Dr. JB Dyas, Pt. 3

Dr. Bob Lawrence  0:32  
Welcome to jazz pm skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. Well, it's a thrill to welcome back to jazz panel skills. Dr. J. B. dias. Dr. Dyess has been a leader in jazz education for the past two decades, currently Vice President for Education and curriculum development at the Herbie Hancock institution of jazz. Dyess oversees the institute's education and outreach programs, including jazz in America, one of the most significant and wide reaching jazz education programs in the world. He has presented numerous jazz workshops, teacher training, seminars, and jazz clinics worldwide, with such renowned artists as Dave Brubeck, Gerald Clayton, Robin Eubanks, Herbie Hancock, Christian McBride, Bobby Watson, and Steve Wilson. Before his current position at the Herbie Hancock Institute of jazz, Dr. Dyess served as executive director of the Brubeck Institute, where he implemented its college fellowship program, Brubeck festival, summer jazz colony and jazz outreach initiative. Before that. Mr. Dyess served as the director of Jazz Studies at Miami Dade College, one of the largest and most multicultural colleges in the nation, and New World School of the Arts Miami's award winning Performing Arts High School. Today, Dr. Diez shares his insight into piano voicings, and some pretty nifty and efficient ways to discover, learn and play these essential jazz shapes voicings so that you sound like a jazz pianist. In part four of my interview that will be released in March, Dr. Diess, explores harmonic function, chord scale relationships and tune learning. That episode, like I said, will be released in March. Well, listen, I could go on and on. But let's get to my interview. Let's spend some time with Dr. J. B. Dyess. So sit back, relax. And welcome back to jazz piano skills. Dr. J. B. Dyess. J. B Dyess back in the house back at jazz piano skills. Let's hear

Dr. JB Dyas  3:19  
can I get that from you? Because I'd like to use that as my alarm clock in the morning.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  3:25  
Yes, I'll send that I'll send you that little clip. And you can, you can cue it up in your alarm clock. That's awesome. Welcome back, my friend.

Dr. JB Dyas  3:33  
Thank you, Dr. Lawrence. It's good to be back. Oh, please, please. So

Dr. Bob Lawrence  3:37  
yeah, oh, man, we got so much to talk about JB since since you were on last time. And we went through, you know, we went through this whole you presented, unveiled for all the jazz panel scale listeners, your list of you know, 104 tunes that every jazz musician should have under their belt, they should know, right? And had it broken down a list of 52 List of 52. Right. So you could do you could do one tune? One tune a week for 52 weeks for one year. And then and then attack attack list to for the second year. And in two years, you have 104 standards under your fingers that that are going to be called that jam sessions or on gigs. And so what we've done a jazz piano skills this year, as I was mentioning to you before we started recording was that we're actually using your list of 104 recommended tunes. We're taking a tune each month and we're dissecting that tune. Three ways. We're doing like a harmonic analysis, a melodic analysis of that tune and then using that tune for improvisation development. So I want to get into talking about that a little bit today. And I know you have some some fantastic materials to share with us today. It helped me help me with this JB New homonyms Am I saying that correctly homonyms homonyms.

Dr. JB Dyas  5:06  
Yep and mnemonics mnemonics a pneumonic is just a memory device. Okay? Like what's the first mnemonic everybody learned music? Every boy

Dr. Bob Lawrence  5:18  
does fine.

Dr. JB Dyas  5:20  
And homonyms are words, member when you're in grade school you learn about antonyms synonyms.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  5:29  
Right? Of course.

Dr. JB Dyas  5:30  
So synonyms are words that mean the same Yep, and antonyms are words that are opposite. And homonyms are words that sound the same, but have different meanings depending on the context. Okay, I like how we're like jazz for jazz piano voicings. homonyms are chords with the exact same notes. And they sound the same, but are different depending on what the bass player plays.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  5:58  
I love it. Right. I love it. And man, I've been playing homonyms my whole life, I didn't even realize it.

Unknown Speaker  6:08  
So we'll get into that. Ask

Dr. JB Dyas  6:09  
yourself, do you know that B flat seven is the same as d half diminished? Yeah, right. And I have, I have a list and I can I can share my list. And you can put that on your website if you'd like I've

Dr. Bob Lawrence  6:20  
broken them down. Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, let's jump. Let's jump into it. Let's jump into it. So where do you where do you want to start? You want to start with the homonyms and you want to start with the mnemonics. What do you want to start with? Well,

Dr. JB Dyas  6:30  
one thing that's different about the piano players that I teach and the pianist that you teach, is, you're teaching piano players, right? And I'm teaching non pianist. Sometimes they have classical piano chops. But I'm teaching piano for pedagogical purposes, getting to use the piano to teach jazz, and so that at least you give the illusion that you know what you're doing when you sit in with that combo at the, you know, jazz camp. Right, right. So I have a new Monix to find voicings very quickly. For non pianists. Now pianists can use this also. And so I'm going to just start with that. Yeah, let's do that. And as I call these generic, this first set of voicings I'm going to show or just, I call it generic voicings, okay, meaning these are just standard voicings, the right hand is in fourths, for the most part. Yeah, so I'm going to just share, share my screen. And first of all, the one of the first things that I tell all the students is that every scale has got a chord that goes with it. So if you just play a C major seventh chord, there's a scale that goes with it C major and you can put any note into your voicing from that core from that scale, with the exception of a few avoid tones. And what do you do with avoid tones, you avoid them. So when you play a C major, you can play any note in the scale can put in the one, the two, the three, avoid the four, that's the voice tone, 5678 dominant seven uses the mixolydian scale, if you flat the seventh, in the scored, you flat it in the scale, and you can use any note in that scale for the chord. Except that avoid tone again the fourth, so avoid the fourth on a major seventh and avoid the fourth on a dominant seventh. Unless of course it's a sus chord on the on the dominant seven where the fourth is actually substituted for the third correct than minor. No avoid tones. There's the Dorian scale again, lower the third and lower the seventh, half diminished locrian you just use the notes from the major scale a half step higher. Here's B D flat major. And here's C. There's C suit Locrian. And the avoid tone is the flat two even though it's in the scale then you got diminished nor avoid tones, just whole half whole half whole half whole half. And then last I want to give you his dominant seven altered and what dominant seven altered means is no regular five, no regular nine. So you have to have an altered fifth and so flat five and sharp five and a flat nine sharp nine. That's right. So here's a regular C seven chord 135 flat seven nine. To make it altered. I can sharp the five and sharp, the nine are flat, the five and flat. The Nine are flat, the five and sharp. The Nine are sharp, the five and flat the nine or put them all in. Yeah, right. So that's the that's the basic of basis of what I'm going to show you when I show you voicings all the notes that I'm going to show you in these generic voicings with mnemonics come from those scales. Yeah, all the notes are cool except avoid the fourth and a major seventh chord. Avoid the fourth and a dominant seventh chord. Avoid the flat two and a half diminished chord, even though they're in the scale. Yeah. So

Dr. Bob Lawrence  10:15  
what are your thoughts on that sharp four in the major, right, that Lydian sound?

Dr. JB Dyas  10:19  
Right? I love the sound, but that's a different chord symbol. Yeah, that's a major seven sharp for it. So I would consider that a substitution. Okay, okay. When you see when you see, basically a chord symbol represents a scale, which represents a sound, which represents an emotion. That's right. So, this c major seventh C major seventh symbol, and A J, seven, or, you know, a Delta sign or triangle, right represents this. Which represents happy. Yeah, or peace, whereas this minor represents that scale. So this is the will be called the vertical representation of that sound, because if you write it down, it's vertical. This is the horizontal. You write it down. It's horizontal, but they both are supposed to project the same mood. So if I play this, or if I play this it sounds sad.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  11:29  
Yeah. Well, I must. I must. I must be a sad dude. Because I love that sound.

Dr. JB Dyas  11:37  
Yeah, I mean, you. Every sound represents an emotion, like, like major is happy, and dominant. is tragic, or bluesy. Yeah, right. That's right. Yeah. You would never you would never write a blues with major seventh chords. No. I said, could it be with major seventh chords? It's just like, I got the blues because my champagne it's not important. I got the blues because my Bentley's in the shop, and I have to drive the jig today. It's just it's just not that said you want somebody shot my dog. And took my wife. Don't know which is worse. So you want you want that for now for minor? You want sad? You want sad? So if you say your, your grandmother passed, and they've asked you to write the they've asked you to, you know, right to the funeral. Yeah, you probably want to use that chord. You wouldn't want to say we wouldn't use major granny died last week. Unless, of course you were in the will. And you know, what's pretty good. But you want right? And like, like for hap for like Happy Birthday. You wouldn't want minor chords. Yeah, right. You wouldn't want right? You wouldn't want you know? Happy birthday.

Unknown Speaker  13:13  
To him. Right?

Dr. JB Dyas  13:16  
Yeah, right. And I love them. And half diminished. half diminished. That's a good one. What? sad, angry. different opinions I can have.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  13:33  
It's kind of mysterious man. The half diminished. Cat has a little mystery to it, but not

Dr. JB Dyas  13:37  
as much as fully diminished. Correct? That's right. I mean, when you watch when you watch the soap operas, that's what they always play right before they go to commercial.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  13:48  
Yeah, but right

Unknown Speaker  13:49  
baby whose baby is it?

Dr. Bob Lawrence  13:52  
Yet, right? Yeah, right. Right. Or, you know, the old silent movies, right? The old silent movies, the the ladies being tied up on the on the railroad track and a piano player is shaking a diminished chord like this, you know, the villain, you know? You're absolutely right.

Dr. JB Dyas  14:08  
So now that, you know, everyone knows the scales that go with the chords, now we have to get some voicings. Yeah.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  14:14  
You know, before you talk about the voicings, it's interesting, you're you were mentioning just a few minutes ago about how you got the, the horizontal and vertical representation of the sound. And that's so important for for pianist, whether, you know, a young pianist or an experienced pianist, right, to understand this. And, and I, you know, a lot of times I explain that, as, you know, in music we have, every sound is represented as a solid and a liquid. You know, that, you know, if we went into a class of kindergarten or kids and you're in you're holding a chunk of ice and I was holding a jug of water and we asked them if I was, if we were holding the same thing. They would under otterly say no, because they haven't learned that a solid and liquid can be one in the same thing. And I always explain harmony as that solid, that ice cube that chunk of ice and the melody as liquid as the water, but they're the they're the exact same thing. Man,

Dr. JB Dyas  15:18  
I'd love that. I'd like to borrow that if I knew you can

Dr. Bob Lawrence  15:23  
claim it as your own JB I want to say, yeah, yeah. So this

Dr. JB Dyas  15:28  
is the solid. That's a solid liquid.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  15:31  
That's the liquid. Same thing solid liquid. So,

Dr. JB Dyas  15:35  
so alright. So check out these mnemonics to find some hip voicings or when I say hip as hip or voicing these but these you do here on records, okay, so, for major, put your pinky on the root, right hand pinky on the root come down in fourths. Yep. And the fourths are really easy for a non pianist to see because you play a note, you skip to you play a note, you skip to you play a note, you skip to you play a note, you skip too long as you see two empty white notes. between your fingers, you've got a nice 3695 Root voicing, right? So if I want to go to F pinkie on F and come down and force and be flat, I'm just gonna run the circle. And all I'm doing is moving my arms. Right? There's, there's the flat major, I'm just moving my arms like rock and roll barre chords. Right? Well, barre chords on guitar. So here's picky on C come down and force pinky on F come down. That's the pneumonic. They're easy to find. And there you go. Now to make a dominant, here's major, keep that right hand the same, and just put in the flat seven. And again, I'm keeping my hands exactly like they're paralyzed. Just move them around, put the pinkie on the route, and inline every line every line everything up like that.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  16:58  
Yeah. Now that that's great, right? These quarter shapes, they fit the hand, they actually fit the hand better than thirds, quite honestly, they just naturally fit the hand. And

Dr. JB Dyas  17:08  
I tell my students, I want you to walk around lit like this today. And when you wave goodbye, Hey, see you later. Yeah. In your pocket, take it out. And then you've got that nice cordial sound. Yeah. So here's your GED. Yeah, go ahead.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  17:26  
I got a question for him on that very first voicing on that, see you had an E and an A in the left hand, you had your DGC in the right hand, you have a beautiful C major. Right. So now, a lot of times I teach in, you are focusing on that top note that CBN on top and working your way down in force. Well, after I get that shape, right, do you ever do you ever have them zone in on the bottom note saying look, that bottom, that's going to be the third or the seventh of some chord? So I do, okay. And

Dr. JB Dyas  17:56  
then I call these, all these that have the third on the B in the in the not the bass, the third on the lowest voice? Yes, right. Players going to play the bass, right, right. So three, six, so with the root on top, the third is going to be on the bottom. So the right hand for all these chords here C seven, same exact thing. So category A, because the third is on the bottom. Yep, C seven. And notice f7. I'm just moving my arms B flat seven E flat. Yeah, and then minor. Well, if this is C major, lower the seven to make it C seven, lower the third to make a C minor. And again, notice to like, I tell people if they were, if they were paralyzed, and an industrial accident, and their hands were stuck like this. If they could still play all these chords, someone would just have to move them from left to right and bump them up and down. Right, right. And then here's here's B flat minor. And E flat minor. So I call those category A, Category B. And we'll have the seventh in the base. Yeah, there you go. Right. Bolus voice. Put the fifth on top and come down and forth. Yeah. So there's C, fifth of F, I'm going to do F next, just going to run the circle of fourths. There's this and then here's the fifth of B flat come down the fourth and I'm doing is looking at my fingers and making sure I have empty white notes to two empty white notes. Between the ones are in plain. Use E flat because the there's the fifth of E flat, you can tell I'm not a pianist, but you know I can play one in the classroom. There you go. And so I go back to see again, and I get a beautiful 73695 And I was asked why is Why is it okay to put the the nine in there because it's in there. related scale, like can I go to six then because of handy skill to make it a dominant seventh, just lower the seventh right hand stays the same, dancy seven, I'm going to go down to F seven, there's the flat seven, whole step below the root, and pinky on the fifth. And then B flat seven, and then E flat seven pinkie on the fifth. Now check out my pneumonic for minor, for minor point with your pointer finger to the root point to the root. Keep that same spread again, that flat third and flat seven. See C minor and you get a beautiful flat seven, flat three, five, root four, or the 11th. And the 11th. Although it's in avoid tone on major and dominant, it sounds great on minor. Oh, that's fantastic, right? C minor. F minor. I'm pointing with my pointer finger. B, F flat minor. Yeah, very good. Very good. Well, E flat minor point to E flat. And then I look at other mnemonics like this. Bob, E flat minor, all black. I just memorize it. It's all black.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  21:11  
It's the image imagery imagery of it. Yeah, absolutely. See

Dr. JB Dyas  21:16  
it, like song from my father, F minor first chord. And I got a nice put my pinky on F come down, and fourth, third and seventh and the bottom. And I remember black, white, black, white.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  21:30  
Yeah, there you go. There you go. And you

Dr. JB Dyas  21:32  
fled sevens. The next chord. Well, what worked for that one, but it will for the D flat seven, white black. Minor, point two G. Because it's a C sus chord, there's the C in the base. G minor point to g point with my pointer finger. And then point to F for F minor. And your beginning piano player in your in your high school jazz band. All of us playing song for my father is now playing real. Yeah, real Exactly. As we understand the new Monix

Dr. Bob Lawrence  22:03  
That's right. That's that's very hip. Very hip. JB very big hip. Now, I have a question for you. I play on the dominant sound. I like to play three and seven in my left hand. And I know the standard voicing that pianists like to teach all the time and play all the time is the nine, five and route in the right hand. Right. So you got E and B flat DGC. Right. But I like to I like to play a B flat and I play e a d in the right hand. So I played the third again. Now, JB why I do that is because now if I take my right hand and slide it down one half step, I have a fully altered dominant court.

Dr. JB Dyas  22:50  
Correct? Yeah, correct. Right. That and that's that's another one of my pneumonic. I'd come at it in a slightly different way. Check it out. Yeah. When you want to play altered? Do we see the keys here? Yep. Here's my regular C seven chord. Yeah, if you if you got category A meaning the third is in the in the lowest voice, just raise your right hand. And you have C seven altered. Yeah, and right. If you're in Category B, and you have the flat seven, the flat seven, the flat flat, flat seven in the left hand, then your right hand is going to go down a half step. There you go. It's very beautifully right to the center. There you go. So yeah, that's what my pneumonic lists to for dominant seven category A raise the right hand up a half step to make it altered. Category B dominant seventh, regular dominant seven, got the flat seven in the base, the flat seven, lower right hand and automatically you get a beautiful voice. Yeah,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  23:59  
it's really cool, right? So you either raise it a half step, if you're playing nine, five and root in your right hand or if you play the or if you play the 913 nine in the right hand, you can lower it a half step and then lower to half step with the with your what is it option two that you're talking about? It's so I think it's so powerful for piano players to learn that that how easy it is to slide a create an altered dominant sound from your regular altar from your regular dominant voicing. It's very easy, and

Dr. JB Dyas  24:29  
yet and then, I mean, check this out. Here's, here's a regular Category B, G seven chord. Notice my pinkies on the fifth. Yeah, pinky on the fifth come down and forth. There's the flat seven in the third, flat seven. So the base, there's G seven altered. flat seven, three, sharp five, flat nine, flat five. And I just reverse colors. Black goes to white White goes to black and I have a g7 altered to C minor. Just like you'd hear on the eighth to the ninth bar and a B flat blues or Yeah, the me see that would be the fifth to sixth bar in Blue Bossa right. Six to seven arm Blue Bossa six to so. So you

Dr. Bob Lawrence  25:24  
have this this is all on your this is on a handout all these voicing structures mnemonics that you're talking about this on a handout on your website, correct? Yes.

Dr. JB Dyas  25:32  
And I can I can, I can show you a little bit of it. Hold on. Let me let me put this on the screen for you. Yeah, this was good. And on one, one second. Okay, so let me let me share my screen with you here.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  25:53  
Yeah, so if you're watching this on YouTube, you'll be able to see what JB is pulling up here.

Dr. JB Dyas  26:02  
Okay, share. Yep. Going through my steps here. Share Screen. Window. There it is. Boom. Okay. Do you see this thing that says common piano voicings? Well, I'm

Dr. Bob Lawrence  26:18  
looking I'm looking right at it.

Dr. JB Dyas  26:21  
Okay, we'll make it a little bigger here. still see it? Yep.

Unknown Speaker  26:24  
Beautiful. Here are the 10 scales

Dr. JB Dyas  26:27  
that we use mostly most, most straight ahead jazz, and I got a little formula for him. C Mixolydian. Major scale with a flat seven. Yep. Dorian major scale with a flat third and flat seven. Right. locrian notes from the major scale a half step higher. So it's a D flat major, just starting on C? Correct. Notice I put in parentheses here like on major and dominant. Those are the notes. Those are the avoid tones. Yeah, yep. Don't put them in the chord. So they're all listed here. And then I have one handed voicings, these are what you'd have in your left hand. Yeah, with the pneumonic. So for 379. The pneumonic is looking at the roof. Go up a whole spread out up a hole. I'll do it down here. So look at the route, go up a hole down a half. And there you have a 379. Yep. dominant seven, same thing, just flat the seventh minor flat the third. For major look at the triads. So one, so 1135, but rather than 135, lower the root a half step, and you got 735 for dominant seven, look at the triad and spread off the outer voices, bass players playing to see. Yep, very nice liner. You look at the triad and just lower the seventh. That will lower the root a whole step to the seventh lower though. And you've got it. So all those mnemonics are on that. I've got 251 New Monix there's two fives and major. Yeah, just did three keys. Here's two fives and minor. Do you have to minister g7 altered those chords and I've talked about that there. I'm just going through it fast now. But you can download this. It's free. Yeah. You have value voicings I was telling you about. Yeah, fantastic. Right hand pinky on the roof. Come down and forth. Look at this one. Same as above, just lower the top note a half step and you get the elegance.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  28:37  
And that's a beautiful, that's a beautiful major seven voicing beautiful. And then

Dr. JB Dyas  28:41  
here's Category B, right hand pinkie on the fifth come down and forth in both hands. Yep. Dominant same right hand right and pick your in the root come down and force in the right hand third and flat seven. Yeah, and the Category B is the same as above right hand, same as the major above right and pick you in the fifth. Come down and forth in the right end, but the flat seven and third and the left hand. Yep. And here's the minor pinky on the root. And here's the Category B where we point to the root. Right and here's the one we just finished, Bob dominant altered. Think category a voicing of dominant seven and raise the right hand up a half step. And there you get your three flat seven sharp nine sharp five flat nine. Or think Category B voicing of C seven. Remember the pneumonic for that but pinkie on the fifth and just lower the right hand a half step you get the flat seven three sharp five flat nine. Yeah. What five voicing?

Dr. Bob Lawrence  29:45  
Yeah, see JB I guess I cheated man on that category A I went with the third six and nine and I lower regardless whether it's category A or Category B I lower it a house to see I gotta keep it simple, man. I can't I can't remember which one do I lower? Which one do I read? Nice

Dr. JB Dyas  30:00  
man. That's why you think of this flat seven. Which way does the flats which way do you do it for the flat when the flat there you go. There

Dr. Bob Lawrence  30:07  
you go. I get it. That's

Unknown Speaker  30:09  
the pneumonic.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  30:10  
There you go. Okay.

Dr. JB Dyas  30:12  
I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with the whole pneumonic thing like my handouts for a guitar, they're on green paper. Okay, guess what color my bass handouts are on?

Unknown Speaker  30:29  
Blue. Okay,

Dr. JB Dyas  30:31  
bass. Yeah, there you got piano.

Unknown Speaker  30:33  
Don't tell me pink, pink.

Dr. JB Dyas  30:38  
Yes, pink turkey, turkey, for drums. Purple because P for percussion couldn't come up with. And then for my tune handouts, it's orange, because they say, Hey, man, orange, orange, you're gonna learn these tones. So those are my mnemonics. Oh,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  30:57  
my gosh, that's hilarious, man. So, okay, I got I got a serious question for you, man. Serious question I use. I know on the diminished sound when it comes to the diminished sound. And quite honestly, I think diminished. A lot of times educators try to avoid work. There's a lot of mystery around the diminished, how do you teach it? How do you voice it and so forth. Okay, but, and I know that it's very popular in the jazz world that we use the whole half diminished scale for a diminished sound, right? But I got to be honest with you, I lean on the seventh motor, that harmonic minor where that diminished chord originates from I use that sound a lot too. And I absolutely love it.

Dr. JB Dyas  31:39  
Yeah, and it's hipper. The more modern cats do that. It's great. As far as just finding new a pneumonic for a half diminished. Assuming that half diminished for a diminished chord, I just call it the lobster chord. Lobster chord, you got it, you got to get your lobster claws. And you take any core tone, like you want. Let's say you want a e diminished chord. And you know E diminished, has the same notes as G diminished B flat diminished in dt and D flat diminished, they just circulate. So, you take any any chord any chord tone can be considered the root play one, go for try tone, go up a minor third between hands. And another try tones. So you have a tritone in each hand with a minor third in between. Yeah, yeah. And you want to and you automatically can get there from from any place I tell the students so. So another core tone is g so G upper tri tone, half step in B Minor Third in between, and another try tone in each hand. And the next quarter would be B flat. So there's my try tone minor third in between and a try tone in that hand. Okay,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  32:54  
so I want I want to I want to lay one on you. I want you to play in your left hand I want you to play a in D sharp and your left hand. Okay, and then I want you to in your right hand play G sharp, C sharp, F sharp. Okay, now before you play that, I want you to go down and hit the note C in the bass and then come up and hit that voicing

Unknown Speaker  33:23  
Ooh, la la.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  33:24  
I use that for my C diminished. That's a B seven voicing pneumonic. That's a B seven a half step below. And I use it for my diminished.

Dr. JB Dyas  33:33  
Isn't that great? Oh yeah. And God, and it's that it's that B seven Mike Category B visa pinkie on the three come down and forth. There you go. If I want to play a C diminished chord, I just go down a half step and play that dominant seventh and a cool sound I have

Dr. Bob Lawrence  33:51  
you have a hip you have a very hip diminished voicing. Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And you can play the you can play the or you can play what your category B dominant voicing as well. So you can play D sharp, A and your left hand D sharp led my category a voicing our category a voice, okay. So you can play that for your C diminished. So,

Dr. JB Dyas  34:17  
so here's here's b seven with a B in the bass. Yep. And here's that same chord with a C in the bass yep

Dr. Bob Lawrence  34:38  
awesome. Yeah. So you voice that you play that with them and I tell students all the time you want to hit diminish voicing. Here you go. You know,

Dr. JB Dyas  34:49  
that's golden. Never heard that. Last years never. Never never heard that. But I've heard that sound. Oh, go Oh, yes, that's

Dr. Bob Lawrence  35:00  
absolutely right. That's right. That's that's how I learned it because I heard that sound I went, what did they plan on that diminished chord?

Speaker 1  35:09  
What is that beautiful thing? Yeah, it's

Dr. Bob Lawrence  35:12  
beautiful. Yeah, voicing. I tell you what the study of voicing and how you have it laid out on your handout. I mean, that's invaluable. And I encourage every listener to go go to your website. And what's your URL? What's your website? Again, JB, what's the address?

Dr. JB Dyas  35:26  
It's just JB dyess.com. And you got to say, yeah, yeah. Then go to clinics at the top. Yep. Scroll down to clinic packets. Yep. And then you'll see a piano voice and mnemonics is one of the ones and yeah, that's

Dr. Bob Lawrence  35:41  
it. Yeah, that's fantastic. What a great what a great resource everybody needs to head over to JB site and and get that PDF and download it and start studying and it's fantastic. Okay, so Alright, so we've we've looked at voicings, what's this? What's this Hama? homonyms man Hominem,

Dr. JB Dyas  36:01  
like Hominem Hominem in English, two, two and two are homonyms to yo, T wo T, right? And the one that we use in music all the time is here and here. Can you hear? Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  36:18  
Yeah. Can you hear? Yeah,

Dr. JB Dyas  36:20  
where we're here where I'm sitting. Yeah. So when I teach, when I teach homonyms, I will say, for instance, I'll take a tune, like blue, Bossa and the first, the Blue Bossa. The first two chords are C minor, and F minor. And here's my C minor, generic voicing pinky on C category A, and my F minor, where I point to F. Now the next chord is D half diminished. And what I tell students that just like you said, B seven, is the same as C, diminished. That's a Hominem. Yes, well, I'm saying that D half diminished, is the same as B flat seven. So here's the rule, the guideline, the trick, whenever you want to play a half diminished chord, go up a sharp five, here's a regular five. So there's the sharp five, and play that as a dominant seventh chord, and a D half diminished, you have,

Unknown Speaker  37:27  
there you go. So

Dr. JB Dyas  37:30  
beginning piano players, C minor, F minor. Now I say don't hurt yourself, don't hurt yourself, don't hurt yourself go into D after minutes. Because there it is, all you have to do is move one finger and the pneumonic for D have diminishes D, what note do I play so there's D half diminished. So you have C minor, F minor, D half diminished. Now, if you want to play a dominant seven altered chord, name, for half diminished, you play up a sharp five. For a dominant seven altered chord, you play up a flat five. So the next chord in after D half diminished in Blue Bossa is g7. altered. Here's the regular five. Yeah, so there's the flat five. So if you want to play G seven altered display a D flat seven chord, and you have it, pinky on D flat. Remember how we did it before, here's the, the regular g7 chord. And to make it altered, if I've got the flat seven, I lower the right hand. Well, that's the same as a D flat seven chord. Yeah. And then that just goes to C minor. So here's C minor, F minor, D half diminished, same as B flat seven. g7. altered, same as D flat seven. C minor. Yeah, yeah. And that's what I mean. And you can do these for all kinds of voicings like, like, check this out. Here is a nice voicing of C minor. And let's find a pneumonic for that one. First of all, the voicing is for up for flat seven, nine, flat three, five. But then, when you're playing, you can think what's the four? What's a flat seven? What's the nine? What's the flat three? What's the fun? You have to find a pneumonic. So here's what you do you Well, you everybody knows the C minor triad. Yeah, but rather than going 135, just go to three, five, and there you go. So that's, that's an easy one. You just just kind of miss. Oops, I missed the root. And then look at look at the look at the root here. You got an index here. So just spread out, play up a whole step from whatever it is. And then just put your pinky fingers up and call it your pinky. Straight down wherever it is. It If it's just a nice relaxed hand, it'll just automatically be there by magic. Yeah. So there's C minor, you want F minor, there's the F minor triad. You change this. And now you have hipper voicings C minor. Yeah, you can just parallel one up to F minor. Yeah. Now we know check this dominant seven voicing note. Here's a nice dominant seven voicing flat 7936 route. Yeah, boy, how am I gonna think flat 7936 route where you think of the pneumonic, look at the root, split up and close it. And then see, everybody should know their relative minors, what's the relative minor of C? Just go down three half step, the relative minor is C. So just play the relative minor, the streaming the relative minor of C is a minor and play an A minor triad. That's just an A minor triad and in second inversion, d a nice. And I have a nice voicing. Yeah, yeah. So So check this out. If I want to play a B flat seven. Here's B flat, surrounded. What's the relative minor, G minor, there's my G minor, triad, and nice. Nice. Now, not only do I have d half diminished, flat seven 9/3. Sixth route, I have d half diminished for blue Basa, flat five, flat seven. Route for sharp five? I mean, excuse me. of d have to minister flat seven, flat five, flat seven, route? Four, sharp five. And why can I put the four and the sharp five in the in the D half diminished chord? Because in the Related scale? That's right, right. And I tell that to the students, I say I'm going to ask you many questions today. And the answer to every question is always the same. Right? And the answer is because it's in the Related scale. That's exactly right. So there's D have two beautiful voicing of D half diminished. Right now I remember that G seven altered is the same as D flat seven, remember just a flat five, G to D flat, A flat five. So there's D flat I surround it. I put in the relative minor, D flat minor and I have a wonderful parallel to five. Here's the half diminished same as B flat seven. Here's G seven altered same as D flat seven. And I might just end with a nice C minor voicing. And this this voicing I just looked well. It's just root position. 13579 Except rather than the root on the bottom. I'll just put that nice half step Rob.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  42:59  
Yeah. cluster using

Dr. JB Dyas  43:01  
those new Monix and homonyms. Yeah. All I need to know is dominant seven chords and I have all D, I have all the half diminished and all the dominant seven. With it all as well.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  43:16  
There you go. I tell you no, I tell students all the time. If you learn your major voicings dominant voicings and minor voicings, whether you know it or not, you already know you're half diminished and diminished because I repurpose my dominant voicings to satisfy my half diminished and diminished voicings.

Dr. JB Dyas  43:33  
And you only have to know. I mean, there are pianos that I see, you know that like when I go around to these high schools around the country, and there's a pianist that's been in jazz band for three or four years, and they've got chops. Yeah, they can play for release. You know, they can play the the opening, you know, Moonlight Sonata, the first? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they got chops, and they're still playing these root position, because nobody showed him this. And, and so they, so you can learn just a handful of stuff, just a handful of stuff and sound better right away. And her and directors teach these there's just a handful of stuff to these kids, then they start to sound good. They start to practice they want to find good voice leading and find and

Unknown Speaker  44:22  
yeah,

Dr. JB Dyas  44:23  
yeah, you know, just like speaking you have to you got to sound like you know what you're talking about, then you can go back and study theory and all that kind of thing and become even more eloquent.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  44:34  
Yeah. You know, I think it's important to mention, and I know you would agree with this, you know, we, we, we always teach piano teachers, musicians, we always teach you know, like we just mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, you know, every good boy does fine. But we we, we don't teach that with the intention that you hang on to that forever. That is that is a that is a crutch to get you to, to the data to where You can actually read the musical staff, you know, we don't want you always to be processing every good boy does fine before you play a note. It's just to help you digest the information. It's important for people listening that when we're talking about voicings, and you're running through all these formulas and these ideas for constructing these shapes, it's no, it's a really fancy every good boy does fine is what we're talking about. Because once you start, once you get your hands on the shape, you get your hands on a D half diminished voicing, and then you practice it as d half diminished voicing, all of a sudden, that shape now becomes associated with the thought of the half the miniature the hearing of the half the minister, the scene of the half diminished, your hands go to these shapes. I mean, I'm playing shapes all the time. And I'm not thinking about the notes I'm playing, I'm playing the shapes that I know satisfy those sounds just like, just like when we read when we read, read a book, we don't process letters, we read words, we don't process letters, the words are the shapes. These voicings are the shapes that we play. And you'll get to the point what's what I'm getting at is for somebody diving into voicings might be thinking, Man, this is overwhelming. It's it may be initially, but once you get past the Every Good Boy Does Fine, then you're now you're playing these shapes and sounds instinctually.

Dr. JB Dyas  46:23  
Perfectly said think perfectly said I wholeheartedly agree with everything, the mnemonics and the homonyms, they just get you there the first few times correct, then you memorize them. And by the way, your what you said about your hands taking the shape, it does become automatic, you know, we call that digital memories, my memory, right? But it's the same way you learned how to speak. learning, learning how to speak is far more complicated to learning how to play the the muscles that you have to use in the airflow and the way you have to write shape your teeth and your tone. My goodness, right? Have you ever a perfect example. Have you ever heard someone that was born? Hearing Impaired? mean they were born? Absolutely right. Hearing Impaired, they never have heard a thing in their life. And they're taught to speak.

Speaker 1  47:23  
They they thought that that? Yes, write it because

Dr. JB Dyas  47:27  
it's just impossible to teach the nuances that go on. But you start when you're very, very young. And you're listening to people and trying it. Right? Even Even if you don't know what you're saying you're going for it. Right. And that's why you see there's wonderful outliers, of course, but most great jazz piano players started young. Right? They started young listening young and emulating, just like they learned how to speak. So you learn, you'll learn nouns and verbs and adjectives and you might learn mnemonics for them. But then you're just speaking just what happens with piano but in the beginning, you got to you got to figure it out. And I say you know, Blue Bossa, you know, I will say this, I'll see, I'll be your brain. C minor, pinkie on C come down and force, whack white, F minor point F. Black in the lift. Do you have to minister same as B flat seven just changed one note G seven altered White Black? Same as de flesta. I say put your hands behind your back, go to white black. There it is has behind your back go to there it is white black chance on your lap, white blank. And now reverse colors to go to C minor. You do that a few times, then you don't have to think. Right? It just absolutely. I'm even talking to you. While I'm doing it. It becomes automatic. And it doesn't take 100 times. People 100 time it'll take about 10 or 15 times and this right,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  49:02  
you will see it he starts to happen yet vac so much. So JB so oftentimes when I'm playing and somebody says what do you play in there? I have to stop and I have to think about it. I gotta go Okay, wait a minute, I got the third here. I got I got the because I just I don't even think of it that way anymore. I'm playing shapes.

Dr. JB Dyas  49:23  
Again, the metaphor of speaking are you thinking that I just used a noun and I use the magic modifier. And if you really want it and sometimes you have to think you know, I'm speaking to these pretty hip people, I better I better put in a dangling participle and a gerund. You know, so they know I'm hip here. And I'll see I'll sneak in one of those like a word like auto didactic Yes, right. You know that word auto didactic? Yeah,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  49:53  
I don't know. I don't know. I never use that

Dr. JB Dyas  49:55  
auto didactic. It didactic means teaching auto didactic means self teaching. And when it comes right down to the very end of it, a jazz musician has to be autodidactic

Speaker 1  50:06  
autodidactic non people but you got to teach yourself. You have to

Dr. Bob Lawrence  50:13  
be autodidactic and not perfunctory.

Unknown Speaker  50:20  
So yeah, with slip, slip

Dr. JB Dyas  50:24  
you slip in a Chris Potter lick, you know that they don't think I'm hip enough.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  50:32  
Wow, this has been really cool now. Okay, so now I want to kind of do a little change of direction for a second JB, you know I mentioned at the beginning of podcast we are well, I hope you found part three of this jazz panel skills podcast interview with special guest, Dr. JB Dyess to be insightful, entertaining and of course beneficial. One of my mentors and teachers al Franzen used to say to me after every lesson, Bob never forget the greatest thing about music is the people you meet through it. And the privilege of meeting and spending time with JB simply confirms our sentiment 100% Don't forget if you're a jazz piano skills member I will see you online Thursday evening at the jazz piano skills masterclass. It's 8 pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode featuring Dr. JB dice in greater detail, and of course to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz. In general, if you're unable to attend the class. No worries. All classes are recorded, videoed, so you can watch them and rewatch them whenever and as often as you wish. As always, you can reach me by phone through the Dallas School of Music number is 972-380-8050 my extension at the school is 211 if you prefer email, Dr. Lawrence at jazz piano skills.com drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or you can use the nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is found on every single page of the jazz piano skills website. Well, there is my cue. That's it for now. Stay tuned for part four of my time with JB which will be released in March. And until then, enjoy the journey and the pearls of wisdom shared by JB in this episode. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano!