Jazz Improvisation Exercises, E Altered Sounds

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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 the improvisational developmental patterns for the primary sounds of E. And of course exploring the various fingering patterns that require a conscious shifting of our right hand to establish a great jazz articulation and of course, to prepare the hand for continuous ascending and descending movement, right kind of essential for developing improvisational skills.

1:12  
Nevertheless, not an easy task, right? I've said it all along. It takes a serious commitment, endurance, patience, perseverance, to develop proper hand movement, in addition to in addition to nailing down the correct chord scale relationships, we've been doing all of this right, since the beginning of the year, moving our way around the circle of fifths, the various keys. So if you have been sticking with the program since January, Wow, congratulations, right. A huge congratulations, you are a member of a very small and determined group of folks destined to achieve jazz greatness, jazz success. So let's keep cranking today. Let's keep our forward motion.

2:00  
Moving along right and tackle the altered dominant sounds for E, and I'm talking about the sharp 11, the flat 13, flat nine flat 13. And of course, the fully altered sound, the flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five, just as we have done for the ultrasounds for C, F, B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, F sharp, B and now E. So today, today you're going to discover essential jazz improvisation exercises, you're going to learn develop developmental arpeggio and scale patterns of the E altered sounds. And you're gonna play five arpeggio five scale patterns for the E dominant altered sounds of music, the dominant sharp 11 dominant flat 13, the dominant flat nine flat 13, and of course the dominant fully altered. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are, in your jazz journey, a beginner an intermediate player and advanced player even if even if you're a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson, exploring jazz improvisation, exercises for E altered sounds to be very beneficial. But before we dig in, as I do every week, I want to take just a few minutes to welcome all new listeners to jazz piano skills. And if you are indeed a new listener to the jazz panel skills podcast if you're new to jazz piano skills, I want to invite you personally invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. There are a variety of membership plans to choose from. So check out jazz piano skills.com To learn more about all of the perks that come along with each membership plan. There are educational weekly podcast packets, which include illustrations and lead sheets and play alongs for every weekly podcast episode. There's also an online sequential jazz piano curriculum which is loaded with comprehensive courses. There's an online weekly masterclass, online interactive Fakebook, a private jazz panel skills community which hosts a variety of engaging forums. And of course, there's also unlimited private, personal and professional educational support, all of these perks, all of these Benny's are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So when you have a moment, check out jazz piano skills.com And of course become a member. If you have any questions once you get to the site. If you have any questions about the various membership plans or any other perks, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to spend some time with you. Answer any of the questions that you may have and help you in any way that I can

5:00  
Okay, on to our question of the week. This week's question comes from Mike Archer, living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And Mike writes,

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why are some chords labeled using flats?

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While others use sharps, for example, I see D flat major referenced frequently. And then I also see C sharp minor.

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Why not C sharp major or D flat minor? What's the difference? Is there a difference? Does it really matter?

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We'd love to hear your take and appreciate your guidance with how I should be thinking about this very confusing notation system?

5:53  
Well, Mike, that's a great question. And believe me, you're not alone? I think you speak on behalf of many folks, many folks who are studying jazz, that are wrestling with the same question, right. So let me begin by saying yes,

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you jazz notation can be somewhat confusing,

6:19  
especially when getting started. And that is because believe it or not, there is not an agreed upon universal way of notating the sounds of jazz.

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So naturally, you are going to run across a variety of different ways that jazz musicians used to say the very same thing, but but

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with that being said,

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I will say that it is very important to know when to refer to something using flat nomenclature, and when to refer to something using sharp nomenclature. Right. So when should you refer to a chord as D flat and when should you refer to a chord a C sharp.

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First, remember, all chords, all chords come from some were right. In other words, all chords belong to a key.

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And key keys fall into one of two camps. A key is either a flat key. In other words, spelled a scale is spelled using flats, or key is spelled using sharps. So

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if the chord you're dealing with comes from a flat key, you will call it a flat name. And if it comes from a sharp key, of course, you're gonna refer to it using a sharp name.

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So let's begin with the example that you mentioned D flat, and C sharp. In fact, let's take the entire D flat C sharp chord family and walk through it.

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D flat major

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comes from either the key of D flat, flat key,

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it's the one chord of that key,

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or it comes from the key of A flat, another flat key where it functions as the forecourt.

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So no matter how you look at it, D flat major

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comes from a flat key a flat scale,

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and therefore should never be referenced as C sharp major. Now that's not to say you're not going to see that.

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You may see that notated in lead sheet. But theoretically, it was wrong. Right? D flat is the one chord and D flat major. It's the four chord and A flat major, both of those keys are flat keys. So therefore, the D flat major chord should be referenced as D flat major, not C sharp major. Now, D flat dominant, right dominance function as five chords, right?

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In D flat dominant comes from the key of G flat, it's the five in the kid G flat, which of course is a flat key. So we should be referencing D flat dominant. And that's C sharp, dominant. Right?

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See how this is working? Now you always have to ask where does this chord come from? What key does it belong to? And that will give you the answer to how should you be referencing or

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referring to or notating this chord. So now let's look at the minor sound,

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minor chords, function as either two, three, or six in major keys and all major keys, right? minor chords are either the second mode, the third mode, or the sixth mode of a major scale. So if we look at the note D flat C sharp, and determine what key it functions as a to what key it functions as a three, and what key it functions as a six, then we can determine how to appropriately label the sound,

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D flat, C sharp, the note D flat, C sharp is the to the key of B major, which of course is a sharp key.

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It is the three of key of A major, another sharp key.

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And it is the sixth of the key of E Major which is a another sharp key. So again, no matter how you slice and dice it, C sharp minor, C sharp minor chord always comes from a sharp key, regardless of how it's functioning as a two three or six and therefore should be referred to as C sharp minor and not D flat minor. Theoretically speaking, there is no such chord as a D flat minor. And again, that's not to say you're not going to see that labeled incorrectly in a lead sheet because you will, right and that, and I think that's where a lot of the confusion comes from.

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So we use the same process for the half diminished sound and the diminished sound as well. So for the half diminished, half diminished is the seventh mode of the major scale. So this means that the note D flat C sharp is the seventh mode of the key of D major and D major of course is a sharp key, we spell that scale using sharps. So we now have a C sharp half diminished chord not a D flat half diminished, a C sharp half diminished. And finally, the diminished sound is found the seventh mode of the harmonic minor scale, which means that the note D flat C sharp diminished comes from the D harmonic minor scale, right which is spelled using sharp so therefore, we have a C sharp diminished chord and not a D flat diminished chord. And again, you're gonna find these chords labeled incorrectly in many, many different lead sheets, right? But the reality of it is every chord comes from somewhere every chord belongs to a key belongs to a scale. And how that key or that scale is spelled using either flats or sharps is what determines how you're going to reference that chord. That sound.

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So, you see Mike, you have to determine where does this chord come from, regardless of what chord you're talking about. And then you'll be able to determine whether to refer to it as a flat or sharp. Now, I'll tell you what, I want you to do the same thing that we just did for the note D flat C sharp, I want you to do it for the note G flat, F sharp. And I want you to look at that G flat F sharp family of sounds major dominant minor, half diminished and diminished. Send me your answers. And I will be happy, more than happy to give you some feedback and let you know if you're right on track or if we're off track a little bit. So I hope this helps my guy. You know as always, if any. If you have any additional questions or if further clarification is needed, please do not hesitate to let me know. I'm always happy as I say to spend some time with you and provide further clarification if needed.

14:19  
Okay, let's discover learn and play jazz piano it's time to get busy. Let's get after these jazz improvisation exercises for altered E dominant sounds. Alright, as I mentioned in previous podcast episodes that, you know, students struggle with improvisation more often than not

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because of poor fingerings it's not a lack of skills, not a lack of talent. It's not a lack of theory understanding or familiarity, but it's just simply due to immobile hands. Alright, resulting from poor fingerings of course

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And this is why we have been devoting this entire year to addressing this issue. Right? We've been on this quest to discover good fingering. And we've been on a quest to, you know, discover what what establishes good fingerings? What's the criteria? Right? What What should we try to accomplish with our fingerings? You know, is there always a fingering option that will reign supreme over all the other options? Right? And what about that golden rule that I keep bringing up that, you know, if we've, if y'all studied classically, you know, that we've been taught to avoid getting that thumb up there on those black notes, right, causing caused a lot of problems, right. So we've been on this quest since the beginning of the year. The whole point of our journey, really, from the very get go, was the established definitive answers for these types of questions, but but also to sort of circumvent any type of fingering dilemma that we may be experiencing. In other words, we need to establish we want to establish a really simplistic approach to fingering and in doing so established, unimpaired mobility as I like to refer to it for our right hand.

16:21  
All this sounds good, right? Of course it does. Because deep down, you know, I know that if you can get your right hand to easily move around the keyboard, and to do so instinctually, you'll be able to play the tunes that you love and embellish them, improvise over them as you wish, you'll be able to play jazz. And again, this is the entire point the entire objective of this entire year, to simplify our fingering approach, to again, establish a fingering conviction that will allow us to begin successfully practicing and establishing really good fingerings for all 60 chords using typical jazz patterns to help us do that. Right and, and in doing so,

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ultimately solidify a finger muscle memory that frees us up.

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If we have this good muscle memory frees us up to think about musical expression, musical emotion, articulation and creativity when we're playing, as opposed to worrying about fingerings. Wow. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we're going to explore jazz improvisation exercises for E altered dominant sounds. Number two, we will play essential e altered arpeggio patterns that you need to discover, learn and play from the root to the 13th of the sound using four entry points, a root, the third, the fifth, and the summit.

18:09  
Number three, we will play essential e altered scale patterns that you need to discover more and play again, from the root to the 13th of the sound. And again, using various entry points, a root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. And number four, I will be playing all jazz improvisation exercises today using the E dominant seven flat 13 sound.

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And number five, I will be playing all jazz improvisation exercises, sticking with our traditional swing groove and comfy Temple of 110.

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So if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to hit the pause button. I want you to take a few minutes right now to download and print your podcast packets, your illustrations, your lead sheets and your play logs. Right again your membership grants you access to all the educational podcast packets for every weekly podcast episode and as I mentioned every week, you should absolutely have these in your hands when listening to the podcast episode. And you absolutely should have them sitting on your piano when practicing this content this material this these skills as well. So if you're listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories There are countless of them. Countless number right Apple, Google Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio Pandora, the list goes on and on. Then I want you to go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com

20:00  
That's jazz piano skills podcast.com To download your podcast packets, and you will find the active download links in the show notes. Okay, and one final but very significant message that I little disclaimer that I put on every input in every podcast episode that if you are thinking if you're listening right now and if you're thinking in the back of your mind that the jazz improvisation exercises for the E altered sounds and the various skills that we are about to discover, learn and play. If you're thinking like, wow, these, this is way over my head, then I would say to you

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take a deep breath, breathe in, breathe out, relax, no worries, continue to listen, continue to grow your jazz piano skills, intellectually,

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by just listening. That's all you got to do. Just listen to this podcast episode. Every new skill is overheads when first introduced. But this is how we get better. We place ourselves smack dab in the middle of conversations where we're hearing things that we've never heard before. We're hearing words that we've never heard before. We're hearing words that we don't even know what they mean.

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So therefore, we're forced to grow intellectually, and I say it all the time, our musical growth begins upstairs mentally, conceptually, before it can come out downstairs physically in your hands, it only makes sense. So listen to this podcast, listen now to discover and to learn. The play, as it always does, will come in time, I guarantee it. Okay, now that you have your lead sheets in your hands, I want to point out a few things. You will see that lead sheets one through four deal with arpeggio motion while lead sheets five through eight. Deal with scale motion. And you're also going to notice that the jazz improvisation exercises are the same for all for altered E dominant sounds for the sharp 11 for the flat 13 for the flat nine, flat 13. And of course, for the fully altered the flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five. The exercises are of course modified to reflect the proper sound. Now, the only difference with the arpeggios for the fully altered and the scales for the fully altered sound, the entry points are different. So just look at those lead sheets carefully. And take note of that when practicing. You will also notice that my suggested fingerings are included for every note of every exercise for every sound. And of course, you can modify the fingerings. But just be careful, right? Remember, these fingerings have intentional hand shifts built in. So you may be thinking like wow, you know what, this is gonna be a lot easier if I erase some of these intentional hand shifts, I can play it without shifting the hand. Well, now you're working against the objective that we've set out to achieve right. So just be careful. And what you might end up doing is making it easier initially, but actually making it harder for you down the road. Okay, so I'm just throwing that out there a little caution to the wind, as I like to say just be careful.

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Okay, so now that you have your lead sheets, I want you to

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grab lead sheet to scale to. And I want you to grab lead sheet seven or skill seven. Right, we are yanking the flat 13 sound out of our packet, the arpeggio motion for the flat 13 sound and our scale motion for the flat 13 sound. These are going to be the exercises that I modeled today. And of course, you will practice all the lead sheets. But today for the sake of time, I'm picking the flat 13 sound. Now, as I play through these exercises,

24:09  
I just want to remind you that these are altered sounds. Okay. What do altered sounds do? Altered sounds create tension. That's what they do. Right? So what makes it challenging practicing alternate sounds and in the manner in which we're going to do it today is that we're isolating it altered sounds. So we're creating tension that's coming from nowhere and it is not resolving anywhere, right. So it's just sitting out there. Tension unresolved and tension unresolved can be kind of hard for the ears. So you might be hearing some of these exercises going wow, this sounds I'm not sure if that sounds correct. Well keep in mind these are altered sounds that are not read

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Solving the create tension. So you may find that to be the case with some of the exercises that I model for you today and certainly with some of the exercises as you play through all the lead sheets as well.

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So we're going to begin with skill two or lead sheet to arpeggio motion. And you'll see on that lead sheet, you have five, we have five patterns that we've been dealing with all year letter A, letter B, letter C, letter D, and letter E. And so I'm going to walk through each one, we're going to play each one again, focusing on the flat 13 sound, I'm going to play each pattern, each motif four times before moving on to the next one. So we have our four entry points, our root, our third, our fifth, and our seventh. Okay, so pay attention to the fingerings. You'll see there right away letter A is a perfect example of what I'm talking about here. It's a four note motif, a four note arpeggio, a four note pattern, and it has a hand shift built into the fingerings. Right, you can clearly play this with no hand shift, but that would be defeating the purpose of why we're doing what we're doing and spending the entire year focusing on these intentional hand shifts to create hand mobility. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check out Letter A E seven flat 13

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arpeggio motion for entry points, root third, fifth and seventh here we go check it out.

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Nice right, don't underestimate the importance of playing a simple arpeggio from various entry points, playing it with a nice fingering. Nice jazz articulation. Nice feel, right? Very important. So now let's take a look at letter B. Same idea. But now we create a little contour with our ascending motion with our ascending arpeggio. So again, we have our hands shifts that we have to our fingerings that we need to deal with and contend with do not remove those from your fingerings. And again, we're going to stick with the same entry points, right root, third, five, seven. I'm going to play each one four times before moving on to the next entry point. So let's take a listen to our E seven flat 13 letter B, letter B arpeggio motion with a little twist. Here we go check it out.

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Nice, I love it.

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Okay, let her see. Wow, look at the fingerings I point this out every every month, you know, I love this exercise, you definitely have to be moving the hand around, right look at the fingering 1414 You see that all over on every entry point 1414 Right, so the hand is literally shifting upward and inward on the keyboard. So, let's take a listen to letter C, E seven flat 13. Same format, same process, right, we're going to keep everything the same four entry points, root, third, five, seven. I'm going to play each pattern each motif four times before moving on to the next one. All right, keep your plane as you're playing these exercises nice and relaxed, a nice and relaxed feel with these fingerings okay,

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no rushing here we go let's check it out letter C.

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Okay, onto letter D and our eighth note triplet. Right, we have to deal with eighth note triplets, their lace through all of jazz literature. So here's an exercise that forces us to deal with the eighth note triplet moving through the entire E seven flat 13 sound. And, again, quite a bit of hand shifting taking place. And again, same four entry points and again, I'm playing each motif four times I mentioned before playing letter, see how important it is play with a nice relaxed field do not rush do not get out in front of the beat. Certainly the case with eighth note triplets that tends to be the that tends to be the case with everyone when practicing eighth note triplets just like a runaway train. It gets faster and faster the triplet articulation and we get out in front of the beat. So pull back relax and keep everything nice and loose. And again use these fingerings Okay, so here we go. Letter D seven flat 13 Check it out.

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Okay, so now we are down to our final exercise for today pattern for today using arpeggio motion exploring this E seven flat 13 sound, letter E and we're back to eighth note straight eighth note movement. Of course our motif now is much longer it's extending across the bar line into the second measure. So probably is a good indicator that we have some additional handshakes taking place and of course we do but we're going to keep the format everything the same, our four entry points as always root third five and seven, which takes us through the entire sound from the root to the 13th. I cannot stress that enough as well you want to practice every every sound in its entirety from the root to the 13 in the point with the various entry points is that you actually see that sound

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with from a different dimension right not always be in route dependent. We went to avoid that as well. So okay, so letter E seven flat 13 Four entry points I'm going to play each pattern again as always four times before I move on to the next entry point. So here we go check it out.

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Okay, so now we are on to our scale motion scale movement, it's going to be skill six. I think I mentioned earlier in the podcast that it was skill seven. So anyway, you got your packets in front of you. Skill two is the arpeggio motion Lichi to arpeggio motion for the E seven flat 13. And then skill six, or lead sheet six is the scale motion for the E seven flat 13. Anyway, you got your follow the packets follow the packets. So okay, so we have our E seven flat 13 scale motion in front of us. So just like we did with the arpeggio, I'm going to start simple scale ascending scale movement right from the root to the seventh, then from the third to the ninth, from the fifth to the 11th. And then from the 11th to the 13th. And of course, a nice hand shift within each one of these scales as well. So let's bring the ensemble in let's check out Letter A E seven flat 13 using ascending scale movement, for different entry points. Check it out. Here we go.

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All right, so on to letter B. And just as we did with the arpeggios, we created a little contour into our scale into our arpeggio, we're going to create a little contour with our scale motion here as well. But again, same entry points, we want to explore the entire sound, route the 13th, we have our hand shifts our fingerings in, in, embedded in into this motif. So let's, let's bring the ensemble in. And let's listen the East seven flat 13 letter B, little contour to this scale movement here we go.

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We had to deal with the eighth note triplet with arpeggio motion, of course, we're going to deal with eighth note triplets with scale movement as well. And letter C does exactly that. All right, thank goodness though. Thank goodness, we keep our entry points the same. Thank goodness, we keep our format the same for all of these exercises. I'm I cannot stress that enough as well. When you're practicing skills you want to you want to have as many variables remain constant as you're practicing different skills and and lock in on a single change, right. So the single change here is the rhythm, the eighth note triplet, everything else remains the same or entry points the exploration of the full sound from the root to the 13th. Right. This familiarity helps us focus on the single objective that we are trying to accomplish, which would be the eighth note triplet and the fingerings. Okay, so All right, here we go. Let's listen to letter C E seven flat 13. Check it out.

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You.

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Not easy right the eighth note triplet is not an easy pattern.

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It's well worth your time and investment and the grunt work to continue to work on it. As I mentioned earlier, it is laced through all of jazz literature. So becoming very comfortable with that rhythm is absolutely essential. So now letter D, we're back to eighth notes but our our motif stretches over the bar line again and now we're into measure two so we have a longer motif we have quite a few hands shifts taking place with our fingering so be careful with that. But again, all our other variables are remaining the same are four entry points root third five and seven and the entire exploration of the sound from the root to the 13

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All right, so let's check out letter D E seven flat 13.

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Well hard to believe we are down to our final exercise for today letter E, final scale movement pattern for our E seven flat 13 sound, our melodic idea or melodic motif again gets a little longer. But again, all our entry points remained the same and a practicing approach remains the same. We're gonna go from the root all the way through the 13th to the sound. So let's check out E seven flat 13 letter E pay attention to the fingerings and all the little hand shifts. Not a bad idea to mark where those take place so that when you're practicing them you are consciously aware of the shifting. Okay, so here we go. Let's bring the ensemble in IE seven flat 13 letter E. Check it out.

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You

50:56  
Wow,

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it's always a sprint, man. Wow, we you know to get everything accomplished within the hour, all the material that we try to get through, it's a ton of information I know and we do it in one very short very fast hour. So I appreciate you hanging in there with me. So you know even though I played these exercises today for just the dominant flat 13 sound right again, you have your your lead sheets in front of you have your packets and all the fingerings for the dominant sharper love and the dominant flat nine flat 13. And of course the dominant fully altered sound as well with the sharp flat nine sharp nine and a flat five sharp fire. Alright, they're all laid out for you and your lead sheets, podcast packets, packets, the fingerings include, and again, remember you can modify the fingers but don't be removing all the fingering handshakes because you're working against our objective here. Okay. You have a ton to do this week. No doubt about it right last week we looked at the primary sounds for E the major dominant minor half diminished and diminished sounds this week focusing on the altered E dominant sounds so use your practice time wisely. And next week. Right we're going to explore bebop tune right and closely examine the various melodic shapes and fingerings found within the melody of some classic too. All right.

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As always, be patient right developing mature professional jazz piano skills takes time. Honestly, it takes a lifetime. So begin structuring your improvisation development after the plane demonstrations that are modeled for you today in this podcast episode and I guarantee you you will begin to see you'll begin to feel and hear your progress.

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Well I hope I hope you have found this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for the E altered dominant sounds to be insightful and beneficial. Don't forget if you are a jazz panel skills ensemble member, I'm going to see it Thursday evening at the jazz panel skills masterclass at 8 pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for E altered sounds in greater detail and of course to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general. Again, be sure to use your educational podcast packets, your illustrations, your lead sheets and play alongs invaluable tools right. And also be able to check out the jazz panel skills courses to maximize your musical growth as well. And you know what, always make sure to take some time to become an active participant in the jazz piano skills community. Get out there, get involved, contribute to the various forums and make some new jazz piano friends always, always a great thing to do. You can always reach me by phone 972-380-8050 My extension here at the Dallas School of Music is 211 You can reach me by email if you prefer Dr. Lawrence, drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or you can use the nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is found throughout the jazz piano skills website.

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Well, there is my key. That's it for now. And until next week. Enjoy the jazz improvisation exercises further E altered dominant sounds and most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano!