Jazz Improvisation Exercises, Ab 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 playing the improvisational developmental patterns for the primary sounds of a flat and of course, exploring the various fingering patterns that require a conscious conscious shifting of the hand to establish a jazz articulation and to prepare the hand for continuous ascending or descending movement. That's a mouthful right there. Not an easy task, right. As I have said all along, it takes a serious commitment, endurance, and patience to develop proper hand movement, in addition to nailing down the correct chord scale relationships. So if you are sticking to the program that we have been tackling since the start of the new year, a huge congrats, you are a member of a very small group of determined folks destined to achieve jazz success. So let's keep creating forward motion today and tackle the altered dominant sounds for a flat, sharp 11, flat 13, flat nine flat 13. And of course, the fully altered sound, flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five, just as we have done, just as we have been doing since January, with the altered sounds for C, F, B flat, and E flat. So today you're going to discover essential jazz improvisation exercises, you're going to learn develop mental arpeggio and scale patterns of a flat altered sounds. And you're going to play five arpeggio and five scale patterns for the eight flat dominant altered sounds of music, dominant sharp, 11, dominant flat, 13, dominant flat nine, flat 13. And of course dominant fully altered flat nine, sharp nine, flat five sharp five. 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 an experienced and seasoned professional, you're gonna find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson, exploring jazz improvisation exercises for a flat altered sounds to be very beneficial. But before we get down to business, I want to as I always do at the beginning of every jazz panel skills podcast episode, I want to welcome first time listeners. And if you are indeed new to jazz panel skills, I want to invite you to become a jazz panel skills member. There are various membership plans to choose from so visit jazz panel skills.com To learn more about the perks that come along with each membership plan. There are educational weekly podcast packets, illustrations lead sheets play alongs there is a sequential jazz piano curriculum available that is loaded with comprehensive courses. An online weekly masterclass interactive jazz Fakebook private jazz panel skills community which hosts a variety of engaging forums. And of course, there's unlimited private, personal and professional educational support available as well. All of these perks are available at jazz piano scales.com waiting for you wanting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So when you have a moment, check it out at jazz panel skills.com And of course become a member. Once you get there. If you have any questions by all means, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'm always happy to spend some time with you answer any questions that you may have, or help you in any way that I possibly can. Okay, let's get to the question of the week. All right, this week's question comes from Mary Cooley from Scottsdale, Arizona And I love that area. It's warm. I have relatives living there. And I have a ton of great memories with my boys going to spring training every year, which of course, is baseball heaven. For all of us who love baseball. Wow, I'm already looking forward to next March. I love that area. Anyway, Mary's question is this. I hear jazz musicians talking about playing inside and outside? I am not quite sure what that means exactly. Could you please explain it in a way a beginner can understand? Also, is this something that can be practiced, developed? And if so, can you offer some suggestions on how best to successfully practice playing inside and outside? Thanks for considering my question. Wow. Another great question. And Mary, I am going to do my very best to be as clear and concise as possible. Your question is so good. And I know so many listeners appreciate it because they to seek some clarification regarding inside and outside playing as well. So let me begin by saying this, I could easily easily devote an entire podcast episode, if not several podcast episodes, discussing inside and outside playing. But I will try my very best today to condense my thoughts into a few minutes. All right. Okay, so here I go. The first thing to know is that the expression inside and outside playing is simply referring to playing notes that either coincide with the harmony inside are notes that do not coincide with the harmony, outside. In other words, notes that create tension. Now, before I go any further, I want to stress I cannot stress this enough. I want to stress how important it is that you focus on learning how to play using inside notes first, that coincide with the harmony before you even begin to think about incorporating notes that are outside the harmony. You know, it's funny, I had a teacher one time asked me, Bob, how do you teach students to play wrong notes? Right. Funny, right? It's a great question. What he was asking was, how do I teach students to play outside? I told them, that's a very easy question to answer. I told them if you want to teach students how to play wrong notes, right? Teach them how to play write notes right first. So if you are not comfortable, if you are not comfortable improvising through chord changes using chord tones and scale tones, inside notes, then don't even think about trying to play non scale tones, outside notes. Bottom line, first things first, learn how to play the right notes. Right. So Mary, I want you think about learning how to improvise in three stages. Stage one, chord tones, using four chord tones for inside notes at the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh of the sound stage to begin using scale tones. Right, so now we get to chord tones, plus three more inside notes. The second, fourth and sixth degrees the scale. So now you would have seven notes at your fingertips, the entire scale. Stage three, you would begin to incorporate non scale tones, which are five notes that reside outside of the harmony. So let's apply these three stages to the C major scale In

