Fully Altered Dominant Sound

Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. I hope everyone is doing great, I hope you all have had a fantastic week of jazz development, and that you're ready to continue our altered dominant journey. So far we have explored the dominant sharp 11 sound, the dominant flat 13 sound, the dominant flat nine, flat, 13 sound. And today, we look at the king of all altered sounds, the fully altered dominant, which includes every alteration possible, literally flat nine, sharp nine, flat five, sharp five. If you are not familiar with the fully altered dominant sound, then you are in for a musical treat. That will change your musical life forever. And I'm not kidding, forever. If you've been listening to the podcast, especially the last several weeks, you know that I love altered dominant sounds, and my favorite is also the one that I am currently practicing and studying. Well today is no different. The fully altered dominant sound is without question, my favorite altered dominant. Yes, it is true. I confess, I love them all. But the fully altered dominant sound packs a punch. That is hard to be the various combinations of alterations provide us with some very dramatic musical options, some very dramatic musical possibilities. We will look at these dramatic options today, both harmonically and melodically. So today will be another micro study where we get under the hood and get our hands greasy. So that we thoroughly understand the fully altered dominant sound mentally, orally and physically. And this is, this is why I love micro study, I love taking the engine apart, examining each and every piece, and then putting it all back together. This is what makes the study of music the study of jazz, so much fun. Jazz is a fascinating study that provides satisfying rewards for an entire lifetime. It's not like putting together a model airplane. And that when you're done, you're done. Right? Are you kidding me? If the study of jazz were like putting together a model airplane, our interest would last maybe maybe an hour at that. And then there certainly would be no jazz panel skills podcast. Just like there is no model airplane podcast. I don't at least I don't think so. Right? Who knows, right? But you know, that jazz. Not only is a fascinating study, an awesome study, but it's also very humbling. I heard this expression once said about the game of baseball, but it applies to music as well. here's the here's the expression. There are two kinds of people in baseball. Those who are humble, and those who are about to be well, we can substitute the word music there, right there are two kinds of people in music. Those who are humble, and those who are about to be so very, very true. And this is why the pursuit of musical excellence is addicting. It's about conquering and amazing challenge. And all of that to say that micro study right getting under the hood getting our hands greasy and dirty. taking it apart but it all back together. Why micro study is so very invigorating. Next week, I believe we will do a macro study where we do just the opposite. We take a big picture approach, we learn a tune. Yes. Tune Tuesday is back next week. Not sure yet what tune we will learn. But I can guarantee you, it will be a classic jazz standard, regardless of our study, right? Whether it be micro or macro exploration, I know many questions will arise that need to be answered. And when you have questions, I want you to have no worries. Whenever you have questions during a podcast episode, you can send me a speakpipe message, a voicemail message. And I will respond with an answer right away. If you are listening to this podcast through the jazz piano skills website, look directly below the podcast player and you will see the speakpipe widget click on the Start recording button and speak. That's all there is to it. It doesn't get much simpler than that. Your message will come to me in seconds. And I will return your question. I promise within the same day. It's awesome technology. And I hope I hope you take advantage of it. It's a great way for for the two of us to engage with one another quickly and efficiently. It's very cool technology. And again, I am always happy to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So don't be shy. You have a question? Click on the record button, send your message and I'll get right back to you. Last week, I presented a five point outline. magnifying the fact that music is the production of sound. musicians, especially jazz musicians produce sound sound like the fully altered, dominant and musical sound being a grouping of notes, harmonically and melodically that establish a sound type major dominant minor, half diminished and diminished. So I want to take a second, I want to go through this outline again, because it's important. It's important that you know these facts, and it's important that you have mentally processed these facts and that these facts govern your jazz study and practice approach. So here's the outline again. bullet point number one notes by themselves, do not establish a sound type, any note that note their middle C, it's not major, it's not minor, it's not dominant, half diminished, or diminished. It's just simply a note. And that is the same for all 12 notes. They're just notes. bullet point number two. Therefore, we have to always look at how nodes relate to one another. Right? The relationship. If we can't decipher the relationship, we are already in trouble. bullet point number three. It is the relationship that establishes a musical sound. A sound type, major dominant, minor, half diminished, diminished. bullet point number four. It is the sound type that our mind wants to identify. our ears want to hear and our hands want to play and bullet point number five. We should be practicing in such a way that we are cognitively aware of the musical sound, the sound type that we are playing, regardless of how we're playing it, whether we're playing it harmonically, or playing it, melodically, we need to be aware of the musical sound, the sound type that we are playing. So it's this five point outline. It's these musical facts that we must understand. And we must apply. If this outline, these musical facts are not understood and are not applied, then your study of music is what is what I call a paint by number approach. Ones equal blue, twos equal yellow, and so on. Another way I explain it is it's a dot and button approach. Right, this dot means push that button. This dot means push that button. Right? It's very mechanical. It's very robotic. It's very boring, certainly not artistic. Which music should be right? It's an artistic endeavor, which is the very core of jazz itself. So today, we will be playing a grouping of notes that produce an altered dominant sound, the fully altered dominant sound, which includes flat nine, sharp nine, flat five sharp five, and we will be producing that sound that altered dominant sound, harmonically and melodically our minds, our ears, and our hands will be fully engaged and synced together. I want you to know that the educational guides that I produce for every jazz panel skills podcast episode, are available for immediate download at jazz piano skills.com. And again, if you are listening to this podcast episode, through the jazz piano skills website, you'll see the download links for each educational guide to the right of the podcast player very easy. Likewise, you can access all of the educational guides for every jazz piano skills podcast episode, through the jazz piano skills.com website. There are three educational guides, the illustration guide, the lead sheet guide, and the play along guide. For every jazz piano skills podcast episode, which can be downloaded individually, you can just download a single educational guide, or you can download them as a bundle. Or you can establish set up a subscription, where you have access to all of them every episode every week, every month, every year. So the illustration guide helps you discover the jazz piano skill, conceptually, right, it's going to help you discovered the fully altered sound. The imagery and the graphics are fantastic. And you've heard me say this 1000 times your physical growth as a jazz pianist depends 100% on your mastery of the jazz piano skill being studied, right your mastery of that jazz piano skill mentally, your conceptual understanding drives your physical development. The imagery the graphics allow you to do just that allows you to mentally digest the shapes and sounds of the jazz piano skill of the fully altered dominant sound. The lead sheet guide uses traditional musical notation to help you successfully learn the jazz piano skill physically, right? If you're a reader and you love seeing concepts notated written out using traditional music notation, notes on a musical staff in the lead sheets are perfect for you. They are perfect to have seen on your piano and to use as a quick reference when you are getting these various harmonic shapes and these melodic lines under your fingers and there are 12 lead sheets for each Podcast Episode One for each of the 12 keys of music In fact, all of the guides laid out for all 12 keys. And finally, the play along Guide, which are the play along tracks, I can for all 12 keys that and, and these play along tracks are perfect to help you successfully play the fully altered sound or the jazz piano skill being taught in the podcast episode. The play along tracks will help you develop a strong sense of internal time. Plus develop a proper jazz feeling articulation. And I say this all the time too. I cannot teach you that a teacher cannot teach you time. Right You have to experience time in order to develop time. And so what these play along tracks allow you to do is they allow you to experience time and develop your feel and articulation in the comforts and the confines of your home. I cannot stress enough how beneficial all the educational podcast guides are the illustration guides the lead sheet guide the play along guide how beneficial they are for expediting your musical growth growth. So be sure to check them out right at jazz piano skills.com. Go to the homepage, click on the podcast link that's in the menu bar that runs across the top of the page. And you will be directed to the podcast episodes and the educational guides. You will have them at your fingertips. And if you get the educational guides and have questions, you can always send me a quick voicemail message using the speakpipe widget that I mentioned earlier. And you can also you know what you can also post your questions in the jazz piano skills forum and let the community help you or you can attend the Thursday evening jazz piano skills masterclass at 8pm. Central, and get your questions answered face to face. So my goal here is just to provide you several different avenues for you to reach out and for you to get help and assistance when you need it. And ultimately, my goal is to provide you with the best jazz piano lessons, the best jazz piano educational materials, and the best jazz piano support that's available anywhere today. So let's discover, learn and play the fully altered dominant sound. In this lesson, you're going to discover the fully altered dominant sound, the flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five, you're going to learn how to construct the fully altered dominant sound using the flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five, and you are going to play the fully altered dominant sound both harmonically and melodically. So regardless of where you are, where you are personally, in your jazz journey, a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even an experienced professional, you're going to find this jazz piano skills podcast lesson, exploring the fully altered dominant sound to be very beneficial. So the very first thing we want to do when we set out to explore any sound that just altered dominant sounds, but any musical sound, we want to get a handle, we want to get a handle on this sound to discover it. First and foremost, harmonically we want to be able to play the sound as a chord. So I'm going to use the C dominant chord, C dominant, fully altered flat nine, sharp nine, flat five sharp five as the model today. And you of course, as you did with the dominant sharp 11 with the dominant flat 13 with a dominant flat nine flat 13. You're then going to apply this harmonic approach to the remaining 11 dominant chords. So let's go through a few voicings two handed voicings for the C dominant fully altered sound. So the first one, I want you to play your third and seventh in your left hand below middle C. So I want you to play your E and your B flat. In your right hand, I want you to play a C sharp minor triad. And as we did with the other altered dominant sounds, I want you to go down and play a C with your left hand Down in the bass, hold your sustain pedal down and come up and hit those five notes. You have your E and B flat in the left hand, you have your C sharp minor in the right hand. So let's do that again. So what do we have, in your right hand, we have a C sharp, which is the flat, or the flat nine, we have our E, which is the third, we have a G sharp or an A flat, right, we have a G sharp, which would be your sharp five. So we have flat nine, we have a sharp five combination. Again, the C sharp, the D flat B and the flat nine, and the G sharp PNR sharp five, what a beautiful sound. Okay, now we can invert those right, you can invert that C sharp minor triad. There's an inversion, I can invert my third and seventh in my left hand as well. Now I have my seventh on the bottom. Right. So I like to practice this is where I've just moved through various inverted shapes. So it sounds something like this. Right back to the beginning. Okay, so that's voicings option, number one, number two, we start again with our third and seventh in the left hand. So we have our E and B flat. And in the right hand, now I want you to play an E flat minor triad, so we get this sound. Wow. So I'm going to play see down in the bass again, when it come up, play those five notes. So what do we have? Well, in my right hand, I have an E flat, or D sharp, which is the sharp nine, I have a G flat, which is the flat five, and I have my B flat, which is the seventh of C dominant. So again, C dominant, sharp nine, flat five, beautiful. And we can invert that as well, right. So variations of that sound of that voicing. Okay, two handed voicing number three, we're going to start with our third and seventh in the left hand again are E and B flat. And now in the right hand, I want you to play a G flat major triad. So what do we have, we have the G flat, which is in our right hand, we have the G flat, which is the flat five, we have a B flat, which is the seventh. And we have the D flat which is a flat nine. So we have a flat nine, flat five, altered dominant. Wow, beautiful. And we can invert that sound as well. Very nice. And then finally, our fourth option voicing option, we're going to have our third and seventh in the left hand again, or E and B flat. And in our right hand, we wanted a flat Major. So we get this. So what do we have, we have an A flat, which is a G sharp, which is the sharp five, we have a C which is the root of our C dominant. And we have an E flat, or D sharp, which is the sharp nine. So we have a C dominant sharp nine and a sharp five. Love it got some bite to that right. And again, we can invert that that triad we can move that triad around in inverted shapes. Beautiful. So there are four harmonic shapes. Using that kind of a poly chord approach, right? We're thinking third and seventh, or seventh in third in our left hand, and we're thinking a triad in our right hand to get to the fully altered sound to get to some combination Have an altered nine, some and an altered five, right, we're going to have some of the nine is going to be altered, the five is going to be altered. So we have, we can have a flat nine, we can have a flat five, we can have a sharp nine, we can have a sharp five, we can have a flat nine, sharp five, or sharp nine, flat five. I'm not even going to try to repeat that. Okay, but it's just various combinations and permutations of the nine and the five being altered. So I'm going to go through each one again, right, option number one with C sharp minor in my right hand. Option number two with E flat minor. Option number three with G flat major. Option number four with a flat Major. It's fantastic, right? And when you hear that, right now I'm just isolating each one of those dominant altered dominant sounds. But what's great is you know, if you really want the impact, resolve it to resolve that C dominant F major. So you get something like this or the E flat minor option. resolve that the F major. You can hear the beauty of that right. A G flat major are the A flat major beautiful voicings. So, I like to just practice as I mentioned earlier, anytime I'm studying a sound, I always like to start with it harmonically as a chord and I just like to bathe in that sound, strike the chord and digest it. Okay. So your job is to take those poly chord combinations now and move those through all 12 keys. Now the illustration guide that I mentioned earlier diagrams, these voicings these options out for you for all 12 keys, so may be very beneficial for you to have the illustration guides in front of you. As you study these poly chord combinations these two handed voicings. Now that we have a handle on the fully altered dominant sound harmonically, we now want to learn it melodically. And to do so we are going to use ascending and descending scale motion. And I'm going to present you with two approaches as I did with the sharp 11 with the flat 13. And with the flat nine, flat 13. Approach number one is the academic or the college perspective. And approach number two is going to be our practical or street perspective. So approach number one, the fully altered dominant sound, including the flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five, it originates from a melodic minor scale. Okay, so in the case of C, dominant flat nine, sharp nine, flat five sharp five or C fully altered dominant, it's going to be our D flat, melodic minor scale, starting on the note C. So how do we get to our D flat melodic minor scale, the easiest way to play your D flat major scale. Right D flat E flat F, G flat, a flat, B flat C. And now just simply lower the third lower the F one half step is now a flat or E. There's our D flat melodic minor scale. Now, instead of starting that scale on D flat, I want to start it on the note C. Right if I put C in my left hand is cord my third and seventh. Well, I'm letting it all just blend all blend together. There's our fully altered scale. So now that D flat melodic minor scale if I played on C i had my C and my D flat, my E flat My f flat, which is my e or my third, my G flat, a flat, and my B flat. Okay? You'll also hear this referred to as the super locrian mode. Right? So, approach number one, the academic approach, Wow, man there, there are a lot of hoops to jump through here, right melodic minor scale, half step above the root of the chord that you're wanting to play the fully altered sound for right. So C, you're going to play the D flat melodic minor scale started on the notes, see, and if you want to impress your neighbors use the super locrian. title. And it's very impressive. However, as I mentioned before, in previous in the previous podcast, on altered dominant sounds, if you try to think like this, when you are playing, you will hit major roadblocks. I use the example of it's like strapping sandbags around your ankles and trying to swim across the Atlantic Ocean, it's not gonna happen. It's just way too complicated. Now, that doesn't mean it's not valid, or it's not a valuable way to think about it. Because it is, it's wonderful to think, to have a understanding of the origins of a sound where it comes from, and why does it work? Right? I find that to be invaluable information, you just don't, you just don't not want to try to think that way when you play. Instead, I would recommend approach number two, which is the practical approach or the street perspective. And the street perspective always says well wait a minute, you want to see dominant, fully altered with a flat nine, sharp nine, flat five sharp five. So the very first thing I want to do is play my dominant c dominant scale, which is the major scale with the flat seven, right makes perfect sense. So there's my C dominant scales, C, D, E, F, G, A and B flat. So now you want me to do what you want me to flat, the nine. So I'm going to flat my D, you want me to flat my, you want a sharp nine. So I'm gonna have a D sharp in there. I gotta have my third which is going to be my e want me to flat a five. So I'm going to flap my G, let me to sharp the five. So I'm gonna play G sharp. And then I got my seventh, which is the B flat. So I get I got my roots, my flat nine, sharp nine, my third, my flat five, my sharp five and my seventh. And that's the same scale. That's that same D flat melodic minor scale starting on the note C, but approached in a much simpler way. So I would recommend studying both approaches, however, apply approach number to the street perspective, when you're actually playing the scale or playing the sound. I want to take a second and remind everyone that Thursday evening 8pm Central time I am live online using the zoom platform, which I am sure many of you are very comfortable with at this time. So this class every Thursday evening, it's an online masterclass. It's an open discussion and deeper dive into the current week's podcast episode. So this Thursday, we will be diving even deeper into the fully altered dominant sound. And of course, I always leave plenty of room within the hour long class for some general general question and answers as well. So I encourage you to join the class. You can do so by just going to jazz piano skills.com and there are links there to join the jazz piano skills masterclass on Thursday evening, we meet every Thursday evening 8pm Central time, it is definitely a value added educational opportunity that you do not want to miss. And so please I look forward to seeing you Thursday night please come and be a part of the class and and introduce yourself and allow us to get to know you and of course you to get to know other folks as well that are participating in this exact same journey that you are. So I will see you Thursday evening. 8pm Central Time jazz piano skills masterclass looking forward to it. Now let's put this all together right let's, let's put together our our dominant fully altered dominant sound harmonically and melodically. And to do so we're going to pull in an ensemble rhythm section. And I am going to demonstrate this sound as I do with every sound from various entry points, and destination points. So our first example here today, the first example I want to play the sound, obviously with the entry point being the route. And my destination point being the seventh play nice voice in my left hand, I'm gonna have my rhythm section playing. And of course, the goal is to play this scale this sound ascending and descending with a, with a very relaxed jazz articulation, a nice jazz feel in time, and as I do, always, I do not want to practice this and treat this like a scale. I am going to treat this as it's an improvisational line that I am moving through. And I want it to sound like that, right? I want it to be musical I don't want I do not want it to sound like an exercise. So let's bring the ensemble in. Let's listen to the dominant fully altered sound entry point being the root destination point being the seventh. So let's check it out. Let's see what we think. And then we'll talk about it. Okay, here we go. Wow. So nice, right? I mean, you don't even have to do anything fancy, right? Just play. Nice voicing in your left hand, play that sound ascending, descending from the root to the seven, and let the piano and let the sound work for you. Right. So, so many times we overplay and we overthink. You just do not have to do a lot. I promise you with these altered sounds to make them sound good. They are ready, do right, they are ready sound good. So just practice and focus, play the sound and focus on your jazz articulation and your feel playing in time. And you'll be doing yourself an enormous favor. So now let's change our perspective a little bit right. Same sound right. However now our entry point is going to be our third and we are going to end up traveling to the sharp nine the E flat. So now this takes a little bit of a different tambor a little different complexion here. I love it. So let's bring in our ensemble again, let's drop this into a musical context and listen to it and see what we think. Right? We'll talk about it. So here we go. Let's check it out. Very nice. See, you know, we want to, and I mentioned this in the podcast episode on the sharp 11 and the flat 13 and the flat nine flat 13 as well, it's so important for us to be able to enter an exit a musical sound from various points, right? We cannot just be route dependent, that we can only enter into a sound from the route. Because the reality of it is is we do not know where where we are going to be coming from or where we are going to win we are playing a jazz standard or improvising, right, so we have to be comfortable of entering and exiting a sound from various points, right. So with that being said, let's, let's bring in another perspective. Right, let's now start our have our entry point be the sharp five. So there's my G sharp, and I am going to travel to the flat five. So I'm starting with the sharp five and I'm traveling to the flat five sharp five to flat five. Nice. Nice. Now let's place it into musical context. Let's make this swing. Play with a good feel nice articulation. I want it to sound like an improvisational line, I do not want it to sound like a scale exercise. So here we go. Let's bring the ensemble and let's take a listen. And we'll we'll go from there. Check it out. Here we go. Wow, awesome, right. It's amazing changing that entry point and changing that destination point changes everything. Right. Such a great way to practice any sound not just the fully altered sound, but any sound, we should be practicing it utilizing this exact same approach. You know, I mentioned earlier that the educational podcast guides, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs that they are available for you to download it and I strongly suggest that you do they're very invaluable and will help expedite your musical growth. But I also want to have you make sure that you check out the jazz piano skills courses and lessons as well. And this the courses it's a tremendous they make up a tremendous jazz piano sequential curriculum that utilizes a self paced format and are packed with all kinds of educational goodies to help you detailed instruction and illustration, in depth educational talks, interactive learning media that you can utilize traditional guides and worksheets of course that you can download and use as well. All the courses in the lessons have high definition video demonstrations of me playing the jazz piano skills in all 12 keys so that you can see fingerings you can see hand movement you can pause it you can repeat it. The videos are fantastic. There are play long tracks and lead sheets included with each jazz piano course and lesson and also of course professional and personal educational support is always handy and at your fingertips as well. mobile access to all of my courses at jazz piano skills and lessons. So whether you're using your desktop or laptop, your tablet or your phone or Smart TV, or watch? Regardless, any of your smart devices will give you access to jazz piano skills, courses and lessons. So be sure to check those out at jazz piano skills as well. Okay, so let's continue with our exploration of the fully altered dominant sound, harmonically and melodically. So we've already looked at the C dominant fully altered sound from the root to the seventh, from the sharp nine to the flat nine, from the sharp five to the flat five. So now let's, let's use the entry point being our seventh. And we're going to travel from our seventh to a sharp five, so we get this. Wow, that's a different sound, different perspective. So let's bring in our ensemble. Let's drop this into a musical context musical setting. And let's see what we think. So here we go check it out. Nice. It's always amazing to me. You know, it's always amazing to me, that when we change our entry point, and our destination point, how it changes the whole sound. Just, you know, it's, I guess for right what I guess what I'm saying is variety is the spice of life, right is another another reason why we want to change practice these sounds from various entry and destination points, it gives us an entirely different option, an entirely different sound within the sound to utilize in our plane, right? So yes, it has a very utilitarian purpose as well, right. And that we want to be able to enter and exit a sound at any point. But there's also a compositional element to it as well, these, these sound takes on a whole different dimension, when we change our entry points and our destination points. So okay, so let's, let's take a look at another one. We are going to now I'm going to enter on the sharp nine, which is going to be our D sharp or E flat, right. And we're going to travel to the flat nine sharp nine to the flat nine. Wow, really nice. So let's bring our ensemble and let's drop that into a musical context and see what we think. Here we go. Check it out. Pretty darn cool. So look, we we looked at five various ways. To explore the fully altered dominant sound, we did so from the root to the seven, from the sharp nine to the flat nine, from the sharp five to the flat five, from the seventh to the sharp five, and from the sharp nine to the flat nine. That's a very thorough exploration and approach to digesting that fully altered dominant sound, harmonically and melodically. So our final step would be let's, let's drop the sound into a classic 251 progression. So we're going to be in the key of F. So we're going to have our G minor, then to our fully altered, C dominant and then to our one chord. Okay, so what I want to do is bring the ensemble back in, and I am going to focus on the root, third, fifth and seventh of the G minor. And entering that fully altered dominant sound from the G of the G minor from the B flat of the G minor, from the D of the G minor, and the F of the G minor. So in other words, what I'm trying to do is now put in the practice, the skills that I just practiced, and demonstrated in exploring the fully altered dominant sound being able to enter and exit from various from various points, right. So let's bring the ensemble back and let's hear this beautiful, fully altered dominant sound using scale motion, ascending and descending, dropped within the context of a 251 progression. So here we go. Let's check it out. So nice, right, I think you can see the ability here to generate a lot of vocabulary. A lot of improvisational ideas can flow from gaining a mastery of the jazz of the dominant fully altered dominant sound from various entry and destination points. There's a lot of rich vocabulary that we can extract. So I hope you have found this jazz piano skills podcast lesson exploring the fully altered dominant sound, the flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp, five alterations to be insightful. And of course, I hope it's very beneficial for you. So don't forget I will see you Thursday evening the jazz panel skills masterclass at 8pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode in greater detail, and to answer any questions that you may have about this lesson or the study of jazz in general. Also, be sure to download the educational guides for this podcast lesson at jazz piano skills.com. They are a tremendous resource that will expedite your musical growth. So check them out and download them and add them to your educational library. And while you're there, check out the jazz piano skills courses as well. Likewise, join the jazz piano skills forums, join the community get involved, make some new jazz piano friends, and enjoy that opportunity. As always, you can reach me by phone at 972-380-8050 extension 211 or by email at Dr. Lawrence that's DR Lawrence At jazz piano skills.com or use the speakpipe widget found on the jazz piano skills website in the jazz piano skills, educational guides, and in the jazz piano skills courses. So that's it for now. Until next week, enjoy this amazing journey. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano