Jazz Improvisation Exercises, A Altered Sounds

Dr. Bob Lawrence  0:32  
Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence, it's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. Well, I hope everyone has been enjoying. I know you have enjoyed the improvisational developmental patterns for the primary sounds of a a major, a dominant, a minor, a half diminished and a diminished and of course exploring the various fingering patterns that require conscious shifting of our right hand to establish a proper jazz articulation. And of course, to prepare the hand for continuous ascending and descending movement. Not an easy task, right? Not easy at all. I said it all along it takes a serious commitment, endurance and patience to develop proper hand movement in addition to nailing down the correct CT scan relationships. So if you've been sticking with this program since the beginning of the year, as we have literally explored every key and tackling every key since the start of the new year, right, and you deserve a huge congratulations, you are a member of a very small group of determined people, as I like to say destined to achieve jazz greatness, jazz success. So let's keep let's keep moving forward. Let's keep that motion moving forward and tackle the altered dominant sounds today for a course I'm speaking of a seven sharp 11, a seven flat 13, a seven flat nine flat 13. And of course, the a fully altered dominant sound as well the flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five. Right, we've been doing the same process the format since the beginning of the year. For all our altered sounds for C, F, B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, F sharp B last month e and this month a wow. So today, you're going to discover essential jazz improvisation exercises. You're going to learn develop developmental arpeggio and scale patterns for the eight altered sounds. And you're going to play five arpeggio five scale patterns. For the a dominant altered sounds of music, the dominant sharp 11, flat 13, flat nine flat 13 and the dominant fully alter. So as I always like to say regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner an intermediate player, an advanced player, even if you are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this jazz panel skills podcasts lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for a altered sounds to be very beneficial. But before we get down the business, I want to as I always do at the beginning of every jazz panel skills podcast episode, I want to welcome all new all first time listeners to the jazz piano skills podcast. And if you are indeed new to jazz piano skills, I want to of course welcome you I want to invite you to become a jazz panel skills member. There are various membership plans to choose from, to help you discover, learn and play music to play jazz, so check out jazz panel skills.com. To learn more about all the perks of each membership plan. There are educational weekly podcast packets, the illustrations the lead sheets, the play alongs for every weekly podcast episode, there's an online sequential jazz panel curriculum loaded with comprehensive courses, online weekly master classes to enjoy online interactive Fakebook and a private online jazz panel skills community which hosts a variety of engaging forums. And on top of all that, there is also Unlimited, private, personal and professional educational support available. All of these perks are waiting for you wanting to help you, as I mentioned, help you discover learn and play jazz piano so when you have a moment, visit jazz panels skills.com And of course become a member. If you have any questions once you get there looking at the various membership plans or any of the the educational perks that go along with the plans? If you have any questions whatsoever, please do not hesitate. Don't give it a second thought to reach out to me. I'm always happy to answer any questions that you may have spend some time with you and help you in any way that I possibly can. Okay, so on to the question of the week. Okay, you'll see why I'm laughing here in a minute. This week's question comes from Martha Nelson, Martha Nelson limited Huntington, New York and Martha writes. If you had to pick one, jazz piano skill, and only one to give a student who is going to be stranded on a deserted island with only the clothes on their back and a piano what skill would you give them? And why bother cracking me up? Your question is hilarious and I love it. Absolutely love it now. Not easy to answer, but nevertheless I love it and I will do my very best to answer it for you. Okay, as you all know, especially all of you regular listeners know that there are several essential jazz piano skills that you should have incorporated into your regular practice routine. But, but there is a skill I must admit there is a skill that comes to mind as the one the one that I would suggest to the castaway. That skill is the is the ability to play all 60 chords 12 Major 12 dominant 12, minor 12, half diminished and 12 diminished. Using basic block voicings root, third, five, seven, and inversions, I would tell the cast away if you gain a command of this skill, you will be able to play all the tunes you want. And if you can play the 60 chords in time as you move from one chord to the next progressions, right? If you can drop the melody on top of these block chords and their inversions in time, you'll be making beautiful music for years or, or you know until you're rescued from the island. So here's what here's a quick example. You all know this tune simple black chords in my left hand using inversions with the melody in my right hand, establishing a pulse and plane in Time

Dr. Bob Lawrence  10:30  
Yes, in the belly stray horns take the A train right simple blocks with the melody, simple blocks using inversions, right with the melody placed on top, making a whole lot of music. You know, my dad actually preferred when I played tunes like this for him, right? He would. So funny. I go home to visit, he make himself a cocktail, sit down on the sofa, want me to play? He wanted to hear the changes in the melody only, as he used to say, just play the to no fancy stuff, okay? No, there's something to that formula for sure. So if I had to tell the cast away, you have one skill to play for the rest of your time on this deserted island, it would be a nail down those 60 quartz block format, root, third, five, seven. And they're inversions so that you can begin dropping melodies on top of them, and playing the standards playing, play all the standards, you want to keep your sanity while you're lost at sea. So, I hope I hope this helps Martha. If you have any additional questions or if further clarification is needed, of course, do not hesitate to let me know. Again, I'm always happy to help you spend some time with you and provide provide further clarification if need. Okay, so let's discover, learn and play jazz piano Let's get after these jazz improvisation exercises. For the altered a dominant sounds. I've mentioned in previous podcast episodes that students struggle with improvisation. More often than not, because of poor fingerings. It's not a lack of skill, not a lack of theory, familiarity. Alright, it's not a lack of talent. It's just simply due to immobile hands resulting from poor fingerings. And this is why we have devoted this year, right, to developing fingerings. You know, to try to answer some really foundational type questions, you know, what constitutes good fingering? What should we look? Look for when establishing fingerings for certain musical phrases? What should we be trying to accomplish with our fingerings? Is there always a fingering option that will reign supreme over other options? Right? What about that golden rule? No thumb on the black note, right? On a black note. So, you know, we've set out to try to dive deeper into these questions and come up with some answers that are going to help us move forward with our jazz piano skills and our jazz piano development. The whole point of our journey this year is to the to establish definitive answers for these types of questions. But, but to circumvent any type of fingering dilemma in other words, we need to establish a simplistic approach to fingering and in doing so establish an unimpaired mobility for our right hand. It all sounds good, right? Because deep down, we know that if we can get our right hand easily move around on the keyboard, we'll be able to play the tunes that we love and, and we'll be able to embellish those tents we'll be able to improvise. Right we'll be able to play jazz. And again, this is the entire point. This is the entire objective of this entire year, right to simplify to discover a finger in approach, simplify our finger and approach and establish a fingering conviction that will allow us to begin successfully practicing and establishing fingerings for all those 60 chords that we were just talking about. And while doing so, explore some typical jazz patterns. Language, why we work out our fingering muscle memory that ultimately will free us up to think about musical expression, musical motion musical articulation, and musical creativity. Alright, so let's get down to business. The educational agenda for today is as follows number one, we We're going to explore jazz improvisation exercises. For the A altered dominant sounds. Number two, we will play essential a altered arpeggio patterns that you need to discover, learn and play. And we'll do so from the root of the sound to the 13th to the sound, using various entry points, the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. Number three, we will play essential a altered dominant scale patterns that you need to discover, learn and play. And again, we'll do so exploring the entire sound from the root to the 13th. And we will use the same entry points, the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. Number four, I will be playing all jazz improvisation exercises today, using the A flat nine flat 13 sound. Okay, and number five, I will be playing all jazz improvisation exercises using a traditional swing groove of 110. So 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 for this episode. Those are gonna be your illustrations, the lead sheets, and the play alongs. Again, your membership grants you access to all the educational podcast packets for every weekly podcast episode. So I mentioned that every week you you should be using these podcast packets when listening to this episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you should be using the material, the podcast packets when practicing as well. So if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories, and there are a gazillion of them. But you're all familiar with like Apple and Google, Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, and on and on, then I want you to go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com That's the jazz piano skills podcast.com to access, download, and print your podcast packets, and you will find the active download links in the show notes. Okay, and one final but very, very important message that I include in every episode. If you are listening at this moment, and you are thinking that the jazz improvisation exercises for the A altered dominant sounds in the various skills that we are about to discover, learn and play or you're thinking that these skills are over your head that I would say to you. Okay,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  18:11  
right, who cares? So what, you know, no worries, right? Continue to listen, continue to grow your jazz panel skills intellectually, by doing that by just simply listening to this episode. Because you know what every new skill is overheads when first introduced. But this is how we get better. I stress this to my students all the time, we place ourselves smack dab in the middle of conversations where we absolutely have no idea what they're talking about. We are hearing things that that we've never heard before. We're hearing words that we've never heard before. And so we're we're forced to grow intellectually. And I say it all the time. All musical growth begins upstairs mentally, conceptually, before it can come out downstairs physically in your hands. So the very first step, always, listen, listen, listen to this podcast. Listen now to discover and to learn the play. The play will come in time. It always does. I guarantee it. Okay, now I bet you have your lead sheets in your hands, your podcast packets, I want you to grab your lead sheets, I want to point out a few things. And you will see that lead sheets one through four deal with arpeggio motion for the altered sounds and lead sheets five through eight deal with scale motion for the altered sounds. You will also notice that the jazz improvisation exercises are the same for all four altered a dominant sounds for the sharp 11 A flat 13 The flat nine flat 13 and the fully altered sound the flat nine sharp nine flat five sharp five, the exercise causes are, of course, modified to reflect the proper sound. You'll also notice that my suggested fingerings are included for every note of every exercise for every sound. Now, of course, you can modify the fingerings slightly, but be careful, right? Don't remove the intentional hand shifts, they're there for a reason, this is our objective to get the hand mobility in our right hand. So you might look at a line and think, oh, you know what, this will be a lot easier just to remove that hand shift and play it, play that line across my fingers here. That's what may look like and made me feel like that initially, but I promise you, you're working against the objective when doing that. So do not remove the intentional hand shifts that are built into these patterns, right. And again, the fingerings. Using these type of fingerings are what's going to allow you to play with a proper jazz articulation. So you, like I said, you may be inclined to change the fingerings because you think it feels more comfortable or it's easier, but you're easier, may actually make it harder for you to play with proper jazz articulation. So I'm just throwing caution to the wind, as I always do here, right? Just be careful. Okay, so grab your in your lead sheet packet, I want you to grab lead sheet three, skill three, and lead sheet seven, skill seven, these lead sheets deal with the altered dominant sound with the flat nine, flat 13. Okay, now, of course, your job is to play these, these exercises these patterns for all the altered sounds, but for the sake of the podcast and the sake of time, I always focus on one specific sound to model all of the exercises for you, and then it's your job to go and do this for all the altered sounds. And you have all the lead sheets here again, in front of you, but but for listening to this episode, grab lead sheet three, and lead sheet seven. Okay, so lead sheet three deals with arpeggio motion, we have five exercises, A, B, C, D, and E. Okay, these are the five same five exercises that we've been dealing with all year but but in different keys. And as I mentioned, all these fingerings that you see notated on your lead sheet all have intentional handshakes even letter A, we have a four note we're dealing with a simple four note arpeggio, launching from the root, root to seven, we have a arpeggio from the third to the ninth, we have an arpeggio from the fifth to the 11th. And we have an arpeggio from the seventh to the 13th. So yes, you could play these simple little motifs, these simple little arpeggios with no hand shift. Absolutely you could. But that's not. Again, that's not the objective. So you'll see those fingerings in there have our hand moving. That's what we want. Okay, so I want to bring the ensemble in right now, I am going to play each pattern, each pattern from each entry point four times before moving on to the next pattern. And again, I'm playing all these exercises today at a tempo of 110. And, as I always mentioned, and always encourage you to do slower tempos are fantastic. Always begin practicing at a tempo that's going to allow you to succeed. So if that's 60 Fantastic. If it's 70 Great. If it's 50 No problem, write a tempo that allows you to succeed and focus on utilizing these fingerings and playing with a good feel, and a good jazz articulation. So let's bring the ensemble in. Let's listen to letter A. I'll play the A seven flat nine flat 13 Sound up front about four measures to get into the tempo and the groove and the feel. And then I will begin playing each one of those exercises. Again, four times each. Okay. All right, here we go. Let's check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  26:01  
Fantastic, right? I mentioned this every every month as well, these arpeggios, I mentioned that every week, these arpeggios from the root from the third from the fifth from the seventh, nice simple ascending lines, I can't begin to stress you how important it is to be able to play these four note motifs with a nice relaxed feel using great fingerings like we have notated here. Great articulation, right. So important. And if you focus on letter A, immensely, I tell you what, you will be doing yourself a huge favor. But let's move on to letter B. Letter B is pretty much very similar, right? Instead of a simple four note arpeggio. As we were doing in letter A, we're going to add just the slight contour to our line, so we get this right. So again, fingerings have intentional hand shifts built into them. Again, we're using four entry points, the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in. And let's check out letter B, four. I'll play each excerpt each motif four times here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  29:04  
Fantastic, okay, so now, letter C, and I love letter C, because the hand it's obvious that the hand has to shift, look at our fingerings 141421. Right. So we get this hand has to move. There's a big time shift taking place there, the one and then chicken out. Our thumb goes up on to the C sharp right. In order to play this phrase correctly, this this line, this motif so great fingerings here for letter letter C for the entry point of the root from the third from the fifth and from the seventh. Again exploring the entire sound right? That's why we do these entry points we want to become ultimately we want to become route independent, where we can jump and out of a sound at any point, and we can see the sound from various or see various fragments of the sound, even if the roots not included right. So, there's a method to the madness here. So let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check out letter C. For motifs again for entry points, root, third, fifth and seventh check out the hand shifts here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  32:01  
Right letter D as it always does letter D deals with eighth note triplets in triplets are tricky, especially when you have triplets back to back to back. Right and we have our fingerings that have intentional hand shifts built into them. A triplets are always a rhythmic pattern that is easy to rush, it is easy to get out in front of the eighth notes of the eighth note triplet, and rush. So be aware of that relax, slow the tempo down even if you're playing letter A, B and C at a faster tempo, it's okay to play D at a slower tempo to nail down the articulation of these eighth note triplets as well as to secure the proper fingerings so let's bring the ensemble lead in let's check out letter D here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  34:33  
While not easy, right? Not easy. Again slow the tempo down. Slow it down. Alright, it's hard to believe we're onto letter E our last arpeggio exercise for today dealing with the ACE seven flat nine flat 13 sound. Same format though right? Root Entry third, fifth seventh entry points. Our musical phrase gets a little longer now playing through The bar line. So it's not just the one measure idea, we have to play through the bar line. So let's bring the ensemble in, we're back to eighth notes again, no triplets. Thank goodness. So we're back the eighth notes, letter E, I'll play each motif four times here we go check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  36:55  
Quite a workout, no doubt about it arpeggio motion, quite a workout. So now we're going to deal turn our attention to scale movement to scale motion, same sound a seven, flat nine flat 13. Right, same sound, same approach, right, we're going to use four entry points, the root third five and seven for the next five exercises letter A, B, C, D and E on lead sheet seven skill seven. So, but but just scale motion now, right? So look at letter A, we're just simply us ascending through the sound the scale from the root to the seventh, the third to the ninth, the fifth to the 11th and the seventh to the 13th. But again, our fingers have our intentional hands shift hands shifting taking place so you might want to mark that. Make a little note of that and pay attention to it when you're practicing for sure. We want to develop proper muscle memory so the fingerings need to be nailed down. So let's bring the ensemble in. Let's take a look and listen at letter A from lead sheet seven skill seven here we go check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  39:42  
Okay, so letter B, just as we did with the arpeggio movement, we added a little contour to our scale, right so instead of just going straight up the scale right now we're going to have a little contour to the scale right just a simple little contour to add a little interest to our scale movement. So let's bring the ensemble in let's check out letter B A seven flat nine flat 13 scale motion from the root from the third from the fifth from the seventh exploring the entire sound here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  41:59  
Okay, so, you know we have to explore eighth note triplets with our scale movement just as we did with our arpeggio motion. So letter C does that right as it always does letter C, a seven flat nine flat 13. We have 4/8 note triplets back to back to back to back, ascending motion through the bar line into measure two. Okay, and again with these eighth note triplets even if you're playing the other exercises, at a faster clip a faster tempo, by all means, it's okay to isolate literacy in the planet at a much slower tempo. We want to nail down the articulation the feel and of course, a proper fingerings as well. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in and let's check out Letter C here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  44:27  
You know we focus on the eighth note triplet because of jazz literature is laced with eighth note triplets. So, there's no hiding. There's no avoiding. Right, the eighth note triplet can't hide from it, you can't avoid it, you have to attack it and address it and practice it. And that's why we have it included in our arpeggio motion and we deal with it with our scale movement as well. Okay, so now on to letter D are we melodic ideas are getting longer, they are moving through the bar line, we're back to just straight eighth notes again, no eighth note triplets, thank goodness. But we have our intentional hand shifts. Moving through this scale motion again using our same four entry points, root, third, fifth and seventh. So nice right to have a formulaic approach that you apply to various sounds, practicing specific skills. Right. You must have some formulaic, systematic approach to practicing so that you can properly assess your progress. Without it, there's no way to assess Okay, so now letter D let's check it out here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  47:31  
Wow, we are down to our last exercise for today. Last scale movement exercise but the last exercise of the day. So, letter E, again our motif our melodic line gets a little bit longer we're playing again of course through the bar line, two measures, eighth note movement, ascending motion from the root from the third from the fifth, seventh, quite a quite a few hand shifts taking place with inside these lines. So always again, a good idea to maybe to mark pose with your pencil where they're taking place. And then to keep your fingerings consistent again, muscle memory is the name of the game here. Right? instinctual muscle memory when playing these types of lines that are common within jazz literature, jazz language, jazz melodies, jazz improvisation. So let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check out letter e. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  50:06  
Well, as always, fast this hour or the week, right, we've unpacked a ton of information in one very short one very, very fast hour. And again, even though I played these exercises, all of these improvisation exercises today, using the dominant flat nine flat 13 Sound like only for the sake of time, right, you need to practice the exercises for the dominant sharp 11 sound, dominant flat, 13 sound, and the dominant fully altered sound as well as flat nine, sharp nine, flat five, sharp five, right, they're all laid out for you in your lead sheets podcast packet with fingerings included, right and remember, you can modify the fingerings. But don't be removing those hinge chips, right. Don't work against the objective that we've set out to achieve with our hands shifts within each one of these melodic motifs, exploring the entire sound from the root to the 13th. So you have a ton to tackle this week, you have a ton of practice. No doubt about it, use your time wisely. Next week, we will jump into a bebop tune to examine the various melodic shapes and their fingerings that are found within that little treasure chest. So again, I want to encourage all of you jazz panel skills members to be using your podcast packets, your illustrations, your lead sheets and your play alongs to guide you as you study in practice, right? These are educational tools that will help you gain a mastery of the jazz panel skills conceptually, physically and of course, musically, and most importantly, most importantly, be patient right? Give yourself a little slack here right? cut yourself some slack Be patient, right developing mature professional jazz piano skills takes time. The reality is the truth is it takes a lifetime. So begin structuring your improvisational development after the plane demonstrations that are modeled for you today in this podcast episode and I guarantee it you're going to begin to see feel and hear your musical progress. Well I hope you have found this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for the A altered dominant sounds to be insightful and of course to be beneficial. Don't forget if you are a jazz panel skills ensemble member. I'll see you Thursday evening at the jazz panel skills masterclass. That's going to be online 8 pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for the A altered dominant sounds in greater detail. And of course, to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general. You can always reach me if you have questions during during the week. You can always reach me by by phone 972-380-8050 My extension here at the Dallas School of Music is 211 if you prefer email, my email address is Dr. Lawrence drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or there's a nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is found on every page throughout the jazz panel Skills website that you can send me a message that way as well. While there's my cue, that's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the jazz improvisation exercises for the A altered dominant sounds and most of all, most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano!