again, in fact, I said I think on every podcast, if your understanding of music or any musical skill is not structured and simple, then it unorganized and confusing it's the opposite. And if it's unorganized and confusing conceptually upstairs, you have no shot, no shot at all of executing in your hands downstairs on the piano

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brutal fact. Therefore we keep our tune study and skill study structured simple and repeatable. So the education agenda for today is as follows number one, we're going to begin part one of our exploration our discovered learning play process for Don't blame me. Number two, we are going to listen to a definitive recording of Don't blame me. Number three we will discuss the form of Don't blame me. Number four, we will discover learn and play the chord changes for Don't blame me. Number five, we will discover learn and play the harmonic function of Don't blame me. Number six, we will discover learn and play my suggested voicings for Don't blame me. We're also going to on top of all that, on top of all that look at common harmonic movement

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for your training development as well. Okay, so if you are a jazz piano skills member, take a few minutes right now hit the pause button and take the time to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play logs. Again, your membership grants you access to premium content for every weekly podcast episode, which of course includes all of the educational podcast packets, as I mentioned every week, you should have these podcast packets in your hands when listening to this episode to get the most out of it. And of course you should have them sitting on your Piano when practicing as well.

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Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets, I want you to grab your lead sheets. This is where we begin with your lead sheets you should have you should have seven lead sheets, right Sevenly sheets in your packet leaves sheet one diagrams the form of Don't blame me.

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lead sheet two identifies the unique chord changes found in the standard Don't blame me. lead sheet three gives you the chord changes for Don't blame me and lead sheet four provides you the harmonic function of Don't blame me. lead sheet five lead sheet five brackets five common progressions that we will use for ear training purposes. lead sheet six, I provide you with left hand voicings that I suggest to use when playing Don't blame me. And lead sheet seven gives you two handed voicings that I strongly suggest practicing for Don't blame me as well. So that is a ton to get through today. So wow, let's get busy. What is first thing that we should do when studying and learning a tune?

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I hope you're saying listen, because without question. Listening to various renditions of the tune is not only the first but I believe the most important step of all. I can't even imagine I say it all the time can't even imagine attempting to learn a tune before spending time becoming familiar with it, absorbing it, listening to different artists performing the two. So I like to turn to various renditions I listen to various renditions I like to turn to vocalist typically.

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First, because they remain true to the original melody most of the vocalist remain true to the melody like a Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Nancy Wilson, so forth. And if I really want to hear a straight version of the melody, check out people like Andy Williams, your state Julie London is another one Peggy Lee. Right Perry Como. So I'll listen to vocalists sing the tune. Then I'll turn my attention to instrumentalist horn players like Lester Young Coleman Hawkins, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Clark, Terry. There's many of them. Last, certainly not least, that I check out pianist, and many, as many pianist as possible. Bottom line, right bottom line, I listen. And that's what we're going to do right now before going any further. But I must say selecting a recording of the standards especially don't blame me is difficult because there are just so many wonderful renditions to choose from. But one of my favorites is from one of my favorite all time vocalist and pianist Nat King Cole.

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This rendition that we're going to listen to today comes from the complete Capitol recordings which of Nat King Cole which if you are not familiar with, you need to be as soon as possible. Simply the best. So what I want you to do right now which grab your coffee or your favorite beverage and watch good coffee sit back and enjoy the great Nat King Cole singing the timeless standard Don't blame me check this out

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How beautiful is that? You know not only did we get to hear a great vocal rendition of Don't blame me, but we got a pretty good piano solo to listen to as well. I gotta be honest with you if I was stranded on a deserted island, and I could only choose one artist and one collection from that artists to listen to for the rest of my life. It would have to be Nat King Cole and the complete Capitol recordings. So again, if you're not familiar with the Capitol recordings Nat King Cole, I would encourage you to do so as soon as possible. Now don't blame me. It's a great standard write great tone. Sounds great as a ballad sounds great as an up tempo swing and of course everything in between today. I'll be kind of falling in line with the Nat King Cole treatment and I'll be playing all the demonstrations the changes the voicings using a nice relaxed swing groove tempo of 85 Okay, so now that we know how this tune goes, let's explore those lead sheets right let's see, let's grab lead sheet one. Let's take a look at the form of Don't blame me, which is a standard jazz.

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Thank you for listening to jazz panel skips. 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.