I Wish You Love, Improvisation Bonus

0:20  
Bob, welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr Bob Lawrence, it's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano we have spent the entire month of August tackling the great jazz standard I wish you love. We studied it harmonically, looking at form, the changes, common progressions, voicings. We've studied it melodically, Melody, transcribing fingerings, phrases, various treatments, and we've studied it improvisationally. You know, melodic representation of harmony using arpeggio, motion, sound zones, motifs, tension, tones. We've covered it all. And typically, the last week of the month is usually an interview or lecture series presentation. But today, today, I thought I would surprise you with a bonus, a bonus improvisation episode that picks up where we left off last week with our improvisation exploration, right? And continues this week with the same approach, but instead of focusing on arpeggio, motion to melodically outline the harmony, we will instead focus on scale, motion to outline the harmony melodically. How you like that? A bonus episode. I love it. Now, this makes sense, right? I mean, after all last week, we restricted our improvisation exploration to arpeggio motion, so it only makes sense that we give the same attention to scale motion. So that is precisely what we are going to do today. Now no doubt about it, right? Last week's podcast episode focusing on improvisation using arpeggio motion paired with today's episode zeroing in on improvisation using scale motion. It's no doubt about it. It's going to give us a pretty accurate assessment of how well we are processing these essential jazz piano skills, both conceptually and, of course, physically and I have mentioned several times throughout the year, we must know our strengths and weaknesses right. We must have an accurate assessment of our strengths and weaknesses if we genuinely want to improve, right? And that begins with a really an accurate assessment of how well we are handling scales and arpeggios. So today, you are going to discover an improvisation approach for I wish you love, a bonus episode. You're going to learn essential scale patterns to use with the chords found with in I wish you love, and you're going to play the entire sound for each chord, from the root to the 13th, from the root to the 13th for each of the chords found in I wish you love. 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 consider yourself a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this jazz piano skills podcast lesson exploring I wish you love bonus episode to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to, as I always do, I want to welcome first time listeners to jazz piano skills, and if you are indeed new to jazz piano skills, listening to the podcast for the very first time, welcome. I want to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member in your membership many privileges, but grants you access, first and foremost, to the premium content for this podcast episode and for every weekly podcast episode. Now, the 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 now. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs or backing tracks that I design and develop. For every weekly podcast episode, to help you get the most out of each episode, you also have access to a self paced and sequential jazz piano curriculum, which is loaded with comprehensive courses contain all the courses containing educational talks, interactive learning media. There's video demonstrations of the jazz piano skill in all 12 keys and so much more. As a member, you also have a reserved seat in my online weekly master classes, which are held every Thursday evening, and if you can't attend, it's no big deal. No problem, the master classes are recorded, and you can watch and rewatch the video of the class as often as you wish. You also have access to an online interactive fake book containing must know jazz standards, all of them with excellent chord changes. Chord scale relationships are mapped out for you. Harmonic function analysis, there's listening suggestions and historical insights. As a jazz panel skills member, you can also enjoy the online private jazz panel skills community. Hang out with some old jazz friends and make some new jazz friends, always a great thing to do. And finally, your jazz panel skills membership grants you unlimited private, personal and professional educational support whenever and as often as you need it now, all of these amazing privileges are waiting for you, wanting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So check it all out@jazzpanelskills.com and, of course, become a member and begin enjoying 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 poke around a little bit, if you have some questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'm always happy to spend some time with you and answer any questions that you may have. Okay, so on to the question of the week. Now this week's question comes from Edmund Sloan, living in Akron, Ohio. And Edmund writes, I know this may be a silly question, but I thought I would ask you anyway, if you had to pick one technique exercise to practice that would have the most profound impact on the development of your improvisation skills. What would it be? Thanks for your consideration. I love being a member and listening to your podcast every week, I have learned a ton from each episode and the materials, okay? Edmund, it's not a silly question. It's a tough question, but it certainly is not a silly one. And of course, the easy and most common response to these types of questions would be, you need to practice your scales and arpeggios. In fact, I mean, we place a huge emphasis on scales in arpeggios, right? I do. I mean, that's what we're going to be talking about today, scales. Last week we talked about arpeggios. So there's a big emphasis always placed on scales in our arpeggios. However, simply practicing scales and arpeggios, right, that does not translate to better improvisation scales, right? In fact, I used to spend hours running up and down scales in arpeggios, all the while thinking in my head, not sure how this is going to help me sound like Oscar Peterson and magically improve my improvisation, but I'll keep doing it, because everyone, and I mean everyone, tells me I should be doing it. I should be practicing my scales and my arpeggios.

Well, Edmund, I'm going to save you a lot of time and tell you right now that if all you do is practice scales and arpeggios up and down the piano, launching from the root of the sound, you will not improve your improvisation skills. You will not so I will not give this standard and quite frankly, tired and worn out answer to your question. No, I bet you're breathing a sigh of relief because you have already been given that answer, and that is why you're asking your question, because you're hoping to get something different. You want a new answer? I get it. I totally get it. Now, with that being said again, I am not saying that scales and arpeggios won't be part of my answer, because they are, but it is how you go about practicing. Use. Scales in arpeggios that will improve your improvisation skills. So with that being said, let's talk about the challenges of improvising now. I believe the number one challenge, the number one hurdle for everyone wanting to develop strong improvisation skills regardless of the instrument, regardless of the instrument, is the ability to seamlessly transition from one sound to another sound in time to do so melodically in time. In other words, how well can you play check this out, what I like to call transitional scales. And how well can you play transitional arpeggios, so admin, if you want to improve your improvisation, then stop practicing isolated scales and arpeggios and begin practicing transitional scales and transitional arpeggios. Now, before some of you go nuts and start spreading ridiculous rumors that Dr Lawrence from jazz piano skills, says stop practicing scales and arpeggios because they do not help you stop. Just stop right now. I'm not saying that at all. There is a reason why musicians have been practicing scales and arpeggios for hundreds of years. So I'm a huge fan. If you've listened to this podcast episode over the years. You know, I am a huge fan of scale and arpeggio practice, but Edmund's question was, if I had to select one technique exercise to practice that would have the most profound impact, the most profound impact on the development of improvisation scales. What would it be my answer transitional scales and transitional arpeggios, which is basically just taking your scales and arpeggios to the next level, right? You can't play transitional scales and transitional arpeggios if you don't know your scales and arpeggios. You're going to find that out here shortly. So these two skills, transitional scales and transitional arpeggios, are very different than simply practicing isolated scales and arpeggios. So what are they? Well, to begin select any number of sounds. Now I would recommend beginning with two select two sounds, right? Let's use let's use C major and let's use G flat major, C major and G flat major. Now we're going to combine these two sounds using arpeggio motion and using scale motion. So for example, if I want to use just straight arpeggio motion, ascending so I'm going to ascend through my major sound, ascend through, I mean, my C major sound, ascend through my G flat major sound, right? It would sound something like like this. So there it is, one melodic line using two different arpeggios that transition seamlessly from one to the other. Again, I or if I want to do that same thing, descending through each of those sounds so maybe something like this, starting again, on C, again, again. One melodic line, one melodic idea, using two different sounds, using arpeggio motion. Now I can do the same thing with scale. So if I start with scale. So I went right through my C major, right through my G flat major sound in time, seamlessly from one to the next, or I could descend again. So again, one melodic line, two different sounds. One melodic line using scale motion, whether ascending or descending. I can mix it up. I could go ascending descending. So if I start with arpeggio, motion, mm. So now I'm playing right through, ascending through my C major sound, descending through my G flat major. Sound, nice, or I could reverse it, descend through my C major, ascend through my G flat, Major, again, okay, I think you're getting the point here. I could do the same thing with scale motion, mixing it up, going, ascending, descending or descending, ascending. I could pick different sounds. They don't have to be both major. Could be a major go. I could go C, major to F, sharp minor or F sharp minor to A half diminished. I mean, we could, we can combine any sound, right, two sounds, and then practice seamlessly moving through that sound using either scale motion or arpeggio motion. Get comfortable with that you could combine it, right? I could I could say I could do C major scale arpeggio.

So now I'm combining scale and arpeggio arpeggio combinations, right? So there's a lot of various ways that you can be creative with transitional scales and transitional arpeggios. But remember, we want to play our transitional scales and arpeggios, whether you're playing combining two sounds or four sounds or six sounds, right? We want to play those transitional scales in arpeggios in time, right? So I would use some kind of backing track play along file to practice with, right, or at least a metronome. And again, you can select any number of sounds that you want to combine. However, however I would begin, I would start with two and two only okay. Now I can think of no better way. Honestly, I can think of no better way to begin practicing the seamless transition from sound to sound, which, again, is the biggest in my 30 plus years of teaching, is the number one hurdle that everyone has to jump, right, this seamless transition from sound to sound, which is essential. It's an essential jazz improvisation skill, right? And how do you develop that with the intentional practicing of transitional scales and arpeggios, because this is what you have to do when playing tunes. You have to transition from one chord change to a next chord change, right? So, Edmund, it's a great question, not a silly question. And I hope, I hope this helps you take these transitional scales, these transitional arpeggios, I hope helps you take your improvisation to the next level by helping you gain a comfortable command of creating melodic lines, melodic ideas that utilize various fragments of sound ascending and descending in time and again. Those fragments are either utilizing arpeggio motion or scale motion, right? So as always, as always, a further clarification, I'm covering a lot of ground here fast with this, but if further clarification is needed. Do not hesitate to contact me again. Happy to help spend some time with you. Make sure we get this sorted out so you can begin really maximizing your efforts when practicing your improvisation. Okay, so let's discover learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover learn and play. I wish you love an improvisation approach. Part two, bonus episode. I love that. Okay, so listen, I've presented every week, every month, my outline for studying and learning any two, right? Never hurts to review. I do it every every week. Let's do it let's run through it again. Five steps, I listen various artists, vocalist, instrumentalist, and, of course, pianist. I always like to determine form of a tune, whether it's a, a B, A, a B, A B. You know, every tune has a form. Every tune. Need to know what it is. Number three, I tack the chords, harmonic structures, the voicings, the common harmonic progressions, like 25116251145, and so on. Number four, I like to explore, learn the melody and explore various treatments, right, whether it's ballad, Bossa, swing, so on. Yeah. And finally, number five, what we're doing today, explore improvisation approaches. That's it. So I listen, determine form, learn the chords and voicings, learn melody and treatments, explore improvisation approaches. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. And we've spent the entire month of August doing exactly that, that outline for I wish you loved in fact, we've done that exact outline since the beginning of the year, with every month, with every tune that we learn, right, same outline. So the educational agenda that we follow today keeping that outline in mind. Number one, we're going to listen to a definitive recording of I wish you love as always. Number two, we're going to discuss throughout the episode The importance of understanding harmonic structures, zones, patterns, motifs. Number three, we will stress again, the importance of gaining a command of sound using now. Scale motion. Last week was arpeggio motion, this week scale motion. Number four, we will explore how to use the changes of I wish you love to practice improvisation. And number five, we will focus on a scale plus tension approach for improvisation development. Again, last week was an arpeggio plus tension approach today in our bonus episode, scale plus tension approach for improvisation development. And finally, I'll be playing all the demonstrations, as I did last week at a temple of I think, 110 110 120 some somewhere right in there. Real comfy, traditional swing group. So as always, we have a ton to get done today. And if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take a few minutes right now, hit the pause button, and I want you to download and print the podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, your play alongs and again, your membership grants you access to the premium content for every weekly podcast episode, which, of course, includes all of the educational podcast packets. And I mentioned it every week, you absolutely should have these podcast packets in your hands when you listen to this episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you should have them sitting on your piano as well when practicing. Okay, so if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories, such as Apple or Google, there's Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon, Pandora, the list goes on and on. Then I would suggest going directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com that's jazz piano skills podcast.com and you'll find the active download links right for each of the podcast packets in the show notes, or you can log into your jazz panel skills account, and from your Dashboard, navigate to this episode, where you will find one convenient link to download all three podcast packets in one convenient bundle. Okay? So now that you have your podcast packets in your hands, I want, I want you to grab the lead sheets as always, and and you should have two lead sheets. Two, again, less is more, just like we did last week, lead sheet one provides you with various how we're going to approach the scale study for each of the chords in I wish you love right? So you have various scales, the scale patterns that we are going to be taking a look at today, and lead sheet two provides you with the various scale patterns plus tension that we're going to use with each of the chord changes found within I wish you love right? So no question about it, we have some invaluable tools in our hands that we want to discover, learn and play today. So so let's get busy, and what is the very first thing as always that we do? We listen, and we did it last week. We did it the week before that. We did it a week before that and the week before that. We do it every week because I believe it's the most important thing to do is to listen the first and most important step always, as I've stressed before, I can't imagine attempting to learn any tune before spending time becoming familiar with it, listening to many different renditions of that tune, absorbing it, right? And as I've mentioned, I typically like to listen to vocal renditions, first, followed by instrumentalists, and then I turn my attention, of course, to the pianist, right? But the bottom line is, I listen and. That is what we're going to do right now before going any further now. Three weeks ago, we listened to Nancy Wilson, the great Nancy Wilson, singing, I wish you loved. And two weeks ago, we enjoyed Chet Baker performing, I wish you love. Last week we checked out Benny green, and today, we're going to listen to the amazing Dick Hyman, another one of my favorite jazz pianists. In fact, I think he may be the most underrated jazz pianist in the last the last 100 years, right? So we're gonna listen to Dick Hyman performing. I wish you love giving us a lesson, quite honestly, giving you a lesson on how to sound like Art Tatum. So as always, I want you to sit back. I want you to grab your favorite beverage and get ready to enjoy the great Dick Hyman giving us his rendition of the jazz standard. I wish you Love check This out.

Yeah, yes indeed, the one and only Dick Hyman, who, by the way, is still alive and playing he's 97 years old, living in New York City, 97 and still going strong. Man, I hope I'm 97 and still going strong. I hope I'm 97 and still doing a weekly jazz piano skills podcast episode. You know, in fact, I wonder how many episodes would that be if I continue to do one episode a week until I'm 97 you know what? I'll do the math on that and later to later tonight, and I'll have an it'll have an answer for us next week. I wonder, I just wonder, how many episodes would that be? All right, so now let's explore those lead sheets, right? So grab lead sheet one. Let's discover how to properly begin developing our improvisational skills using 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.