Goodbye 2024, Hello 2025

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.558)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Well, today is New Year's Eve, the last day of 2024. And I know it's cliche-ish to say, but dang, where the heck did this year go? You I was always told growing up that the older you get, the faster time goes.

And all I can say is, man, I must be really old because the year 2024 felt like a single month, not a year. But you know what? I was also told that time flies when you're having fun. And I think that's what's really going on here. I'm not old. I'm just having way too much fun. And indeed, I am. This last year has been a blast.

You know what started six years ago? Yeah, six years ago as an in-house experiment to provide my students here at the Dallas School of Music with some audio lessons to assist them with their study and practicing of jazz panel throughout the week actually turned into a weekly podcast with a global audience called Jazz Piano Skills. Who would have ever thunk it?

And just like our individual and personal jazz journeys, Jazz Piano Skills continues to evolve and hopefully improve. So today, on this last day of the year, 2024, I thought I would take the opportunity to reflect on our accomplishments in 2024 and present our educational vision for 2025.

So today we're going to discover how important it is to stop and smell the roses to reflect upon our 2024 jazz growth. And we're going to learn how important it is to have a strategic game plan for maximizing our 2025 jazz growth. And we're going to play, or I should say I'm going to play.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:54.709)
little bit of devil's advocate to assure ourselves that our conceptual understanding of music is spot on so it can successfully and effectively govern our jazz practice throughout the new year. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you're a seasoned and experienced professional, I think you're going to find this Jazz Panel Skills podcast lesson

Goodbye 2024. Hello 2025. To be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to as I always do welcome first time listeners to Jazz Piano Skills. And if you're a new listener to the Jazz Piano Skills podcast or you're just simply new to Jazz Piano Skills, welcome. I want to invite you to become a Jazz Piano Skills member. Now your membership grants you many perks.

Number one premium podcast content. In other words, you get to hear the entire podcast episode. The first half of the podcast episode is free for all, right? The first half is free for all where we have I lay out the discover, learn, play announcement for the lesson. We have a question of the week. There's an educational agenda and a lesson rationale that is presented. The second half, which is members only,

deals with all the lesson content, the demonstrations and weekly assignments and more about that a little later. You also as a member have access to podcast packets. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs that I designed and developed for every weekly podcast episode designed to help you maximize your musical growth and get the most out of every weekly episode.

There are also courses that you have access to. These are comprehensive and interactive self-paced sequential courses loaded with interactive learning media. There's educational talks, video demonstrations, and more. As a member, you also have access to the weekly masterclass, online weekly masterclass that I held that I hold every Thursday evening, 8 p.m. Central Time. And if can't make it, it's no big deal because the masterclasses are recorded.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:18.004)
and you can listen to these recordings at your own leisure as often as you'd like. And you also, as a Jazz Panel Skills member of access to the Private Jazz Panel Skills community, which hosts a variety of episode-specific forums. There are general jazz forums, and it's just a great area for member feedback and assistance as well.

And finally, as a Jazz Panel Skills member, have unlimited educational support, private, personal and professional educational support as often as you need it. And you can access the support through the SpeakPipe widget that is found throughout the website. There's a web form, there's an office number that you can reach me through the Dallas School of Music, and of course, email. All of these perks, the premium podcast content, podcast packets, courses, master classes,

private jazz panel community, unlimited support. All of these perks are waiting to help you discover, learn, and play jazz panel. So check it all out at jazzpanelskills.com and of course become a member. If you have any questions, once you get to the site, poking around a little bit, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'm always happy to spend some time with you and answer any of your questions that you may have and of course help you in any way that I can. OK, so let's discover, learn, and play jazz panel. You know what? This

at this point, I usually have the question of the week, but I want to spend this episode just reflecting on 2024 and looking forward to 2025. So we'll get back to the question of the week, business as usual next week. So goodbye 2024. So let's reflect a little bit about our journey during this past year. You know, we set out with the goal that we were going to explore a new tune

a standard every week. And the standard was going to be used as a way for us to extract essential jazz piano skills from the tune that we need to have command of, a command of conceptually and of course command of physically. And so, you know, looking back, what a lineup of tunes, right? Back in January, we started with There Will Never Be Another You. February, we tackled

Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:42.044)
it back home again in Indiana. March it was these foolish things. April the days of wine and roses. May there is no greater love. And June don't blame me. July have you met Miss Jones. August I wish you love. September Angel eyes. October just friends. November September in the rain and this month of course with Christmas a little Santa Claus is coming to town. That's a great lineup of standards right there.

And so our goal was, like I said, we want to use a tune to extract essential jazz piano skills, skills that we need to have command of conceptually, which of course is necessary if we hope to have a command of them physically, right? No conceptual understanding, no physical development. It's just that simple. So we take our skills, of course, and we like to, or what we've done did throughout the year,

is categorize those essential jazz panel scales basically into three camps. Into a harmonic analysis, camp one, melodic analysis would be camp two, and then our improvisation development would be camp three. Now, with our harmonic analysis, we approach that the same way every month, right? We would take a standard, one of those 12 standards, and we looked at the form of each of those tunes.

We then highlighted or extracted from the tune the unique chords that were found in each standard. You the idea being is that if you're unfamiliar with the chords that are made up in the standard, well, then you have no shot of playing the standard, right? So you have to know what are the unique chords that I'm dealing with, and can I play those sounds in some way, shape, or form? So we looked at the form. We looked at the unique chords.

We then looked at the chord changes of the standard lead sheet of the tune. We then did a harmonic function analysis of each standard. We also then extracted from the chord changes the chord movement the common harmonic movement. In other words, progressions that are not only found within that standard but are found within countless other standards as well.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (10:10.678)
to gain a familiarity with common movement. And then of course, our harmonic analysis always presented voicings, traditional block voicings, traditional left-handed shell voicings, contemporary left-handed shell voicings, and then our two-handed structures. So very organized, very systematic.

approach to harmonic analysis, right? Form, unique chords, changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, and then our voicings, blocks, traditional, contemporary shells, and two-handed structures. We did that for every single standard. If we just stop there, right? If we just stop there, that's a pretty successful year, taking those standards and looking at each standard with that much

insight, that much depth, right, harmonically. But no, we didn't, we just didn't do the harmonic analysis. We also looked at each tune and we did a melodic analysis of each one of those standards. And our melodic analysis was just as organized and just as structured, right? We started always with a melodic transcription. And otherwise, we, in other words, we would learn the melody of the standard by ear.

essence, we would transcribe the melody, then we would look at fingerings for that, that melody, how best to finger to approach playing that melody and using the correct fingerings. We then took the melody and we snapped it apart into musical phrases. And we then zeroed in on those musical phrases with being consciously aware of our target notes, our entry and

the entry points and destination points of those phrases, the notes, right? Which was really in preparation for improvisation. And then we took that melody of each one of those standards and we applied different treatments. Playing the standard as a ballad, playing the standard as a bossa, playing the standard using a traditional jazz swing feel. So again, 12 different tunes.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:36.53)
Same melodic analysis for each tune. Learn the melody by ear, transcribing, what are the fingerings that we need to use, the optimal fingerings for playing that melody to be able to articulate that melody correctly. What are the phrases are found within that melody? What are the target notes within those phrases? And how about the treatment of that melody as a ballad, bossa, and swing?

very structured, very organized, very thorough. And again, if that's all we would have done throughout 2024, that would have been a very successful year. But no, we didn't just stop at the melodic analysis. So we've done a harmonic analysis for each of those 12 standards, melodic analysis for each of those 12 standards, and that's not enough, right? We got to add a little more. So we did. So week three always was a focus on improvisation.

And it's kind of funny how that evolved throughout the year. It evolved in such a way our examination of each standard from an improvisational perspective kind of evolved and settled into always having starting with what we would call quarter note strings throughout the being able to play in time, create a quarter note string through the entire standard.

the chord changes, our ability to insert silence or our ability to play silence, we talked about that throughout the year, know, silence always gets forgotten. It's funny. And we never talk about playing silence, but that's what in essence, that's what we do. We play sound, we play silence. And our silence, we approached it mathematically, we approached it from a random

insertion of silence, in other words, to create various lengths of phrases throughout our improvisation. We added eighth note values to our playing, eighth note values meaning eighth note rest and eighth note sound or notes. And then of course, the insertion of tension, half step approaches. So that's kind of that kind of evolved into our blueprint for improvisation development.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:59.978)
Which quite honestly, I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled about that because that is a great way to practice the development of improvisational skills, your improvisational skills, to be able to take any chord progression, whether it's an entire standard, whether it's just an A section or B section of the standard, whether it's four measures of the standard, right, whether it's two measures of the standard or any progression, right?

your ability to create a quarter note string, your ability to insert mathematical silence, your ability to insert random silence, and then various eighth values, notes or rest, and then the inclusion of tension, half step approachments. That's a good conceptual understanding of how improvisation works and how it should be developed. So again, I'm thrilled that we settled into that

outline to use that outline for improvisation development. So what a year, right? What a year. 12 standards, harmonic analysis, melodic analysis, improvisation development. And not only that, those three camps

our ability to extract from each of the standards, the essential jazz panel skills that are needed to be able to put into those three camps, into our harmonic analysis, melodic analysis, and improvisation development, to have a blueprint, if you will, to be able to follow each and every time with each and every tune. That's a lot to celebrate, right? Because now we have a conceptual understanding of how to study

and how to practice jazz. Just let that settle in for a second. Think about that. You now have a process for studying and practicing jazz and doing so using literature as the focal point that we use to extract those essential skills. Very cool.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (17:20.204)
You have a lot to be proud of with the accomplishments in the year 2024. But there's always a but.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (17:35.404)
always a but. But there was something missing, something missing throughout 2024 that we didn't spend a lot of time talking about. I'm surprised that y'all didn't bring it up to me. I was waiting. I was waiting. I was patiently waiting. January, February, March, April, May.

June, July, August, September, October, November, December. Nobody said anything, but there's something missing. But there is something missing. What is missing? I'll tell you what's missing. The king of it all. The most important thing of all.

rhythm. Where's rhythm? Where is rhythm? We have a harmonic analysis. We have a melodic analysis. We have improvisation development. Are you kidding me? We talked about all of those things. And where is rhythm? After all, rhythm is king, right? So with that being said, where do we go from here? Well, let's begin with three words.

And these three words will take what we focused on in 2024, our harmonic, melodic, and improvisation, take what we focused on in 2024 and elevate our game. It will elevate our playing to an entirely new level.

So here are the three words. You ready? Here they are.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (19:17.644)
they're easy to remember because they're all t words. They're all words that start with the letter t. Here are the three words transcribe, transpose, transform. That's our theme for 2025. Transcribe, transpose, transform.

So transcribe will be added to our harmonic analysis. Transpose will be added to our melodic analysis. And transform will be added to our improvisation development. Let me say that again. Transcribe is going to be added to our harmonic analysis. Transpose will be added to our melodic analysis. And transform will be added to our improvisation.

development. So let's walk through these new additions. So our harmonic analysis from a skill perspective will stay the same, right? We will look at form, will look at the unique chords, chord changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, our various voicings, blocks, traditional shells, contemporary shells, and two-handed structures.

We will add to that now rhythm. Rhythm. And we will do so using harmonic patterns or what we like to call comping. Right? And we will transcribe to, we will transcribe harmonic patterns or comping. So look, transcribe, not the typical melodic transcribing.

that we're familiar with that we all hear about all the time. mean like all the time, right? No, not the typical melodic transcribing, but rather actually the more important transcribing, which is harmonic transcribing. And why do I make such a proclamation, right? It's like kind of like blasphemy here, right? Why do I say such things? Because honestly, honestly,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (21:33.782)
Do we really need more melodic transcriptions in the world? I mean, after all, what are you looking for in a melodic transcription that we already do not know? Right? Give me any melodic transcription, and I'll tell you what you're going to find before we even look at it. And here's what we're going to find. We're going to find chord tones, scale tones, non-scale tones.

That's what we're going to find. And we're going to find melodies that go up and down using arpeggio on scale motion. Shocking. How shocking. you know, now listen, if you're doing melodic transcribing to help for ear training purposes, that's fantastic. Right. But, but if you're doing melodic transcribing in hopes to finding something musically revolutionary, then you're out of luck.

Because we already know what you're going to find. Diatonic, arpeggios and scales going up and down, using occasional tension tones, notes outside the key center. That's it. Every transcription, same thing. So notes are not a mystery. That's what you're going to find in every single transcription. Now, all that to say, we're going to focus on the more important transcribing of rhythm.

using harmonic patterns commonly referred to in the jazz world as comping. Right? Transcribing rhythm. You know, the great Bill Evans

is quoted as saying, listen to this, Bill Evans saying, it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling. So let me say that again, the great Bill Evans, it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (23:47.073)
as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling. Interesting, right? Interesting comment. Let's think about this for a second. Bill Evans is saying jazz is a feeling. What is he talking about? Notes, chords, scales, arpeggios? What?

exactly is producing the feeling that Mr. Evans is referring to. A note doesn't produce a feeling.

Right? A note? Have you had any feeling from any note? If I play this, what are you feeling?

What about this? That better? Are you feeling something now? Not yet? Okay, what about now?

Right? Can't be notes. A note does not produce a feeling. So why do we spend so much time, why do we spend so much time and place so much emphasis on trying to figure out the notes? Right? That someone is playing, right? It's mind boggling. This feeling that Bill Evans is referring to

Dr. Bob Lawrence (25:18.381)
Listen, is discovered through rhythm. Rhythm that can be played, listen to this, rhythm that can be played using one note, any note, or one chord, any chord. So it's vitally important that we discover the rhythms that are idiomatic to jazz.

and then practice properly articulating those rhythms to produce the feeling that Bill Evans is referring to. Right? He's not referring to notes. So our harmonic analysis will now include a transcription component focusing on patterns, harmonic patterns, comping.

to discover, learn and play rhythms that are idiomatic to jazz so we can practice producing the feeling Bill Evans is referring to as jazz. Wow. That's, I want to say that again. Our harmonic analysis is going to include a transcription component focusing on harmonic patterns or comping to discover, learn and play the rhythms that are idiomatic to jazz.

so we can practice producing the feeling that Bill Evans is referring to as jazz.

But wait, it gets better. Right? It just gets better. I am going to post your transcribing assignment. Yes, homework in our community forums as a video or audio file that you will need to go to the harmonic forum for the tune that we are currently working on to get your assignment.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (27:24.963)
right to get your you know what this is like this is for those of you that are old enough to remember the TV show mission impossible right your mission if you should decide to accept it right it's going to be like that you will go to the forum listen to your mission and you will decide to accept it which I hope you will and then come and complete your assignment or your mission which I I hope you will

And hopefully, this will be great fun, hopefully, upload your results, your video or audio file, and your comments so that the community can celebrate with you and even provide you with some words of encouragement. So how cool, how fun is this going to be? Every harmonic analysis that we do for every tune.

will have a transcribing assignment homework mission, right? That you will be able to access through your through the community forums. Right? The only thing that it will not self destruct in. I can't remember how many hours it will not self destruct. The assignment will remain there. So that is what we are adding to the harmonic analysis for 2025.

That is going to be very thorough. Now, week two, when we turn our attention to our melodic analysis, the skills again, going to remain the same. We're going to do our melodic transcribing of the melody. We're going to be looking at fingerings and phrases and target notes. We'll explore various treatments of the tune, ballad, bossa, swing. But we will then turn to rhythm as well with melodic motifs and transpose. We're going to transpose these melodic

motif. So I will again post in the forum for the melodic analysis of the tune, your assignment, your mission, we will be taking some melodic motif and then transposing that motif by ear through various harmonic patterns or movement, right? They could be harmonic movement that is extracted from the standard or the tune itself.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (29:51.031)
It could be some harmonic pattern that I put together, but we will be able to take a melodic motif that we extract from the melody of the tune and then using our ears, transpose that melodic motif to various key centers. Okay? So again, I will post this assignment, this mission in the forums, and I would encourage you then to

accept the assignment, accept the mission, the mission, and then share with the community your video or audio recording of the transposition transposing of the motif so that we can actually celebrate with you and also provide productive feedback as well. Okay. So that's the transpose element that will be added to the week two

of our exploration of a jazz standard with our melodic analysis. Now, week three. Week three, our improvisation development. Again, we're going to retain the same structure that we have established in 2024 with our skills, producing quarter note strings, stationary strings, using ascending and descending movement.

addition of mathematical silence, random silence, the addition of eighth values, whether they're quarter notes or eighth notes, I'm sorry, or eighth rest, and then of course the inclusion of tension half step approachments. So that outline will remain the same, but we will now add a rhythm component. We will use improvisational lines or rhythmic lines that I will again post as the assignment in

your forums to produce vocabulary, melodic vocabulary, right improvisational vocabulary. Again, this will transform, literally transform your playing and help you develop the feel that Bill Evans is referring to. Okay. So again, right, I will post this transformative

Dr. Bob Lawrence (32:17.303)
improvisational line for vocabulary development in the forums, right for that tune that we're studying. And you will be able to go to that forum and get the assignment or get the mission for the week and work on that assignment work on that mission. And when mission is accomplished, right? When the mission is accomplished, post your video or audio of your accomplishments.

in the forum so that is sharing it with the community again so that we can celebrate with you and also share some feedback as well. I don't know about you, but I'm pumped up. I'm fired up. It's going to be exciting to take what we have established in 2024 and now build upon it in 2025 with the inclusion of rhythm, right? So the format is clear.

I think number one, we're going to use tunes to extract essential jazz piano skills. Number two, we're going to organize those essential jazz panel skills as we did last year, harmonically, melodically, and improvisationally. Number three, the new twist here is that we are going to apply rhythm to our harmonic skills transcribe, we're going to

add rhythm to our melodic skills, transpose, and we're going to add rhythm to our improvisation skills, transform. Right? So again, right, extract essential jazz panel skills from the standard that we're studying that for any given month. We're going to organize those skills as we did last year's harmonically, melodically, improvisationally. We're now going to add rhythm harmonically through a transcribe component.

assignment, melodic rhythm, add a rhythmic component to our melodic transpose motifs, and then improvisation skills will add rhythm to transform or to develop our vocabulary, right? All three areas harmonic, melodic improvisation will have an assignment, a homework, a mission that is posted in our community forums. And your acceptance of these weekly missions

Dr. Bob Lawrence (34:46.565)
assignments and the sharing of your results will not only maximize, I got news for you, it's not only going to maximize your musical growth, but it will inspire the musical growth of others who are on the same jazz journey with you. So 2025 is going to be a great year for all of us, no doubt about it. Well, I hope, I hope

you have found 2024 to be a very fruitful year of jazz piano growth. And I hope that you are looking forward to continuing our study of jazz piano in 2025. Now, don't forget no masterclass this week, we will resume business as usual next week. Okay. But if you have any questions between now and then

Feel free to post them in the Jazz Panel Skills forums so all the members can benefit. But if you need to reach me personally, you can certainly do so. You can leave a message for me. My office number here at the Dallas School Music is 972-380-8050. My extension is 211. You can feel free to email me drlaurence. That's drlaurence at jazzpanelskills.com. Or you can use the

the SpeakPipe widget that is found throughout the Jazz Piano Skills website. You know, as I sign off for the last time in 2024, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for a fantastic 2024. It's hard to believe that Jazz Piano Skills is starting year six, and every year gets better and better because of you. The friendships made, your continuing support,

insightful feedback and and always your kind words have have touched my heart in indescribable ways and I cannot thank you enough I cannot thank you enough for your unending support and I look forward to continuing our jazz journey in 2025 and I want to wish you all a very happy new year

Dr. Bob Lawrence (37:05.893)
Well, there is my cue. That's it for now, and until next week, Happy New Year, and most of all, as always, have fun as you discover, learn, and play jazz piano.