Speaker 2  10:01  
stage one would be the notes C, E, G, and B,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  10:10  
four chord tones through the third, the fifth and the seventh stage to would include the entire scale. So it would add the notes D, F, N A, so you get seven notes. And stage three would be all 12 notes the chromatic scale

so you can kind of see Mary, you start with stage one, for inside notes, stage two, three additional notes that are still inside scale tones. And then stage three the remaining five notes that fall outside of the scale. Now, on the piano, you can see this very clearly, you know, when you illustrate it in the key of C, because you have all white notes are the inside notes. And the five black notes are the outside notes. You know, last week I presented an equation that went like this chord tones plus rhythm equal melody, that would be stage one. Now we can expand that equation chord tones plus scale tones plus rhythm equal melody, that would be stage two. And we can expand it yet again, chord tones plus scale tones plus non scale tones plus rhythm equals melody, which would be stage three. Now, here's another way to think about it. Stage one equals chord tones only stage two equal chord tones plus scale tones, stage three equal chord tones plus scale tones plus non scale tones. All of this to say marry when you hear people talking about playing outside, they're referring to stage three, using the five non scale tones. Now, the second part of your question was about how to go about practicing outside playing. Now there are several ways to begin doing this. I would suggest beginning with the half step approachment to a chord tone. Now not all half step approach, approaches to a chord tone are outside but it's a great place to begin. So again, for using C major as an example, I could approach my chord tone the third with a half step. So approaching that E with the E flat, there's my outside note has the approachment resolving to the E and then continuing up to the fifth and the seventh. Right, I could do the same thing with the with the fifth. So half step approachment to my G F sharp outside, resolving inside to the G and then continuing with my core tones the seventh and then the root. Right I could go descending right I can do that F sharp to G and D set. Right or half step approach meant to the B and D send through core tones. Right really easy way to begin incorporating some tension into your improvisation by just simply adding and a half step approach meant to the chord tones, the root, the third, the fifth and the seventh. And again, not all half step approaches to chord tones are outside but it's a nice place to begin. Another great place to begin is with the altered dominant scales which of course we are exploring today for a flat the name itself altered dominant communicates that you are playing a sound you are playing nodes that have been altered to create tension. And as I mentioned earlier notes that create tension are out side of the Harmony. They are outside notes. So when playing altered dominant scales, you are automatically playing outside, you are automatically playing notes that create tension that reside outside of the harmony. There are of course Other ways to begin gaining familiarity and comfort without side notes, but for now, as a beginner marry thinking half step approach mints to chord tones, and beginning to explore and utilize the altered dominant scales. As we're going to do today, there are two great places to begin. One last but very important point I want to make outside notes must resolve to an inside note. If your outside note remains outside and does not resolve, we simply call it a wrong note. So keep this in mind as you begin to wander outside with your plane. You must come back inside if you want your plane to sound correct. Okay. Again, I need to devote an entire episode or episodes to this fantastic question. Nevertheless, I hope this helps Mary as a brief introduction. And as always, if further clarification is needed, of course, please let me know. Wow, great question. And I want to encourage all of you jazz panel skills listeners to send me your questions just email me at Dr. Lawrence jazz piano skills.com Dr. Lawrence at jazz panels skills.com. Send me your questions. And who knows? Your question just may be the next question of the week. All right, let's get busy. Let's discover learn and play jazz piano Let's get after these jazz improvisation exercises for the altered a flat dominant sounds. As I mentioned in previous podcast episodes, students struggle with improvisation more often than not, because of poor fingerings. Right, not not a lack of skill, not a lack of theory understanding but simply due to immobile hands, which of course result from poor fingerings. This is why we are devoting this entire year right to addressing this issue, working on fingerings, utilizing improvisational patterns to help us develop muscle memory with good fingerings so that our improvisation can begin to flourish. Right? The whole point of our journey is to establish definitive answers to questions like what constitutes good fingerings. What should we look for when establishing a fingering? For a certain musical phrase? What What should we be trying to accomplish with our fingerings? Is there always a fingering option that will reign supreme over other options? Are the root golden rules of fingering such as no thumb, avoid a thumb on a black note? Should that ever be violated? Right, these are really important questions. And we're dealing with these type of types of questions throughout the entire year as we move from one note to the next note to the next note with our primary sounds and with our altered sounds. Bottom line, we want to establish a fingering conviction that will allow us to begin to successfully practicing establishing fingerings for all 60 chords using typical jazz patterns, right and in doing so, of course, we develop fingering muscle memory that ultimately frees us up to think about musical expression, musical emotion, musical articulation and musical creativity. Right. So we started this fingering liberation back in January, and we continue it today with a flat altered sounds, the sharp 11 The flat 13, flat nine flat 13 And of course to fully altered flat nine, sharp nine, flat five sharp five. So we had a lot to do today. All right, we'll get a lot to get done. So let's get down to business. Here we go. The educational agenda for today is follows number one, we're going to explore jazz improvisation exercises for a flat altered sounds. Number two, we will play essential a flat altered arpeggio patterns that you need to discover learn and play from the root to the 13th of the sound using various entry points, the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. Number three, we will play essential a flat altered scale patterns that you need to do scaffold learning play from the root to the 13th to the sound, again using various entry points the root, third, fifth, and seventh. Number four, I will be playing all the jazz improvisation exercises today using the A flat seven sharp 11 sound. And number five, I will be playing all jazz improvisation exercises using a traditional swing groove of one.

Okay, so if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take a few minutes right now hit the pause button, I want you to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations the lead sheets in the play alongs your membership, right your membership grants you access to all the educational podcast packets if you are a trio member, right for every weekly podcast episode. And as I mentioned, every week you should be using these podcast packets when listening to this episode. And of course, you should be using them when practicing these skills at the piano as well. So if you're listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories such as Apple or Google, Amazon, Spotify, the list goes on iHeartRadio Pandora so on, then be sure to go to jazz piano skills.com I'm sorry, jazz panel skills podcast.com Go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com to access download, and print your podcast packets, and you will find the act of download links in the show notes. All right, one final but very significant note that I mentioned every week, if you're listening, and you're thinking that the jazz improvisation exercises for a flat altered sounds are just skills that are just way over your head that you have no business you're thinking you have no business to try to discover, learn and play the A flat altered sounds. I would say to you then please relax, breathe in, breathe out. No worries, right continue to listen, continue to grow your jazz panel skills intellectually by just listening to this episode. Every new skill is over our heads when first introduced. But this is how we get better in any discipline. Right we place ourselves smack dab in the middle of conversations where we have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. We're hearing terms that we've never heard before. And so it forces us to grow intellectually. 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 first order of business always is to just simply listen to the podcast. Listen now to discover and learn the play, the play will come in time. It always does. I guarantee it. Okay, now that you have your lead sheets in your hands, I want to point out just a few things before we dig in. You will see that lead sheets one through four deal with arpeggio motion while lead sheets five through eight. Get after the scale motion. You will also notice that the jazz improvisation exercises as always are the same for all for altered a flat dominant sounds for the flat for the sharp 11, the flat 13, flat nine flat 13 and the fully altered sound. The exercises are modified of course to reflect the proper sound. Okay, you will also notice that my fingerings my suggested fingerings are included for every note of every exercise for every sound that you may modify the fingerings right but be careful. Remember fingerings are what allow you to play with proper jazz articulation and these fingerings have intentional hand shifts incorporated in to the patterns right into the fingerings. So, to not be adjusting the fingerings to remove them because you will actually be working against our objective and our goal of establishing mobility creating mobility in your hand by this constant hand shifting that is required with these fingerings All right. So if you do modify it, just be careful. Right and always keep in mind that you may be thinking that you're radian easier fingering that actually may end up making it harder for you down the road. Okay, so I'm just throwing this out to you as caution to the wind so to speak, right, just be careful. All right, so I want you too. In your lead sheet packet, I want you to grab skill one. And I wish to grab skill five, and I want you to pull those out of your packet skill one deals with the dominant sharp 11 arpeggio patterns. Skill five deals with the dominant, sharp 11 scale patterns. I am going to be playing these five arpeggio exercises and five scale exercises today for the sharp 11 sound. Of course, I do not have time to play through all the other altered sounds, but that's going to be what you do this week, right. So I'm just going to model for you these patterns in a flat for the sharp 11 Your job is to play these patterns for all of the altered sounds. Okay. So let's start with pattern a letter A, on skill one lead sheet one. These are simple four note arpeggios inside notes, right for some of these arpeggios as soon as the sharp 11 energy and we have an outside note. Let's see how that works. So we have four note arpeggios with entry point of the root and entry point of the third, the fifth and the seventh. So I'm going to bring the ensemble in, I'm going to play four measures up front just to establish the groove feel the time then you will hear me play each pattern there on the lead sheet and letter A four times. So I'll play the arpeggio start starting with the Root Entry four times then move to the arpeggio with the third entry four times and so on. Okay, so let's just sit back and listen and see what this sounds like the A flat seven sharp 11 sound and one thing I will say before we dig in the sharp 11 sound any of these altered sounds might sound harsh, they might sound a little rough to the ears because they're these altered sounds are outside notes. Okay? But also remember, we're not resolving these really, right, this A flat seven sharp 11 sound, we're not resolving it to a D flat major or some other resolution, right? So we've kind of isolated this altered sound by itself in order so that we can practice these finger patterns. So keep that in mind. Okay. All right, so let's bring down Samba Lin, let's listen to letter A. For arpeggios root third, fifth and seventh in tree here we go.

Bet right, now each one of these four note arpeggios has the fingerings created intentional hand shift, right? So you do not want to alter those fingerings to remove that some of you may be thinking, Well why do I need to put a hand shift in there because I'm only playing four notes. So why can't I just play the arpeggio One, two? Do three, five or something right and avoid shifting the hand at all. Again, that's not the point, what we're trying to do is establish this get comfortable with our hand moving across the keys, even when playing a four note arpeggio. Okay, so now look at letter B, we take the same concept, we just create a little contour to our arpeggio. So we have a little ascending descending ascending motion, but it's still still an arpeggio that goes from the root to the seventh, goes from the third to the ninth, from the fifth to the 11th, and from the seventh to the 13th of the sound. So we cover the entire sound using four different entry points. Alright, so let's bring the ensemble in and listen to letter B, follow along on your lead sheet and take note of where those fingerings are creating hand movement. Okay? All right here we go.

Alright, so let's move on to letter C. Letter C has much more contour love this pattern because our hand the hand shifting is pretty obvious with this pattern. Okay? Like look at, look at the Root Entry. Here we have 141421. So our hand is literally shifting one four, we have to let go with our E flat to get our thumb to the C. Right, so we get we want to play that line with a hand shift, but have a nice articulation and a nice legato feel to our eighth note pattern here, right and again, Root Entry third entry fifth and seventh entry, exploring the entire sound from the root all the way through the 13th. All right, so let's bring the ensemble in and loss listen to letter C. Here we go.

Okay. All right up until now, everything's been eighth note patterns. But now letter D, we have eighth notes, but triplets, right eighth note triplets. So again, pay attention to the fingerings here and the hand shifting that has taken place in these patterns. Again, root, third, fifth and seventh entry. So that we explore the entire sound from the root to the 13th. I'm playing today, as I mentioned earlier, tempo 110. I say this every week, I'm going to say it again, today. Practice these patterns at slower tempos 60 7080, so that you can focus on the fingering and the movement of the hand, once you're comfortable with the fingering and the movement of the hand, then you can begin increasing the tempo. Now, one other note here, if you've been doing this program, since January, doing all of our fingerings for A, C, F, B flat and E flat, hopefully, right, we've kept these patterns the same. So that variable remains the same, that's a constant, we don't change that we have enough to deal with with the changing of the fingerings as we move into these different, different key centers, right, so we keep these patterns the same. So hopefully, hopefully, your ears are starting to guide you as well. So this is not really about a reading exercise. These these patterns are not about reading and developing your reading skills. So if you find yourself your ears are guiding you through these patterns, and you're familiar with the chord scale relationship and playing it, letting your ear kinda take the driver's seat. That's fantastic. That's wonderful. Again, the objective with all of these patterns that we are doing, whether it's arpeggio motion or scale movement, there, the objective here is fingerings. Right? It's our fingerings that we're focusing on. So okay, with all that being said, let's bring the ensemble in let's listen to these eighth note triplets in letter D, here we go.

The eighth note triplets give you fits, don't panic. They give everyone fits, then that's not an easy pattern. It's not an easy rhythm I should say. To play consistently with a nice relaxed jazz articulation it takes time. So if it's giving you fits these eighth note triplets, join the club. No worries, keep at it, it will start to settle in for you, I promise. Okay, so now our last arpeggio exercise for today letter E, or back to eighth notes, but our line has been extended our eighth notes now we have a motif that extends into the second measure. There are multiple hand shifts taking place in these patterns. So pay attention to that. Again, Root Entry third entry fifth seventh. That takes us through the entire sound from the root to the 13th. So let's listen to eight flat seven sharp lovin arpeggio pattern letter E here we go.

All right, we're halfway home today, right we've looked at five arpeggio patterns for the eight flat seven sharp 11 sound. And now we're going to turn our attention to patterns that includes scale movement, we're going to follow the same approach with a root entry that goes from the root to the seventh third entry that takes us to the ninth fifth entry that takes us to the 11th the sound and then a seventh entry that takes us all the way to the 13th of the sound. You know, I always like to practice like this when I practice arpeggios, I practice scales, relating it to a specific sound, I'm always going to explore the entire sound right as I want you to get used to thinking that way. Regardless of what skills that we are working on, you want to explore the entire sound. So let's bring the ensemble and let's listen to our A flat seven sharp 11 sound going to play just straight scale mode movement from the root third, fifth and seventh. So here we go check it out.

Okay, so now, I'll bet we're familiar with the flat seven sharp, 11 sound and the fingerings for that sound from the root, third, fifth and seventh. Now we can begin adding a little contour to our scale, as we do in letter B. and challenge ourselves with little different finger patterns. But again, creating hand shifts the entire time, right through each through each motif from the root, the third, the fifth and the seventh. So as you'll see there and letter B, we create a contour right away we have a leap, right on beat one count want from a flat up to the E flat, and then write into our sharp 11 sound from there. So let's bring the ensemble in and let's listen to letter B. Again, pay attention to where Those handshakes are taking place with our fingerings All right here we go.

The bad right, not bad at all. So now, you know we always have eighth note triplet pattern included in our arpeggios we have eighth note triplet patterns included with our scale movement and the letter C. Here it is letter C, we have triplets on off eighth note triplets on all four beats of the measure ascending from the root to the seventh, from the third to the ninth, from the fifth to the 11th and from the seventh to the 13th. Again, as I mentioned earlier, eighth note triplets are tricky so they give you fits don't feel bad. It's a tough rhythm to play, especially when you're when they're linked. They're several in a row like all linked together like we have here at letter C. So with that being said, let's bring the ensemble in and let's listen to a flat seven sharp 11/8 note triplets, ascending motion from the root the third the fifth and the seventh here we go.

All right, so now letter D. Before we jump in on letter D, I want to again just reiterate, what I mentioned earlier was that, you know we're dealing with altered sounds here, right isolated altered sounds. So, some of this is tough for the ear to digest, just know that that's normal, right? It's normal, especially the sharp 11 sound, I think actually out of all the altered sounds. The sharp 11 sound, at least for me, when I was learning my altered sounds, the sharp 11 sound for some reason was was the one that was the hardest one for me to wrap my ears around for some reason. I love it now. It sounds great. I use it all the time. But at the beginning, the sharp 11 sound was tough for me. So if you're finding that you're in that camp as well, hang in there. It's gonna get it will get better, I promise So, letter D, same format as we've been doing all day, root, third fifth seventh entry, ascending, primarily ascending scale motion, there's some contour here with these with these motifs. And again this motif now extends through all all of measure one into measure Tusshar our melodic lines are getting longer. So here we go, let's bring out sabalan And listen to letter D here we go.

Right, we are down to our final fingering exercise for today, letter E, scale motion. And again our melodic lines or motifs just keep getting longer, right all eighth note movement again, multiple hand shifts taking place within these lines. So pay attention to that. And again as we've been doing all day, dealing with the E flat seven sharp 11 sound, various entry points from the root, third, fifth and seventh so that we explore the entire sound to the 13th. All right, so let's wrap it up with letter E here we go.

Well as always right. As always, I feel like I'm running a sprint to get through everything in one short and very fast hour. Now, even though I played the exercise today today, using the dominant sharp 11 sound, be sure to practice these exercises. For the remaining altered sounds the flat 13, the flat nine flat 13 and the fully altered sound, the flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five, right practice all of these altered sounds and all of these patterns. Now, they're all laid out for you and your lead sheets packet with the fingerings included for every note, right? Remember you can use and modify the fingerings slightly to suit your hand best but just be careful right Do not be removing hand shifts, right if you remove one put one in suit Do not be removing the and shift because you're working against the very goal, the very objective that we have by doing these exercises and that is to establish muscle memory that that that supports hand mobility. Okay. You have a ton to practice this week. No doubt about it. You have your primary sounds from last week. Now you have your altered sounds this week for a flat so you have a ton the practice next week. As we always do, we will explore a bebop tune right and explore the melody the fingerings of a bebop head and closely examine the various melodic shapes that that particular tune has to offer. offer us with regards to fingering development and of course with regards to improvisation development. Once again, I want to encourage you jazz piano skills members, you trio members to use your podcast packets, not just the lead sheets, right? tackle those illustrations and utilize those play alongs to guide you as you study and practice these patterns and these and these fingerings right. These are educational tools that will help you gained a mastery of the jazz piano skills right conceptually, physically and of course, musically. As always, always, I want to encourage everyone be patient. Developing mature professional jazz piano skills takes time. So begin structuring your improvisation practicing your fingering practicing after the plane demonstrations that I modeled for you today in this podcast episode I guarantee it you will begin to see you'll begin to feel and hear your progress. Well I hope you have found this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for a flat altered sounds to be insightful and of course to be beneficial. Don't forget if you are a jazz piano skills ensemble member I'll see you online Thursday evening at the jazz panel skills masterclass. That's a pm central time to discuss this podcast episode lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for A flat altered sounds in greater detail and of course to answer any questions that you may have regarding the study of jazz. And of course, if you have any questions, you can always reach me by phone 972-380-8050 My office extension here at the Dallas School of Music is 211. That number again is 972308050 extension 211. You can also reach me by emailing Dr. Lawrence, drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or you can use the nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is found throughout the jazz piano skills website. Well, there's my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the jazz improvisation exercises for A flat altered sound. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz