Don't Blame Me, Improvisation

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Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time discover, learn and play jazz piano time.

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Time flies!

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It's hard to believe right here we are week three of our three week exploration of the jazz standard. Don't blame me two weeks ago, two weeks ago, we took a deep, deep dive into the harmonic foundation of the tune, followed by last week's dissecting the the melody to core of course to be followed up today with with a very in depth look at various ways to use Don't blame me for developing our improvisational skills. You know, what's great about our three tier approach to studying attune, right harmony melody improvisation is that it quickly reveals our strengths and weaknesses regarding the various essential jazz piano skills that we need in order to play tunes. And how important is it that we know our strength and strengths and weaknesses? Well, I'll tell you, it's absolutely invaluable. Right? The bottom line is that there's no way to improve our plane without having an accurate, a very accurate understanding of our plane. You know, the last couple podcast episode lessons and today's lesson. While they do exactly that, they give us a very accurate report card as I like to say, All right, we get to know very quickly, where we stand with our ability to play critical jazz piano skills. I have made it a point to mention several times since the start of the year that there is indeed a sequential order to learning how to play jazz piano, which, right, it shouldn't surprise you. I mean, after all, I cannot think of one high level skill that you can successfully develop without having a strategic game plan. And I can guarantee you that a scattershot approach or as I always refer to it a YouTube approach to trying to learn how to play jazz piano, right, it leads only to frustration, confusion and ultimately giving up. So my goal from day one with jazz piano skills, has been to not only introduce you to the essential jazz piano skills, which I call Discover, but to also provide you with a way to successfully study those skills learn and a process for developing a physical command of those skills play. I have also mentioned several times since the start of the year that if you have been a faithful jazz piano skills listener for the past four plus years, you have become intimately familiar with the jazz panel skills needed to begin to study. Now, I've also mentioned that if you haven't been grinding along with us for the past four years, it's no big deal. Right? This is a great time to jump on board begin developing, begin enhancing your jazz piano skills. The tune study that we do every month will actually help you sift through and prioritize the last four years of podcast episodes so that you can begin maximizing your jazz piano skills right now immediately. So if you're a jazz piano skills vet, fantastic, right, wonderful. But if you're a jazz piano skills, Ricky, hey, you're in the right place the right time to begin a jazz piano journey that will have a very profound impact on your understanding of music, music, and of course, have a big understanding impact on your understanding of jazz piano playing as well. So today, today you are going to discover an improvisation approach for Don't blame me. You're going to learn improvisational zones, patterns and motifs for Don't blame me. You're going to play a solo through the changes don't blame me using what I like to call a stop and go approach a stop and go approach. So as I always like to say regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you're an experienced and seasoned person National, you're gonna find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring, don't blame me to be very beneficial. Mandy, just hear all those things going off. That's my wife trying to get ahold of me. So I'm gonna hit the pause button right now take care of her. So we'll get back to business here. Hang on one sec. All right. Little stress, but that's over. So now, 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, if you're new to jazz piano skills welcome. I want to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member now your membership as a jazz piano skills member your membership grants you access to the premium content. For this podcast episode and for every weekly podcast episode. The premium content will help you thoroughly and correctly discover discovered learn and play the jazz standard we are currently currently exploring, right and so much more. For example, jazz panel skills members have access to the past current and future educational weekly podcast packets. These are the illustrations the lead sheets in the play along the backing tracks that I designed and develop. To help you get the most out of each weekly jazz panel skills podcast episode. You also have access to a self paced and sequential jazz piano curriculum, which is loaded with comprehensive courses containing all of the courses containing educational talks. There's interactive learning media to help you digest conceptually the skill video demonstrations of the jazz panel skills in all 12 keys and so much more. You also have a reserved seat as I like to say in my online weekly masterclass, which is held every Thursday evening 8pm Now, if you can't attend, it's no big deal because the master classes are recorded. And as a member, you can watch and rewatch the video of the class whenever and as often as you wish. You also as a jazz piano skills member, right? You have access to an online interactive Fakebook containing must must know jazz standards with all of them with excellent chord changes chord scale relationships mapped out harmonic function analysis. There's listening suggestions, historical insights. Finally, as a jazz panel skills member you can hang out with some old friends make some new jazz friends in the online private jazz panel skills community, which hosts a variety of engaging forums that you will thoroughly enjoy. And finally, last but not least, your membership, premium content membership grants you unlimited private, personal and professional educational support whenever and as often as you need it. All of these amazing privileges are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazz panels skills.com. And of course become a member. If you have any questions while you poke around on the website, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'm always happy to spend some time with you. Answer any questions that you may have and help you in any way that I can. All right, so now it's on to the question of the week. This week's question comes from Cindy Flanigan residing in beautiful, beautiful Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona and Cindy writes, I desperately want to be able to play a tune and improvise over the chord changes. I have heard 1000 times that I need to practice improvising over the 251 progression which I do faithfully, but not successfully. I can play the chords but my melodic ideas are awful. At least I think so. I say this because my ideas sound choppy. They are not smooth and connected. Like I hear when listening to jazz musicians. Any ideas to help me smooth out my melodic plane will be deeply appreciated. Thank you. Well, the first thing I will say Cindy, is that I bet your improvisation is not as awful as you think it is. So don't be too hard on yourself as you continue to develop your improvisation skills. I tell everyone and this goes for professional musicians as well. I tell everyone that when improvising I guarantee I guarantee three things will always happen. Three things good or bad and ugly. It's

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inevitable. We all experience good, bad and ugly. When practicing our improvisational skills, be thankful for the good, and focus on understanding and correcting the bad and ugly. That's all we can do, right? This is how we grow. As jazz pianists, this is how we grow as jazz musicians. So let me give you, let me give you a quick outline to use when practicing your improvisation skills over the 251 progression, which, by the way, is a very good progression to use when practicing improvising. Okay, so here's the outline. You ready? Number one, always begin with a harmonic shape. Always begin with a harmonic shape. Melody flows from Harmony. In fact, if you have no harmonic shape in mind, I guarantee you, there's going to be no melody that surfaces, right? So you need a harmonic shape for your two chord, one for your five chord, and one for your one chord. Right? So we're dealing with three harmonic shapes. Number two, determine the type of motion you are going to apply to the shapes. Right? Are you going to apply arpeggio motion? Or are you going to apply scale motion, pick one or the other. But do not at this time, do not try to combine them. Again, we want to keep things very structured. Number three, determine the direction your motion is going to travel. Right. So your arpeggio or scale motion is either going to be ascending, or it's going to be descending. And again, pick one or the other. We're either going up or we're coming down. Number five, determine how you're going to connect, connect the shape of the each shape of the 251 progression, how are you going to connect these shapes in number six, practice your ascending or descending line over the entire 251 progression. In other words, it should sound like if you have your three shapes, you've determined how to connect them. Right? It should sound like one melodic line played over three chords, one melodic line played over three chords. And suddenly this will help. This will help get rid of the choppy, the choppiness that you refer to right? We want one melodic line played over three chords, right? But that melodic line is going to comprise of three harmonic shapes. Number seven, focus on playing with an authentic jazz articulation. And if you do so, right, you will be amazed at how good you sound. Right you have three harmonic shapes that you've thought through, you've given great consideration how you're going to connect those three shapes, using either arpeggio or scale motion, traveling either up or down. Right, and you're going to create one melodic idea, one melodic line over three chords, or your two, or your five over your one. So let me demonstrate, I'm going to be playing in the key of B flat major. So we're going to be dealing with a C minor seven, and F dominant seven, a B flat major seven, I'm going to use arpeggio motion that ascends through the entire progression, ascending through the entire progression. So I'm going to play my C minor seven in root position. Just C, E flat, G, B flat, continuing my line with F dominant seven and second inversion. C, E flat f A, following up with my B flat major seven in root position. One line, so it's gonna sound like this right, I got a two, five but it sounds like one line. Now if I focus on descending motion, I'm going to start my C minor seven in first inversion. So I'm going to see B flat G flat, F dominant seven in third inversion see a flat and then B flat major seven and second inversion D B flat a So it sounds like this. Again, we have 251. But it's just one line over three chord changes. So I want to bring the ensemble then and I'm going to play this to five one in the key of B flat major C minor seven, F seven, B flat major. I'm going to focus on ascending arpeggio motion first. So I'll play the progression, it's going to be a to measure 251. So the two is going to be for two counts, the f7 is going to be for two counts, the B flat major for four counts, right for beats. And so I'll play that, I'll set it up, I'll play the 251 progression a couple times, then you'll hear me play ascending motion that one line over all three chords over the entire 251 progression, ascending arpeggio motion, then you'll hear me switch, descending arpeggio motion one line through the entire 251 progression. So the idea I'm wanting to create this non choppy Cindy non choppy, melodic line that ascends through the entire 251 progression using arpeggio motion, I want to also play a non choppy, descending line through the entire 251 progression, using arpeggio motion as well. So I'm gonna bring the ensemble then we're going to focus on a nice articulation. I want this to sound like a very smooth, melodic improvisational line over a 251. So here we go check it out.

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Nice write one melodic idea using three harmonic shapes, played over a 251 progression ascending and descending arpeggio motion. Okay. So that outline if you use that outline Sunday, and you begin practicing that way, right, I think you will find that your choppiness that you refer to in your question begins to disappear. And there starts to become of fluid motion to your improvisation that that is covering your progression, whether it's a 251 progression or any other progression for that matter. But I think it's a great idea. As you indicated, you've been advised to practice and play over the 251 I think that's a great idea to do this kind of practicing. So I hope this helps Andy. As always, if more clarification is needed, of course, do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to help at any time. Okay. All right. So now let's discover learn play jazz piano, let's discover learn and play. Don't blame me. This is part three of our exploration. It's an improvisation approach today. I have presented my outline for studying and learning any to several times since the start of the year, but you know what, it never hurts to review, right? To review it again. And again, and again. It's that important. So when learning to tune genre makes no difference to me. I don't care whether it's a jazz, rock, pop, country, folk, r&b, any other style right. Here's how I like to go about it. Number one, I listen. Always, always listen, I check out various artists performing the tune from vocalist instrumentalist, and of course pianist. Number two I determined form every tune has a form what is it so on Hortence for me to know the architectural structure of the tune, is it an ABA Form A, B, A, B, A, B, A, C, and so on. After I've done that, number three, I like to turn my attention to the harmonic foundation of the two, what are the chords? Right? After I look at the chords, I like to study voicings, right, and I'd like to look at common harmonic movement progressions within the tune, like the 2511451625 and so on. Number four, I learned melody. And I experiment with various treatments of the two treatments like a balanced diet or Basa, style or swing style. And then finally, finally, number five, I explored various improvisation approaches to the tune, explore various zones, the harmonic shapes, patterns, motifs using tension, and then the stop and go approach that we're going to do today. These are various ways in which I practice improvising. And that's it right there's nothing more to my outline than that. Right Listen, determine form, learn chords, voicings, learn melody treatments, and explore improvisation approaches. So two weeks ago, we focused on gaining gaining and harmonic familiarity and command of Don't blame me so we listened. We determined form explored, the chord changes harmonic function and voicings. Last week we focused on an in depth melodic analysis, don't blame me. So we checked out guide tones and phrases, target notes, various interpretations fingerings, right. Our goal, always whether it's a harmonic approach, melodic approach, or today, the improvisation approach, our goal always is to keep things really simple, clean, tidy, structured, organized, with our approach. So essential, right? Doesn't make any difference whether it's a skill study or tunes to study, right, we approach it the same way. Our conceptual understanding of all that we do musically must be right, it must be structured, it must be simple. Our conceptual understanding must be simple, so that it can be replicated over and over and over again. And y'all can attest to the fact that I say it many times, every episode, I say it every episode, right? For the past four years, I've said it every episode that if your conceptual understanding of music, or any musical skill is skewed in any way. It's not structured, it's not simple, then it's unorganized. And it's confusing, right? And if it's unorganized and confusing conceptually upstairs, right, you have zero chance of getting it out downstairs in your hands. Let's just, that's just the truth. So, we spend a lot of time making sure we understand things conceptually, before we sit on the bench and try to do things physically. Therefore, we keep our tune steady, right, very structured, simple, and replicatable from month to month, to month to month. So the educational agenda for today is as follows where we are going to begin part three of our exploration to discover learn and play don't blame me and improvisation approach. Number two, we are going to listen as always to a definitive recording of Don't blame me. Number three, we will discuss as we always do the importance of understanding harmonic zones patterns, motifs, tension. Number four, we will stress again, the importance of gaining a command of sound, using what arpeggio and scale motion number five, we will explore how to use the changes of Don't blame me to practice improvisation. Number six, we will discover learn and play a stop and go approach for developing our improvisational skills, a stop and go approach. And number seven, I will be playing the demonstrations today at a really comfy temple, right comfy 85 using a traditional, easy ballad groove. So as always, we have a ton to get done today. So if you're a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take a few minutes to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, and the play alongs. Again, your membership grants you access to the premium content for every weekly podcast episode, right which of course includes the educational podcast packets. And I mentioned that every week that you should have these podcast packets in your hands when listen to this episode to get the most out of it. And of course you should have them sitting on the piano as well when practicing so if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories such as Apple, Google, Spotify, Amazon iHeartRadio, Pandora, the list you know goes on and on. On, then I would suggest going directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com. Again, that's jazz piano skills podcast.com And you will find the active download links for each of 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 lead sheets, your podcast packets, I should say in front of you, I want you to grab your lead sheets. And you should have six lead sheets in your podcast packet, six lead sheets, so I want to go through them quickly. Okay.

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lead sheet one deals with arpeggio motion for the unique chord changes of Don't blame me lead sheet two deals with scale motion for the unique chord changes of Don't blame me, lead sheet three deals with arpeggio motion, right isolating the sound the C major sound and dealing with arpeggio motion with the addition of half step approach moments, right in order to create tension lead sheet for does the same thing except using scale motion, right using scale motion. And then the half step approach moments built around the root the primary core tones root third, five and seven. Okay, so then when you get to lead sheet five, lead sheet five is where I introduced this concept of what I like to call stop and go arpeggio improvisation practice, stop and go improvisation practice. And I'm going to model this for you here a little later. But that's what lead sheet five is dealing with lead sheet six deals with stop and go scale, movement scale motion for improvisation development. So there's our six lead sheets, again, very logical progression from lead sheets one and two, dealing with arpeggio and scale motion for the unique chord changes, lead sheets three and four deal with arpeggio scale motion with the addition of half step approach moments to create tension centering around the primary core tones of Ruth, third five and seven, and lead sheets five and six now introduce a new approach that I haven't introduced so far yet this year. And that's the stop and go arpeggio and scale approach for improvisation development. So no question about it right some invaluable tools that we are going to use to discover learn and play. Don't blame me. Now, what is the very first thing that we do when studying and learning to?

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You got it

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right? We listen. We should always we should always be listening right? No question about it. I stress it all the time that listening to various renditions of attune is not only the first but I believe I firmly believe that it's the most important step and again, I can't imagine ever ever attempting to learn a tune without spending a lot of time listening to the to becoming filt familiar with it right various artists various treatments absorbing it. Now I typically as I've mentioned before, I typically like to listen to check out vocal renditions first because I love the lyrics lyrics helped me learn to tune illuminates the phrases and it helps me articulate those phrases correctly the lyrics, then I turn my attention to listen the various instrumentalists and of course, of course jazz pianist as well. But the bottom line is I listened and that's what we're going to do right now before going any further. Alright, so two weeks ago, we checked out net King Cole singing Don't blame me last week we enjoy Charlie Parker's Don't blame me today who he listened to another great Amal Jamal one of my favorite jazz pianists you know it's funny that they all they're all my favorite pianists right? So mall Jamal, performing Don't blame me now this is I selected this because such a unique treatment to this tune. We typically you know, here don't blame me kind of in a ballad format. You know last week I played it as demonstrated as a ballad and also as a bossa and then kind of swing up tempo swing as well. But I picked this one because I'm all Jamal as he always does, has a very unique very fun treatment to this town so So as always, right. I want you to grab your favorite beverage. I want you to sit back and get ready enjoy a really good freight rendition of this old standard Don't blame me by Amal Jamal check it out.

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Wow How tasty is that right? It's so interesting right even though he changes things around rhythmically quite a bit you still hear that tune right? You still hear Don't blame me. So check out Amal Jamal, everything he does. Everything he does is fantastic. Now listen, I would encourage you, as I do with every rendition, listen to it multiple times. And every time you listen to it, you're going to hear new things, and every new thing that you hear will have a profound impact on the treatment that you develop. So spend time listening. Okay, so let's get busy. Let's grab those lead sheets, right your lead sheets pet lead sheet packet, six lead sheets. And let's start with lead sheet one right it's time to discover how to properly begin developing our improvisational skills using the classic standard don't 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.