Fly Me To The Moon

Dr. Bob Lawrence  0:32  
Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. Well, here we are, right. A week away from celebrating Thanksgiving. Cannot wait. It's my all-time favorite holiday. I love getting together with family, relaxing and then, of course, Giving thanks always a great idea right? Take some time to relax, give thanks count our blessings. We actually should be doing that every day. But next week is the official holiday, and I will be gathering with my family and preparing not a traditional turkey. Oh no. Not at the Lawrence household. Instead, I will be preparing a beautiful Texas Turkey. And just for those of you who may not be aware of what a Texas Turkey is, allow me to explain. A Texas Turkey is a prime ribeye grilled to perfection. Of course, with a cold Shiner Bock Beer in my hand and served with a loaded baked potato. Of course, it's always finished off with some homemade pecan pie topped with a scoop of Bluebell vanilla ice cream and a perfectly blended roasted cup of coffee. Dang. All right, enough of dreaming about next week. Wow. We need to top off our November exploration of the key of D major with a tune. So let's let's get busy. We have devoted the entire month of November to the key of D major. We've explored the key of D major both harmonically and melodically. Our harmonic workout as it always does explored four different approaches to voicing the chords found in the kid D major, plus various rhythmic comping patterns. Our melodic workout, as it always does methodically tackled the scales, the modes, arpeggios for each chord in the key of D major, plus various linear lines, melodic lines to help develop improvisational vocabulary. Now, those of you who have faithfully doing the workouts from the beginning of the year to now, y'all know firsthand that the workouts require a ton of work. But as I stress always, right when you practice correctly, the proper scales, proper approaches, the payoff is always huge, it's always significant. And how have we, throughout this entire year, tested our skills after each harmonic and melodic workout? Well, no better way to test our improvement than by playing a tone. And that is precisely what we will be doing today. So today, you're going to discover a classic jazz standard, maybe the most recognized jazz standard of all time, fly me to the moon, you're going to learn the chord changes, harmonic function, and musical form of flying to the moon. And you are going to play various voicings and correct chord scale relationships for fly me to the moon, which will then be cultivated into a jazz solo. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, even even if you consider yourself a seasoned professional, right, you're gonna find this jazz piano skills podcast lesson, exploring the jazz standard fly me to the moon to be very beneficial. But before we dig in, I want to as I always do at the beginning of every jazz panel skills podcast episode, I want to take just a moment and I want to welcome all first-time listeners. In the end, if you are indeed new to jazz piano skills, a first-time listener to the jazz panel skills podcast, I want to welcome you and invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. All you have to do. Visit jazz piano skills.com. Learn more about the abundance of jazz educational resources, materials, and services that are available and waiting for you to use to help you further advance your jazz piano skills. For example, as a jazz piano skills member, you have access to all of the educational podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, and the play alongs. These are educational tools that I develop, produce and publish each and every week. For each and every weekly podcast episode, you're gonna want to have these invaluable educational tools in your hands when you listen to the podcast episode to get the most out of this lesson. And you certainly want to have these educational tools sitting on your piano as you practice as well. You also as a jazz piano skills member, have access to the online sequential jazz piano curriculum, which is loaded with comprehensive courses, all of them, all of them using a self-paced format. There are educational talks for you to enjoy interactive media to test your conceptual understanding of the jazz piano skill being taught. There are video demonstrations of the jazz piano skills in all 12 keys, play alongs and much much more. You also as a jazz piano skills member have a reserved seat and the online weekly master classes which are in essence a one-hour online lesson with me each and every week. You also, as a jazz piano skills member, have access to the online interactive Fakebook, which grants you access to jazz standards from the Great American Songbook, you'll be able to enjoy lead sheets outlining each tune's chord changes and harmonic function. There are chord scale relationships, explain play along files, historical insights, inspirational recordings, and so much more. The interactive Fakebook of course, is an ever-growing collection of tunes that you should absolutely discover, learn and play. You also as a jazz panel skills member have access to the online private jazz piano skills community, which hosts a variety of engaging forums. There are podcast-specific forums, there are core-specific forums. And of course, there are just general jazz piano forums for you to enjoy as well. And last but certainly not least, you have access as a jazz panel skills member to unlimited private, personal and professional educational support whenever and as often as you need it. All you got to do again, take a few minutes visit jazz piano Scott, jazz piano skills.com To learn more about all the educational opportunities and how to activate your membership. Now there are several membership plans to choose from. So once you get there, and if you have any questions whatsoever, please do not hesitate to reach out to 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. Okay, now, let's discover learn and play jazz piano let's discover learn and play the great jazz standard. Fly me to the moon. Okay, as I mentioned earlier, the last two weeks have been pretty intense with our key of D major harmonic workout our key of D major melodic workout you know our harmonic workout extensively explored for very specific approaches to plain sound harmonically. In other words, playing chords. And our exploration was not simply about playing the seven chords of the key of D major it was about how to approach voicing the chords so that your plane is stylistically correct. In other words that your plane sounds like jazz, alright. So we looked at the basic block shapes in root position and their inversions. We looked at traditional left-hand three-note shell voicings, contemporary quarter voicings, and of course, two-handed shapes, two-handed voicings as well not all of them. All of them absolutely need to be in your arsenal because you will use them when playing any jazz literature. Now, our melodic workout thoroughly investigated ascending and descending, scale, and arpeggio motion through each of the seven chords found in the key of D major. Our primary focus was to begin developing what I like to call route independence by shifting the entry points of our scales and arpeggios from the root of the sound to the third, The fifth, and the seventh. Now last week's workout was probably all the all the melodic workouts are probably very challenging if you've never intentionally played scales, arpeggios, varying your entry and destination points. So the whole point, the whole point of our key of D major harmonic workout, or key of D major melodic workout whole point is to prep us for applying our skills to.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  10:32  
So we will today take the practice approaches we have explored over the past two weeks and apply them to fly me to the moon. And not only are we going to put our harmonic and melodic jazz piano skills to work within this classic jazz standard, but we will also use our jazz piano skills to construct and play a jazz piano solo over the core changes a fly me to the moon. As always, this is going to be a ton of fun. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we're going to explore the jazz standard fly me to the moon, the chord changes, and harmonic function. Number two, we will discover learn and play various voicings for fly me to the moon, our blocks, traditional shells, contemporary shells, and two-handed voicings. Number three, we are going to discover learn and play the chord scale relationships for fly me to the moon. In other words, the appropriate ascending and descending scale and arpeggio motion for each chord found within the tune. Number four, we're going to discover learn and play a jazz piano solo for flying to the moon using 100% diatonic scale and arpeggio motion focusing on various essential rhythms, especially the 16th dotted eighths, and the dotted eighth 16th patterns. And number five, and we will use a very relaxed swing groove of 110. So if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to right now hit the pause button I want you to take a few minutes to download and print your illustrations and lead sheets, your podcast packets. In other words, you have access to all of the podcast packets. And as I mentioned earlier, you should be using them when listening to this episode. And of course, you should be using them while practicing at the piano as well. So if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories such as Apple or Google, there's Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora and the list goes on and on and on. Then be sure to go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com to access and download your podcast packets now you will find the active download links in the show notes. And one final but very critical message that I make a point to include in every podcast episode. If you're thinking right now, if you're thinking in the back of your mind, or even in the front of your mind that fly me to the moon and the various skills that we're about to discover, learn and play are in some way over your head than I would say to you. Sit back, relax. Breathe in, breathe out. Continue to listen, continue to grow your jazz piano skills intellectually by simply listening to this podcast episode. Right now keep this in mind skills, when first introduced are technically over our heads, which is precisely why the very first the most essential step to improving our musicianship is listening. So do not shy away from conversations. Discussing foreign topics or using fancy words unfamiliar terms. Right Do not shy away from these conversations. Stepping outside of our musical comfort zone is what actually spawns our musical growth. Now, you've heard me say this a million times. All musical growth begins upstairs mentally conceptually before it can come out and downstairs physically in your hands. So sit back, listen to this podcast, listen now to discover and learn. The play, as it always does, will come in time. Okay, so I want you to grab your lead sheets that you have downloaded and printed. And you should have in your hands 11 lead sheets, skill one through skill 11. So we're going to walk through these, each of these skills today. So let's take a look at skill one, for flying to the moon. This is your standard lead sheet that basically outlines the chord changes of the tune. Now, the very first thing that I always start with when I when I begin learning any new tune, the very first thing I actually look at is form. I want to understand the architectural structure of this tune, before I do anything else. And in looking at fly me to the moon, we have our classic standard A B A B form, okay. There's also the ABA form A B A B form. Those two forms are probably the most common forms that you will run into, of course, there are others, but these are the two most common forms that you will encounter, especially within the Great American Songbook, Fly Me To The Moon is the form A B, A, B. So on your lead sheet, you may see the letters A, B, C, and D. I don't want you to confuse those with form. Those are what we call rehearsal Mark markings. So the form itself, if you look at the first aid measures, look at the first aid met measures and Section A look at the aid measures in Section C, you will see that they literally are indeed the same. Look at the chord changes in rehearsal, section B. And then look at the chord changes in section D, and you will see that those chord changes are exactly the same. So in essence, we have 16 measures of music. But those 16 measures of music are split up into ABAB form. The next thing I like to do when learning to tune is I like to study the harmonic function of the tune. So I want to draw your attention to lead sheet number two, skill two, which outlines the harmonic function or analyzes the harmonic function of fly me to the moon. So we, of course, are doing this in the key of D major. Okay, Fly Me To The Moon is typically played in the key of C, not today, because we've been working throughout the month of November in the key of D, our harmonic workout melodic workouts both in the key of D major. So of course, we're going to play fly me to the moon in the key of D major as well. And so, a couple things, I want to just draw your attention to look at the very first line, classic harmonic motion, and this is what I look for when I when I start looking at a tune with regards to the harmonic structure, the harmonic motion of a tune, I look for common movement that I am familiar with the very first line we start on the sixth chord, and then right to the to to the five to the 16251 classic, classic harmonic motion, found in literally a gazillion jazz standards. Let's look at the next eight measures and rehearsals section Mark marking B letter B, we have our two chord going to our five chord to five, right, and then check out what happens we go up a step to the F sharp minor to the B seven, which is the three and the six chord course the six now is is a dominant instead of a minor. But what we have here is a two five followed by a three six and then look what happens in the very next two measures, it drops right back down to our two five and then resolves to our one. Again, this type of movement occurs, and I can't even begin to tell you how many standards where you have the two to the five going up to the three to the six back down to the two and to the five. So we have some very common circle motion and fly me to the moon very standard. So these two lead sheets, lead sheet one skill one lead sheet two skill to spend some time right going through the chord changes and studying the harmonic function and the form. This is like a prerequisite to learning any tune these very essential fundamental but essential steps. Okay. Now let's Look at skill three, lead sheet three. Here's where I have outlined for you.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  20:08  
The chord changes of Fly Me To The Moon using traditional block voicings, root position chords, first, second and third inversion shapes. Okay. Now, these are the shapes that I recommend, if you're playing through this and you like another inversion other than the one that is notated here by all means feel free to use your ears and and cater to your ears and use the shapes that appeal to you. Okay, these are my suggestions. So I have the block chords laid out for fly me to the moon. So what I want to do is I want to bring the ensemble in and I want to play it through Fly Me To The Moon two times the first time through, I'm going to play just the block chords as notated on your lead sheet, I'm not going to do anything rhythmically. With them, I'm just literally going to play the lead sheet as notated. So nothing fancy the second time through. I'm going to keep it very simple as well. I'm going to bring in the melody of fly me to the moon. So now you can hear the melody in conjunction with these block voicings. Again, I'm going to keep it very simple. I'm playing the melody just a single note melodic line against these block voicings. So you can hear the voicings and the melody in context and working with one another. So I want to bring the ensemble in let's listen to Fly Me To The Moon using traditional block voicings first time through second time through simple treatment of the melody using a single note line Alright, so here we go, let's check it out and then we'll talk about it?

Dr. Bob Lawrence  24:07  
right you know I mentioned this every time we do a tune, and we begin exploring the voicings, for the chord changes of that tune. I always start with these traditional blocks because that is actually where you should begin. If you're learning on working working on learning your chords, you begin with these block shapes. Okay, your four note block shapes that will include major dominant minor, half diminished, and diminished sounds, of course in root position and their three inversions. But I always start with these. And I always say that you know if this is where you are, you can play a whole lot of music using these voicings and playing the melodies in your right hand when you play these chords, these shapes in your left hand. In fact, when I I went out and I played many, many gigs. And this was all I had my arsenal, these block shapes and the ability to play melodic lines in my right hand. Right. So if this is what you this is what you have in your arsenal, and this is where you are. Congratulations, you are really positioned to begin adding to your toolbox. If you are not here yet, this is the goal. This is where you want to be a command of your block shapes in your left hand and your ability to play melodies in your right hand using these block shapes to support those melodic lines, okay. All right, so now let's take a look at lead sheet four or skill four. On this lead sheet, you'll see that I have the traditional three note left hand three note shells laid out for you now that traditional shells always include the third and the seventh. In your left hand, you third either the third on the bottom with the seventh or the seventh on the bottom, followed by the third with One additional note. Okay, so I have the traditional shells laid out. And so what I want to do now is the exact same process that we just completed with our block voicings, I'm going to bring the ensemble, and I want to play fly me to the moon first time through using our traditional shells, three note left-hand shells, first time through just using those shells, not doing anything fancy here, right. I'm literally playing the lead sheet, these voicings as notated on your lead sheet, second time through I will bring the melody and again a simple treatment of the melodic line single note against these traditional shell so now you can start to hear the difference between the blocks and these traditional shells. So let's bring the ensemble in and let's check out Fly Me To The Moon played using traditional shells in my left hand with the first time through, and then the simple melodic line added the second time through so here we go. Let's check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  29:29  
Love it very, very nice. Now one note that I want to mention here is that you know when we study these voicings we keep everything really clean and really tidy right like played Fly Me To The Moon all the way through using black voices. Now we're going to play fly mute and then we then we played Fly Me To The Moon using just traditional shells. Now we're going to play Fly Me To The Moon using core three-note chordal shapes and then we're going to play Fly Me To The Moon using two hands handshakes, right? So we keep things real tidy, real clean, but the reality of it is, you're going to use all of these voicings all the time in plain all Tim's right. So all of these shapes and the sounds need to be at your fingertips. But when practicing them, in order to get them under our fingers, we isolate them. Right so in other words, like we're doing now, we played Fly Me To The Moon using only blocks play Fly Me To The Moon using only traditional shells. Now in lead sheet five, skill five, you see that I have all the contemporary three note chord shapes laid out for you for fly me to the moon. And so now we're going to play Fly Me To The Moon using only the shapes and once again, first time through I'm going to play as notated on your lead sheet. Second time through I'm going to bring the melodic line in simple treatment of the melody using a single note against these quarter shapes so you can hear how the quarter shapes and Melody sound working together in context. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in, and now let's listen to our three-note choral shapes for fly me to the moon here we go check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  33:39  
Very nice, right, so you can carry right when you put these side by side you hear you can hear that the black chords have a much more, there's much more density to those chords are all thirds, you know stacked right on top of one another right next to one another. So there's a much more density to that sound, the traditional shell starts to become a little bit more transparent, because we we go down to three notes just using the third and the seventh with an additional note enhance the sound. And then the chordal shapes really become much more transparent because everything is built primarily on the interval of a fourth. So it's the the voice in itself is much more spread out. And you can actually when you put the lead sheet side by side, you can actually visually see that you can see kind of the floodgates opening up as you go from the blocks to the traditional shells to the contemporary shells. So now I want to draw your attention to lead sheet six or skill six. These are the two-handed shapes that I use when playing now my my two-handed voicings are always up the five-note shapes. I use two in the left three in the right. This is just a formula that I use. That makes sense to me conceptually and then it makes sense to me orally and then of course physically. So this is how I developed my voicings here. So, you'll see on your lead sheet, the two-handed shapes, you always see two in the left three in the right. The primary interval, you can see also is the fourth. So these have a much more contemporary sound to them as well. So I want to bring the ensemble back in. First time through, I'm going to play just the voicings again, doing nothing fancy with them rhythmically. I'm going to play them as notated on the lead sheet. I'm going to the second time, I'm going to play the melody but I'm going to play it using a muted trumpet sound. So you can hear how these two-handed voicing sound when accompanying an instrumentalist or maybe perhaps even a vocalist. So I want to bring the ensemble back end let's check out fly me to the moon first time through using the two-handed shapes as notated on your lead sheet. Second time through going to bring play the melody using a muted trumpet sound so you can hear these voicings in conjunction with the melody Alright, so here we go let's check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  38:25  
nice, very nice right? So once again right, our black shapes are traditional shells or contemporary shells or two-handed shapes two-handed voicings. These are all approaches to playing chords that you want to have a command of you want to have them in your toolbox and at your disposal when playing tunes because you will use all four voicing types. Now I want to talk about, I do not have time to go through skills 789 and 10, but I just want to mention them and talk to them talk to you about them briefly. As you can see, skill seven outlines the ascending scale motion right for each of the chord changes found within Fly Me To The Moon, in other words, the modes and the proper chord scale relationships. Skill eight has descending scale motion or modes both skill seven and skill eight focus on a route entry. I would say to you use both skill seven and eight as a model and do the same thing with an entry point being the third for each of the scales courts get relationships the fifth and also the seventh just as we just had as we do in our melodic workouts. Now skill nine and 10 skill nine ascending arpeggio motion from the root scale 10 descending arpeggio motion from the root for each of the chord changes found within fly me to the moon. And again, I would recommend as we do in our melodic workout, practice ascending and descending arpeggio motion for each of the chord changes in fly me to the moon, from the third, from the fifth, and from the seventh as well. Just a very thorough and methodical way to dissect the chord scale relationships of the chord changes found within a tune in preparation for you to be able to improvise over those chord changes. So with that being said, I want you to take a look at the last lead sheet that you have skill 11 lead sheet 11 Now we have fly me to the moon. But what I have written out for you is a solo over the chord changes of fly me to the moon up the first thing I want to say is this solo that I have written out is once again using 100% diatonic motion movement. Right? I'm not using any notes that fall out of the chord scale relationship. No half step approachment. Knowing closures, nothing, no fancy schmancy stuff. This is all diatonic movement throughout the entire solo. Again to illuminate for you and to magnify the importance of knowing chord scale relationships and knowing diatonic. The diatonic notes within the key, right? So important, you know, as I remember, the teacher wants to ask me, Bob, how do you teach students to play the wrong notes? Right? i My answer was very simple. Teach them to play the right notes right first. And that's what we're doing here we're using the right notes to construct and to play a solo over the core changes found within flying to the moon. Now, I also want to draw your attention to the some of the rhythms that are being used. These are rhythmic ideas that we have studied throughout the entire year. And even more specifically, the last couple months, we have hit the the dotted eighth 16th and the 16th dotted eighth pattern pretty heavily, and you will see them appearing here within fly me to the moon. In fact, measure one we're confronted with right away a 16th dotted eighth. Look at measure three, we have alternating eighth 16th combinations, right, a dotted eighth 16th followed by a 16th dotted eighth. And so on in measure three, we have 16th notes, groupings of 4/16 notes, look at measure five, we have our eighth note triplets that we have studied, we'd have quarter note triplets that we have studied, we have our dotted quarter eighth patterns that we've that we've studied throughout the year. So this whole solo is constructed using the rhythmic ideas, the rhythmic patterns that we have studied from the beginning of the year to now. Okay, so I want to bring the ensemble in. I'm going to play fly me Fly Me To The Moon through three times. First time through, I'm going to state the melody the head, and then the second time is going to be the solo. And then the third time, I'm going to state the head and ended so using a very common format that jazz musicians like to use when playing state the melody. Take your solos, state the melody to end. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble, and let's check out fly me to the moon being played three times first time through melody second time through the solo that you have written that you have in your handwritten on your lead sheet. And then the third time, through the melody again to end the two. All right, this should be some fun, have some fun, so let's listen to fly me to the moon. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  45:00  
You? Love it, love it. Love it what a great tune, right? Fantastic tune, especially a fantastic tune to test out our harmonic and melodic skills that we have been working on not only this last month in the key of D major, but throughout the entire year. So, you know it never fails, we always unpack a ton of information and every single podcast episode and today was certainly no exception. As we set out to discover, learn and play fly me to the moon, as I tried to do with every tune study, I want to model for you how to begin truly learning a tune, how to connect the what, why, and how of what you are practicing to an actual piece of music. In other words, how do the jazz piano skills that you've been practicing, translate to playing? I want you to think about this. If you are unable to apply your practice approach to the learning of tones, like we have did like we've done today like we've done throughout the entire year. If you're able to tie your practice approach the learning of tunes, I would say to you that you need to do some self-reflection you need to examine the what, why, and, how of your practicing. Another way of saying this is if you do not see the jazz piano skills you are practicing in the tunes you are playing, then you have a disconnect between the two which is absolutely horrific. It's not good. You've heard me say this many times on many different occasions as well. harmony and melody are the same and and indeed they are. I can also say right. I can also say that jazz piano skills and tunes are the same as well, which indeed they are. I'm saying that if you do not practice jazz piano skills this here's the bottom line. If you do not practice jazz piano skills, you will not be able to successfully play tunes. That's it. Hopefully, you are beginning to see that jazz piano skills are actually indeed tunes and tunes are actually indeed jazz piano handle skills. The only difference, as I always like to say one has a fancy name, like flying to the moon, and the other does not. So if you're beginning to see the jazz panel skills that you're practicing, right, all of our voicings and our scales, arpeggios, or mode, or chord scale relationships, if you're beginning to see these jazz piano skills as tunes, and you're starting to see the tunes, as possessing these jazz piano skills, then you are my friend, you are on the right track, you are on the correct path. Congratulations. I said this in previous podcast episodes since the start of the year, and I want to stress it again today. If you hang in with hang in there with me to the end of the year, which by the way, is only one month. If you hang in with hang in there with me to the end of the year, one month, you will experience a ton of jazz piano growth provided that you've done January through November, right you will in you will love you will love where you are musically, right by the end of the year. And once again, I want to encourage you these podcasts packets that you have in your hands that you have access to the illustrations that lead sheets, the play alongs, right, use them, right you've heard me say this over and over and over again to that your conceptual understanding those illustrations and your podcast packets, right? Your conceptual understanding determines ultimately determines your physical development. So take the time, right? Invest in studying and mapping out all of these voicings, these ascending and descending scale and arpeggios, right from various entry points. I can't stress it enough the return on your investment. astronomical. Right invaluable. So maybe, maybe I just want to say along those same exact lines. When doing this kind of grunt work you need to be patient, right developing mature professional jazz piano skills, takes a lot of work and takes a lot of time. So begin structuring your practicing cuz you don't want to waste time it's valuable. Begin structuring your practicing after the plane demonstrations that I've modeled for you in this podcast episode and throughout the year in our harmonic and melodic workout. And I promise you you will begin to see feel and hear your progress. Well, I hope you have found this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring fly me to the moon to be insightful and, of course, to be very beneficial. Don't forget if you are a jazz piano skills ensemble member, I will see you online Thursday evening at the jazz piano skills masterclass. That's going to be 8 pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode lesson exploring fly me to the moon in greater detail and of course, to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general. Again, be sure to use your educational podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs. Also, check out the online jazz piano skills curriculum. Use those courses to maximize your musical growth. And also make sure that you are an active participant in the jazz piano skills community. Get out there, get involved, contribute to the various forums and make some new jazz piano friends. As always, you can reach me by phone my number here at the Dallas School of Music 972-380-8050 My office extension is 211 You can reach me by email Dr. Lawrence. That's drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or you can use the nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is nestled on every page within the jazz panel Skills website to reach out to me as well. Well, there's my that's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the classic standard flying. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play. Jazz Piano!