I Wish You Love, Improvisation

0:20  
Bob, welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr Bob Lawrence, it's time to discover learn and play jazz piano. Well, today is part three of our three week exploration of the jazz standard. I wish you love Week One. Two weeks ago, we took a deep dive into the harmonic foundation of the tune, followed by last week's dissecting of the melody and phrases to be followed up today with a challenging look at various ways to use I wish you love for developing art improvisational skills. You know what's great about our three tier approach, harmony, Melody, improvisation, to study in tunes, is that he quickly reveals our strengths and weaknesses regarding the various essential jazz piano skills that we need to have under our hands, you know, and how important it is for all of us to have an accurate understanding of our strengths and weaknesses. Bottom line is, there's no way, zero way, to improve our playing without having an accurate understanding assessment of our skills. The last couple podcast episode lessons and today's lesson, guess what they do exactly that they give us a very accurate report card, as I like to say, we know pretty quickly where we stand with our ability to play the essential jazz piano skills. You know, I made a point to mention several times since the start of the year that there is a sequential order to learn how to play jazz. There really is, and that shouldn't surprise you, right? I mean, after all, I cannot think of any high level skill, not one that you can successfully develop without having a strategic game plan. And I can confidently guarantee you that a scattershot approach, or what I like to call a YouTube approach, to trying to learn how to play jazz piano will, without doubt, cause frustration, confusion and ultimately, ultimately given up. So my goal from day one with jazz piano skills has been to not only introduce you to the essential jazz piano skills, which I like to call Discover, but to also provide you with with a way to successfully study, to conceptually study, the skills learn, and a process for developing a physical command of the skills play, right? That's how I came up with discover, learn, play. You know, I also mentioned several times since the start of the year that if you've been a faithful jazz piano skills listener for the past four plus years, you've become intimately familiar with the jazz piano skills needed to begin tune study. And I also mentioned that if you haven't been grinding along with us over the past four years with no big deal, this is a great time to jump on board begin developing and enhancing your jazz piano skills. You know, the tune study that we do every month, every month, the tune study will help you actually sift through and prioritize the last four plus years of podcast episodes so that you can begin maximizing your jazz piano skills right now, immediately. So as I like to say, if you're a jazz piano skills vet, or if you're a jazz piano skills rookie, makes no difference. You're in the right place at the right time to begin a jazz journey that will have a profound impact on your understanding of music, which, of course, will have a profound impact on your jazz piano play. So today, you're going to discover an improvisation approach for I wish you love you're going to learn various improvisational zones, patterns, motifs for I wish you love, and you're going to play several harmonic, melodic phrases, arpeggio phrases from, I wish you love to help you do. Develop and enhance your improvisational approach and skills. 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 are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're gonna find this jazz piano skills podcast, lesson exploring. I wish you love to be very beneficial. But before we get started, before we dig in, I want to, as I always do, welcome first time listeners to jazz piano skills. And if you are indeed new to jazz piano skills, if you're listening to the podcast for the very first time, I want to welcome you, and I want to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. Your membership grants you access to the premium content for this podcast episode and for every weekly podcast episode, premium content will help you thoroughly and correctly discover, learn and play the jazz standard that we are currently exploring and so much more. For example, as a jazz piano skills member, you have access to the past, current and future educational weekly podcast packets. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs or backing tracks that I design and develop for every podcast episode to help you get the most out of each podcast episode. Now you also have access to a self paced and sequential jazz piano curriculum, which is loaded with comprehensive courses, all of the courses containing educational talks, interactive learning media to help you digest the jazz panel skill conceptually, there are video demonstrations of the jazz panel skills and all 12 keys and so much more. You also, as a jazz panel skills member, have a reserved seat, as I like to say in my online weekly master classes, which are held every Thursday evening. And if you can't attend, it's no big deal. Master Classes are recorded, so you can watch and rewatch the video of the class whenever and as often as you wish. It's fabulous. You can also access an online interactive fake book containing must know jazz standards with excellent chord changes, chord scale relationships, harmonic function analysis, listening suggestions and historical insights. As a jazz panel skills member, you can hang out in the online private jazz panel skills community, make some new jazz piano friends, which is always a great thing to do. The community hosts a variety of engaging forums, so I encourage you to become active within the community. And finally, your jazz piano skills membership grants you unlimited private, personal and professional education and support whenever and as often as you need it now, all of these amazing privileges are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazz pianoskills.com and of course, become a member. You'll be able to enjoy the premium podcast content, plus all the other privileges that I just mentioned. Of course, if you have any questions, once you get to the site and poking around, have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'm happy to spend some time with you and answer any questions that you may have. Okay, so on to the question of the week, and this week's question comes from Mark geldmacher, living in Prescott, Arizona, and Mark writes, I have a question about sharps and flats. Since the beginning of the month, I have been vacationing on a bus trip to Yellowstone. Fabulous, not to let this get in the way of my practice time. I love it. Mark, I love where you're going, pal, I love it. I spent much the bus ride paper practicing. You are my student of the month. Man, I managed to work through all major, harmonic minor and melodic minor scales. Listen to half a dozen podcasts, and took many notes to review when I returned home. Wow. Fantastic. Now that I'm back to my camp, here is a question, when do I differentiate between a scale in sharps or flat family. Specifically, when is it called F sharp or G flat. And looking at the course material, specifically in the Learn section with the flashcards, I noticed that you switched between notation in the middle of the key, for example, the B. Flat, a sharp family, you use a sharp for diminished and half diminished and B flat for the other chords, okay. Mark, fantastic observation, fantastic question. That, honestly, I think everyone, and I mean, everyone wrestles with with this when learning how to properly think about playing chords. In fact,

when everyone comes to this fork in the road, they either choose the path with the road sign stating, who cares? Does it really matter? Or the path with the road sign saying work ahead, thinking required, causing delay, and I'm happy to hear that you have chosen the correct road, the one with the sign stating work ahead, thinking required causing delay. Because it does matter. It absolutely 100% matters a great deal. And here is why it matters, because being able to properly spell chords is the number one indicator that you understand chord scale relationships. In other words, what scale, what key does this chord belong to? And when you begin to see chords as belonging to a key you have a harmonic understanding and foundation that will allow you to firmly establish and develop improvisational skills and without a proper understanding of chord scale relationships, you are simply guessing at how to spell chords. And if you are guessing at how to spell chords as if it doesn't matter, then your improvisational skills, and I'm putting that in quote, your improvisational skills, are nothing more than a guessing game. And if you are guessing at what pool of notes to use when improvising over any giving chord, then it is proper. It is probably a safe bet to assume that you suck. Wait, sorry, I'm sorry. I should probably soften that up a little bit, a little bit, right? It is probably a safe bet to assume that you are struggling with improvisation. So Mark, let me try to answer your question as clearly and succinctly as possible. So here we go. Number one, all chords come from some where every chord belongs to a key. Number one, number two, keys, scales, right? There's synonymous terms keys, scales are spelled using sharps or flats, right? So have you noticed when spelling major scales, they either are spelled using all flats, or they are spelled using all sharps? You never see a mix and match, right? So number two, keys scales are spelled using sharps or flats. And number three, if a chord comes from a sharp key, it is spelled using sharps, and if a chord comes from a scale using flats, it is spelled using flats. That's it. That is how we determine the proper way to spell chords using sharps and flats, right? So let's take a look at the D flat family of chords. Let's do D flat so we have D flat, major D flat, dominant D flat, minor D flat half diminished, D flat diminished. Right are five primary sounds of music, D flat, major D flat, dominant D flat, minor D flat half diminished, D flat diminished. The only problem with our D flat family of chords, as I just stated, is that they are not all D flat chords, some of them are C sharp chords. So how will you determine which ones are D flat chords and which one are C sharp chords? Yes, you got it. We need to determine the key to scale. Each of them belongs to or comes from. So let's review a little music theory before going any further. Every major scale consists of seven notes, and each note produces a chord. So there are seven chords associated with every major scale. The first chord of a major scale is a major chord, right? The second chord of a major scale is a minor chord, the third chord of a major scale is a minor chord, the fourth chord of a major scale is a major chord. The fifth chord of a major scale is a dominant chord. The sixth chord of a major scale is a minor chord, and the seventh chord of a major scale is a half diminished chord. So to recap, the one and four chords of a major scale are major, the two three and six chords of a major scale are minor. The five chord of a major scale is dominant, and the seven chord of the major scale is a half diminished. You know, for an in depth exploration of this theory, I would recommend checking out my April 28 2020 april 28 2020 podcast episode called key dependency. Key dependency, that's april 28 2020, okay, so let's go back to our D flat family of chords, right? So we've already established that the problem here is that D flat major, D flat dominant, D flat minor, D flat half diminished. D flat diminished. The problem is they're not all D flats. So which ones are C sharps? So let's, let's take the theory that we just that I just outlined, and apply it so D flat major right functions as a one or a four chord, right? So D flat major is the one chord of D flat major, which is spelled using flats. So it's going to be D flat major, D flat major as a four chord, right? Means that it comes from the key of A flat. It's the four chord in the key of A flat. A flat is spelled using flats. So we're going to have a D flat major. If we said C sharp major, we have a contradiction here, right? Can't be C sharp major, because C sharp major, which is D flat major, comes from a flat which is spelled using flats. The D flat dominant. Chord comes from the key of G flat. G flat, again, is spelled using flats, so it's D flat dominant. Now we get to D flat minor.

D flat or C sharp, minor. Let's see. We know that the major scale produces a minor in the two slot, the three slot and the six slot, right? So the two chord is minor, the three chord is minor, the six chord is minor. So D flat or C sharp is the two chord in the key of B, B is a sharp key, so therefore it cannot be D flat major. It's going to be C sharp minor. D flat C sharp is the three chord in the key of A. A is a sharp key, therefore it must be C sharp minor, not D flat and D flat. C sharp is the six chord in the key of E, which is another sharp key, so therefore it's C sharp minor. So no matter how you slice and dice, it C sharp minor comes from B, comes from a comes from E. All three are sharp keys. Therefore it is C sharp minor. It cannot be D flat minor, because D flat minor, theoretically doesn't exist. Now D flat or C sharp half diminished. We know that half diminished chord is the seventh chord in the major scale. So if we take a look at D flat or C sharp, it's the seventh in the key of D. D is a sharp key, so therefore it's C sharp half diminished. All right, D flat half diminished doesn't exist. C sharp half diminished. Now, the C sharp diminish functions as a seven chord in the harmonic minor scale, the D harmonic minor scale, which, again, is a sharp key. So it's going to be C sharp diminished. So our D flat slash C sharp family should be stated as such, D flat major, D flat. Dominant, C sharp, minor, C sharp, half diminished and C sharp diminished. So Mark Great question. Continue to wrestle with thinking this through, and you will not be disappointed. If you truly want to develop improvisational skills, you need to know how to spell properly. Spell and think about chords and again, this is the number one indicator of how well you understand chord scale relationships, which is absolutely essential for developing improvisational skills. You know if, after listening to my podcast episode, key dependency, April 28 2020 you still need further clarification, then do not hesitate to contact me. I'm happy to help you spend a little time with you and sort this out, to make sure that we have this tipping point take place for you, that you begin to think about the spelling of chords in relationship to the keys from which they come. Okay, let's discover learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover learn and play. I wish you love part three, right? An improvisation approach. You know, I presented an outline, I think, in every single podcast episode since the start of the year, I have presented my outline for studying and learning any tune, right? But it never hurts the review and here it goes and again this. This is how I go about learning a tune, regardless of the genre. It makes no difference whether it's a jazz or rock tune, pop, country, folk, R and B, whatever. Number one I listen, I always listen to various artists, vocalist, instrumentalist, and, of course, pianist performing the tune. Number two, I turn my attention to the form of this composition of the song. You know, is it a classic? A, a B, A, a B, A B. Is it a 12 bar blues format? You know, I want to know the form of this piece. After I understand that number three, I turn my attention. I'm a pianist, so I turn my attention to harmonic foundation of the tune. What are the chords, you know, what are the common progressions that I'm hearing in this piece, 251145, etc. After I have a handle on the harmonic movement, I like to turn my attention to learning the melody by ear, of course. And I also like to explore various treatments of the tune from, you know, ballad, Bossa, swing, and again, this goes back to the listening. Why I like to listen to various artists and various treatments that they perform the piece. And then finally, number five, I turn my attention, as we will today, on improvisation development. Okay, so that's it. That's how I approach learning in tune, nothing more, nothing less, right? So two weeks ago, we focused on gaining a harmonic familiarity, familiarity and command of I wish you love. And then last week, we took a look at the melody of I wish you love. And today, we're going to discuss improvisation using I wish you love as our template. So our goal has been and will always be, to try to keep things as clean and tidy as we possibly can with our approach, whether it's a harmonic approach, melodic or improvisation approach, right? And it doesn't matter whether it's tune study or skill study, right? It makes no difference our our conceptual understanding of all that we do musically must be structured and simple, so that it can be replicated over and over and over again. And through that replication, we develop muscle memory and oral memory, which is necessary for learning how to play an instrument. And if your conceptual understanding of music, right, or any musical skill is not structured, is not simple, right, conceptually, then it's unorganized and confusing, right? It's going to be one of the two. And if it's organizing and confusing conceptually upstairs, right, you have no shot zero shot executed in your hands downstairs on the piano. Therefore, we will always strive at jazz piano skills to keep our tune study very structured, very simple and very replicatable, as we have been doing since the beginning of the year. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we are going to begin part three of our discover, learn and play process with, I wish you love an improvisation approach. Number two, we are going to listen to a definitive recording of i. Wish You Love. Number three, we will discuss, as always, the importance of understanding harmonic zones harmonic patterns and, of course, motifs that come from those zones and patterns. Number four, we will stress, again, the importance of gaining the command of sound using arpeggio and scale motion. Number five, we will explore how to use the changes of I wish you love for practicing improvisation. Number six, we will focus on an arpeggio plus tension approach today. Today, our focus will be an arpeggio plus tension approach for improvisation development. And finally, I will be playing all demonstrations today at a tempo of 110 comfy little temple using a traditional swing groove. So if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take a few minutes right now to to download and print your podcast packets. So hit the pause button and you want to print your podcast packets, which consists of the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs and again, your membership grants you access to premium content for every weekly podcast episode, right? Which, of course, includes the educational podcast packets. And I mention every week that you should have these packets in your hands when listening to the episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you should have these packets sitting on your piano when practicing to maximize your musical growth. So if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories, such as apple. I mean, there's a million of them, right? Google, Spotify, I Heart Radio, Amazon, Pandora, the list goes on. Then I want you to go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com jazz piano skills podcast.com and you will find the active download links for each of the podcast packets in the show notes, or if you prefer, you can log into your jazz piano skills account and from your Dashboard, navigate to this episode, where you will Find one convenient link to download all three podcast podcast packets right in one convenient bundle. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets, I want you to grab your lead sheets, and you will have check this out to two lead sheets, and you're going to find out today, less is indeed more. So. Lead sheet one provides you with various arpeggios to use for each the chord changes of I wish you love, and lead sheet two provides you with the various arpeggios plus tension to use for each of the chord changes of I wish you love Okay, lead sheets one and two. Now,

what is the very first thing that we should do when studying and learning a tune? Of course, right? We listen. We did it last week. We're going to do it again today, because we should always do it right. Always. I stress. I stress it all the time that I love to listen to various renditions of tunes. It's not only the first, first step that I take, but I actually believe it, it is the most important step, right and again, I can't imagine attempting to learn a tune before spending time becoming very familiar with it, absorbing it right? As I've mentioned before, I typically like to listen to vocal renditions first, followed by instrumentalist followed by pianist. You know, bottom line, though, I listen, and that's what we're going to do right now before going any further now. Two weeks ago, we checked out the great Nancy Wilson singing, I wish you love. Last week, we enjoyed Chet Baker performing, I wish you love. And today, we're going to listen to the amazing Benny green, another one of my favorite jazz pianist performing I wish you love and giving us a lesson on how to play stride piano with a little tip of the hat to the one and only Earl Gardner as well. So as always, I want you to grab your favorite beverage. Get comfortable. Sit back, relax and enjoy the great. Benny green, performing. I wish you love check this out. It.

Okay, I think that's it. We're gonna, let's call it a wrap. You know, that's amazing, right? Oh, my goodness, so tasteful. You know, if you're not familiar with Benny green, I would strongly suggest checking him out. Everything he does. I mean, everything he does is fabulous, and, quite honestly, jaw dropping, just like his version of I wish you love Okay, so now let's explore those lead sheets. So I want you to grab elite sheet one. Let's discover how to properly begin developing our print improvisational skills. Thank you for listening to jazz piano skills. The remaining premium content of this episode is available to jazz piano skills members at jazz piano skills podcast.com Visit jazzpanelskills.com to learn more about membership privileges and become a jazz piano skills member. Thank you. You.