Jazz Improvisation Exercises, F# 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's been enjoying the improvisational developmental patterns for the primary sounds of G flat. And of course, exploring the various fingering patterns that require a conscious shifting of our hand to establish a jazz articulation and to prepare the hand for continuous ascending and descending movement. I've said it before. And I'll say it again, not an easy task, not easy at all. You know, it takes a serious commitment, tons of endurance, endless patience to develop proper hand movement, in addition to nailing down the correct CT scan relationships, right, so much going on. So if you had been sticking to the program since the beginning of the year, wow. And tackling all the various primary sounds that we've already explored the altered sounds that we've already explored. All I can say is congratulations. That's fantastic. You are a member of a very small, a very small group of very determined people. And as I said this before, destined, destined to achieve great jazz excess. So today, we're going to keep our forward motion, just rockin along. And we're going to tackle the altered dominant sounds for F sharp, F sharp, seven dominant seven sharp 11, F sharp dominant seven flat 13, F sharp, dominant seven, flat nine, flat 13. And of course, the F sharp, dominant fully altered sound, the flat nine, sharp nine, flat five sharp five. And we're going to do this just as we have done since the beginning of the year, the for all the altered sounds for C, F, B flat, E flat, A flat, and D flat. So today, you're going to discover essential jazz improvisation exercises, you're going to learn develop mental arpeggio and scale patterns of F sharp altered dominant sounds. And you're going to play five arpeggio and five scale patterns for the F sharp, dominant altered altered sounds, which again include the sharp 11, flat 13, the flat nine, flat 13, and the fully altered the 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 and intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're gonna find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for F sharp altered dominant sounds to be very beneficial. But before we dig in, I want to as I always do, I want to welcome new listeners to the jazz panel scales podcast and if you are indeed new jazz piano skills if you're listening for the very first time, I want to personally invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. There are various membership plans that you can choose from. So check them all out at jazz piano skills.com To learn about all of the perks of each membership plan. There are educational weekly podcast packets, which include illustrations and lead sheets and play alongs. There's a sequential jazz piano curriculum which is loaded with comprehensive courses. There's an online weekly master classes online interactive Fakebook and of course, a private jazz piano skills community which hosts a variety of engaging forms. On top of all that there's also unlimited private, personal and professional educational support. All these perks are waiting for you and wanting to help you discover learn and play jazz piano. So when you have a few minutes, check it all out at jazz panel skills.com And of course become a member. If you have any questions once you Look at the various membership plans. Do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to spend some time with you. Answer any questions that you may have, and help you find the perfect membership plan for you as you become a jazz piano skills member. Okay, so on to the question of the week. This week's question comes from Laurie Pinto. Lori living in Redding, Pennsylvania. In Lori writes, this is a great question. We've had this before. But Lori writes, you have mentioned that the circle of fifths should be studied moving counterclockwise, not clockwise. The way I see it, as do many of the diagrams on the internet do as well. The circle of fifths, when moving clockwise, is actually moving in fifths. For example, C up to G is a fifth. When we move counterclockwise, we are moving in force C up to F. Please help me understand why you suggest moving counterclockwise. Thanks for taking my question. I love your podcast. Well, first of all, Laurie, thank you for being a jazz piano skills listener and I'm, I'm thrilled, I'm happy to hear that you are enjoying the podcast. Your question is terrific. And I know I've addressed this question. Many times in various podcast episodes. In fact, I think I may have answered a similar question two years earlier this year. But regardless, it is such an important question. It is worth addressing again, and again. And again, until the concept of the circle clicks. For everyone. It's that important. So let me begin by saying this, many of the diagrams of the circle of fifths that you will find on the internet are very confusing. I think the goal for many folks diagramming the circle is to try to be creative try to pack into the circle as much music theory as possible. And I think the thinking behind this approach is simply the more information smushed into the circle will validate how important it is, which I suppose is true, kind of. But in doing so, I believe it makes things messy, and confusing. In fact, I think when we cram a whole bunch of information into the circle of fifths, it ends up covering or hiding the ultimate musical truth of the circle, which I'll get to in a minute. So with that being said, I would just say be careful with regards with regard to what circle of fifths diagrams you're studying. If the circle of fifths that you have in your hands looks like some kind of astronomy diagram of our solar system along with a few 1000 galaxies, I would suggest moving on to another circle of fifths, I would suggest finding a very simple circle with 12 letters equally spaced around the circle. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less a simple circle with 12 letters. And of course, the 12 letters are C, F, B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, G flat, B, E, A, D, and G. Now, those letters should be arranged counterclockwise on the circle. What does this simple circle of fifths represent? Well, it represents the primary movement of music, which we call circle movement. Right? I'm gonna say that again, it represents the primary movement of music which we call circle movement. Right? What is the most basic? What is the most fundamental representation of circle movement?

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Our answer that the most fundamental representation of circle movement is the five chord resolving to the one chord. In other words, the dominant chord resolves to the one chord. It's the Primary cadence of music, for example, C dominant resolves to F major five to one. Now, look at your simple circle moving clockwise, does the C resolve to F? Yes it does. C seven falls to the left falls into F major resolves to F major to the left, C down and it does not resolve up to the right to G major. So the circle when moving counterclockwise, illustrates all 12, five to one resolutions. Hence the name circle of fifths, five to one, C resolves to F, F resolves the B flat, B flat resolves to E flat, and so on. So this cute little circle places before you the most common of all chord progressions, the most important cadence musical cadence of all found in all genres of music, right, all genres. But wait, as the expression goes, there's more. What's the second most common chord movement, chord progression in all of music, it would be the 251 progression that you hear jazz musicians talking about daily to minor, go into five dominant, go into one major, for example, D minor, go into G seven G dominant, go into C major. Now again, look at your simple circle with the 12 letters only. What do you see, when moving counterclockwise? We see the D going to the G going to the C Wow. Mohr circle motion? How about the next common progression? How about the six go into the to go into the five going to the one. For example, a minor seven go into D minor seven, go into G dominant seven go into C major seven. Again check out your circle. What what do you see? Again, we see when moving counterclockwise of course, a going into D going into G going to see again circle motion. Now I can continue with the following progressions 36251736251, sharp 4736251, all of them circle motion, and all of them illustrated on the circle of fifths. So F sharp going to be going to E to A to D D to C the Lydian mode, moving in circle motion. I call this the diatonic circle. And of course all 12 diatonic circles can be constructed using our simple circle of fifths. So this is why we started the circle moving counterclockwise, it captures the very essence of the most common harmonic motion that exists in music. If you start adding more to the circle of fifths, then this musical reality, this musical fact then you begin to dilute the true meaning and importance of the circle. Well, that's a whole lot of information very quick. And Laurie I hope I hope it helps if you again, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to let me know I'm happy to spend some more time with you. dive a little deeper into the circle and provide you further clarification if needed. Okay, let's discover learn and play jazz piano Let's get after these jazz improvisation exercises for the altered F sharp, dominant sounds. As I have mentioned in previous podcast episodes, students struggle with improvisation more often than not just because of poor fingerings. It's not a lack of skill, lack of theory familiarity, but just simply due to immobile hands. resulting from poor poor fingerings. And this is why we are devoting this entire year to answering some very important questions about fingerings. Right? 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 the other options? And, of course, the big one, the golden rule of fingerings? And should we avoid at all times using our thumb on a black note, to begin a musical phrase? Well, the whole point of our journey this year is to establish definitive answers for these types of questions. And even more importantly, to circumvent any type of fingering dilemma that you may encounter in the future. So in other words, we need to establish a really simplistic approach to fingerings. And in doing so, help us establish just mobility, flexibility, mobility for our right hand when playing. And, of course, this all sounds good, right? Because deep down, you know that if you can get that right hand, your right hand to easily move around the keyboard, you'll be able to play the tunes you love, and embellish them with melodic improvisation, you'll be able to play jazz. Again, this is the entire point and the entire objective of this entire year to simplify our fingering approach to establish a fingering approach, but a simple fingering approach to establish a fingering conviction that will allow us to begin successfully practicing and establishing fingerings for all 60 chords using typical jazz patterns. Right and in doing so, solidify muscle memory finger muscle memory that ultimately frees us up when we play. So we can think about musical expression, emotion, articulation, and of course, creativity. So the educational agenda for today is as follows number one, we're going to explore jazz improvisation exercises for F sharp altered dominant sounds. Number two, we will play an essential F sharp altered arpeggio patterns that you need to discover learn and play from the root to 13 to the sound using four entry points, the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. Number three, we will play essential F sharp altered scale patterns that you need to discover learn and play again from the root to the 13th through the sound using the same four entry points, the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. I will be playing all jazz improvisation exercises today using the F sharp seven, sharp 11 sound. And number five, I will be playing all jazz improvisation exercises using our standard swing groove of 110. If you are a jazz piano skills member and want you to take a few minutes right now hit the pause button. And I want you to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs that go along with this episode. Your membership grants you access to all of the educational podcast packets for every weekly podcast episode. And as I mentioned every week you should be using these podcast packets when listening to the episode of course right having them in your hands. And you should also be using them they should be sitting at your piano and using them when you're practicing. So if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories and there are a gazillion of them, Apple, Google Amazon, Spotify iHeartRadio Pandora, the list goes on. Then be sure to go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com jazz piano skills podcast.com To download your podcast packets

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and you'll find the act of download links in the show notes. Now one final but very significant message. If you are listening, and you are thinking that the jazz improvisation exercises, for F sharp altered dominant sounds and the various scales that we are about to discover, learner and play are way over your head then I would say to you sit back relax. Breathe in, breathe out. No worries. Continue to listen continue to grow your jazz piano skills intellectually by just simply listening to this podcast episode. Again, every new skill is technically over a headwind first introduced, but this is how we get better. We hang in there, right? We place ourselves smack dab in the middle of conversations where we have no idea what's being what they're talking about. Right, but we hang in there. And we're in by doing so, we grow intellectually. And I say it all the time, all musical growth begins upstairs conceptually mentally, before it can come out downstairs physically in your hands. So sit back, listen to this podcast lesson now to discover and learn the play, as 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 for the altered sounds, and lead sheets five through eight deal with the scale motion scale patterns for the altered sounds. You will also notice that the jazz improvisations are a jazz improvisation exercises are exactly the same for all four altered F sharp dominant sounds the sharp 11, flat 13, flat nine flat 13. And the fully altered sound a flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five. The exercises are of course modified to reflect the proper sound. Now you'll also notice that my suggested fingerings are included for every note of every exercise for every altered sound. Of course, you can as I have stressed before, you can modify the fingerings slightly, but just be careful, right? Remember, we have intentional hand shifts built into these fingers, fingering patterns to help you begin developing mobility, right hand mobility, so you do not want to change the fingerings to remove the hand shifts, because you would be working against the very objective the very goal that we've set out to achieve. So you may be inclined to change fingerings. But, but just remember that your easier way that you think may be an easier way for you to finger pattern may actually end up working against you. And making it harder for you in the long run to play with a proper jazz articulation, which is dependent upon that hand mobility. So again, I'm just throwing caution to the wind. Just be careful. Okay, so let's get started. I want you to grab lead sheet one, skill one. And I want you to grab lead sheet, five, lead sheet five, which would be skill five. Both of these lead sheets lead sheet one skill one deals with the dominant, sharp 11 sound, in arpeggio motion using arpeggio motion, lead sheet five, skill five deals with the F sharp seven altered patterns using scale motion. Okay, so we have skill one or lead sheet one, scale five, lead sheet five in our hands, we're going to start with lead sheet one now. I'm using sharp 11 sound, and I don't know what it is about the sharp 11 sound, but I think it is the sound that most students have the most difficult with difficulty with digesting orally, it just it has a tension to it, or at a certain sound. It's an acquired taste is what I'm trying to say. So just keep in mind, we're isolating this sound and what makes practicing altered dominant sounds difficult is that we're isolating tension is what we're doing this is what altered sounds do they create tension. So when we isolate the sounds, we're isolating tension, in other words, the tension doesn't resolve. So it might be a little uncomfortable to the ears at first. But this is the most efficient and effective way to practice any skill, right to isolate it, and practice it and explore it in isolation, then to drop it into a musical context after you have a command of the skill. So just keep that in mind as we go through the exercises today. If some of these exercises are kind of rubbing you the wrong way with your ears, just know that that's normal, altered sounds create tension and these tensions are being isolated and not resolving. So our very first lead sheet here with F sharp seven sharp 11 arpeggio sounds you'll look at. We have five exercises labeled A, B, C, D and E. Letter A starts off we have four arpeggios, right with a Root Entry, a third entry, a fifth entry and a seventh entry. Y'all know Notice there's a hand shift on every one of these four note arpeggios. Those hands just are in there intentionally. So again do don't remove the hands have thinking well, I can play this arpeggio without a hand shift, of course you can. That's not the point. So leave the hands shift then get used to shifting the hand across the keys. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble and I'm going to play each arpeggio four times, so four times the root entry, then I'll move to four times a third entry four times with the fifth entry and four times with the seventh entry follow along with your lead sheet make note of where those hand shifts are taking place. And here we go 110 Nice and relaxed here we go check it out.

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Fantastic write, listen spend all the time you want on letter A because I'm a firm believer playing a simple four note arpeggio ascending chorus descending as well. But these are just looking at us and emotion here. Playing it with a good feel nice intentional hand shift will pay huge dividends for you. So do not rush away from letter A to quickly, right, get comfortable with it. Letter B. Pretty much pretty similar to letter A in that it's arpeggio motion again from the root, third, fifth and seventh of the sound. However, we have a little little contour now to the shape instead of going straight up. We have a little different sound like that, right? But again, potentional hand shifts are put in there. So pay attention to those and we're going to move four times on each each melodic idea four times before moving on to the next to the next set. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check out letter B, little extended arpeggio motion here now with little contour to our line. But again, intentional hand shifts and fingerings are placed in these motifs. So here we go. Check it out.

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I love it. Now, let her see one of my favorites, right, just look at the fingerings. And let her see for a second. All right, 1414, just that alone tells you the hand is the hand has to shift 1414. And you'll see that for the Root Entry, you'll see that for the third entry, the fifth entry, in fact, 1415 on the fifth entry because of that sharp 11, but then the seventh entry back to 1414 again, right. So I love this because this really kind of illuminates for you the importance of moving the hand. So I want to bring the ensemble back in same format as the other two, four times on each melodic idea on the route and then shifting to the third entry, fifth entry and the seventh entry. So here we go. Let's check it out.

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Nice All right, well, letter D, right, we've we've been here before, right, and we know what's coming. With letter D, we have eighth note triplets. And of course, we have to deal with a note eighth note triplets it's laced through jazz literature. So here we have eighth note, triplets, again, from the root from the third from the fifth and seventh, lots of hands shifting going on. And of course, we have dance still dealing with this sharp 11 sound. So it's a lot of tension that doesn't resolve. But as I said earlier, you know that I think the more you spend time, it's an acquired taste. So the more time you spend with the sharp 11 sound, the more you use respect to say, hey, it's not so bad after all that kind of like the sound. So anyway, let's bring the ensemble in. Let's listen to these eighth note triplets. Again, I'm playing at 110. And honestly, eighth note triplets at 110. With these fingerings and these hand shifts, not easy. So this is a good time for me to encourage you to play and practice at much slower tempos, right, not just letter D but all of these exercises. So nothing wrong with slowing it down to 6065 7075. Right. And I've mentioned this before play at temples that allow you to succeed, then then continue to increase the tempo as you get a command of your comfortable tempo. So okay, so here we go. Letter D. Let's bring the ensemble and let's check out these triplets. Here we go.

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All right, we are down to letter E, the last exercise focusing on arpeggio motion for our F sharp, seven sharp 11 sound. And you'll see that the melodic line as, as has been happening, since letter eight just keeps getting a little longer, right. So, now this musical line stretches over the bar line into measure two, we're back to straight, eighth note, no triplets, right? Swinging eighth notes on all all the beats of the measure. So again, a lot of hand shifts. Some of these patterns you will notice have multiple hand shifts in them, right so always a good idea to maybe grab a yellow highlighter, make note of those shifts when you're practicing and when you're playing. And pay attention to that hand letting go and shifting right not hanging on the note to the note prior but letting go that's the whole point the hands shift the handle lets go and shifts. All right, so let's bring the ensemble in and let's check out letter E here we go.

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All right, we are now on to lead sheet five skill five, still focusing on the F sharp dominant seven sharp 11 sound. But now we're shifting away from straight arpeggio motion and now we're focusing on scale movement. Okay, so letter A, we can we have five exercises here a, b, c, d, and e, but letter A is going to be straight ascending scale motion with a Root Entry, third entry, fifth and seventh entry. You'll notice on the scale, we have our B sharp which is our sharp 11 sound. And we have our hands shifts of course in the scales to deal with as well. So let's bring the ensemble in. Let's listen to this ascending scale movement focusing on the F sharp seven sharp 11 sound. Here we go.

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Know nothing wrong with staying there with let letter A right just let as I mentioned with the ascending arpeggio motion and letter A nothing wrong with hanging out and practicing ascending scale motion with that sharp 11 sound from the various entry points. So important get those hands shifts comfortable get the right articulation the right feel. Again play it comfortable tempos that allow you to succeed cannot stress how important that is. So now if you take a look at letter B again, just as we did with the arpeggios, we just add a little contour now to our to our scale, so we get something like just steady going straight up right we have that kind of idea. So we're going to take that motif and again route entry third entry fifth entry seventh entry. So let's bring the ensemble in let's check it out.

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Well if we had to deal with eighth note triplets using arpeggio motion, we have to deal with eighth note triplets using scale movement. And that's exactly what happens in letter C. So you can see now are our musical lines getting longer, we're stretching over the bar line in the measure to wherever eighth note triplets on counts 123 and four of measure one, we have hand shifts taking place with our fingerings that to pull off these triplets and again, you need to play these triplets at 110. Again, slow these down. This is a challenging pattern to play through this entire sound especially when we move it from the root to third, the fifth the seventh. Not an easy task. So nothing wrong with slowing the tempo down getting a command of the fingerings and the hands shifts at slower tempos before challenging yourself with quicker tempos. So let's bring the ensemble in and let's take a listen to letter C.

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tough tough but we have to deal with those eighth note triplets like like I said earlier you know, they're laced through jazz literature so there's no avoiding them or getting around them I have to deal with them head on. Alright, so on to letter D we're back to eighth notes our musical phrase extends a little bit longer now crosses over that bar line again but count fills up the entire count one of measure two we have hands shifts taking place so again mark those grab that yellow highlighter make make note of those and pay attention to where those are in each of the pattern and how many there are. So again, Root Entry, third entry fifth and seventh entry. So follow along letter D here we go.

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All right, so now we are down to our final scale pattern letter E for F sharp, seven sharp 11. Now, I've been modeling everything with the sharp 11 sound. As you know, your packets include the sounds for the flat 13, flat nine, flat 13. And the fully altered sound, the flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five. Everything that I'm modeling here, with the sharp 11 needs to be applied to those various altered sounds as well. Of course they're included in your packets lead sheet packets along with your fingerings. So okay, letter E, our last scale movement of the day, our line gets a little bit longer. And we have multiple hand shifts to deal with but we're going to utilize the same format right, the Root Entry, third, fifth, and seventh. So follow along and let's take a listen to our last pattern last exercise for the day letter E. F sharp seven sharp 11 using scale movement

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Well, we've done it again, right? Every week. It's a marathon packed into one hour, right one very short and very fast hour. Again, even though I play these improvisational exercises for the dominant sharp 11 Sound today, be sure to practice them for the flat 13, the flat nine, flat 13 and the fully altered sounds as well. Right? Again, they're all laid out for you in your Licitra podcast packet with fingerings. Right. And again, remember, you can modify the fingering slightly, but just don't take those hand shifts out. You'll be working against our very objective the goals that we have set out to achieve. Okay, you have a ton to tackle this week, no doubt, so use your practice time wisely. And guess what? Next week we tackle a bebop tune right closely examine the various melodic shapes found within the head of the Bebop tune and of course the fingerings that we should be using the play that tune as well. As always, listen when you're practicing. I call it grunt work. This is grunt work, no question about it. When you're doing this type of grunt work, be patient right. Developing mature professional jazz piano skills takes a lot of time. It's just it just does. So begin structuring your improvisation development. You're practicing after the plane demonstrations that are modeled for you in this podcast episode. And I guarantee it, you'll begin to see you'll begin to feel and you'll begin to hear your progress. Well I hope you have found this episode this jazz panel skills podcast episode lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for F sharp altered dominant 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 master class that's going to be 8 pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for the F sharp altered dominant sounds in greater detail. And of course they answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general, write again, be sure to use those podcast packets, check out the jazz piano skills courses. Get involved with the jazz piano skills community. Get out there, introduce yourself make some new jazz piano skills friends, always a great thing to do bear any questions you can always reach me by phone. My number here at the Dallas School of Music is 972-380-8050. My office extension here is 211 if you prefer to reach out by email, that's going to be Dr. Lawrence, drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or you can use the nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is found on every web page of the jazz panel Skills website. Well, there is my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the jazz improvisation exercise, F sharp altered dominant sounds, and most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano!