Jazz Improvisation Exercises, Gb/F# Sounds

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Welcome to jazz pm skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn and play. Jazz Piano. Happy Fourth of July. Wow, what better way to celebrate this glorious holiday than to spend a little time playing piano playing jazz, by the way, which is considered America's classical music. Now, I've heard it said, and I must agree that there are three things, three things uniquely 100%, American, our Constitution, baseball, and jazz. I love all three. And I feel blessed to live in a country of freedom that celebrates all three. So happy fourth to y'all I hope I hope everyone is enjoying a relaxing day, celebrating with family and friends and of course, enjoying some good, some good food as well, down here in Texas, some good barbecue Of course. Now, we devoted the month of June to exploring the primary D flat sounds of music major dominant minor, half diminished and diminished. And not only did we tackle the primary D flat sounds, but we also explore the altered D flat dominant sounds as well, the sharp 11, flat 13, flat nine, flat 13. And of course, the fully altered sound, flat nine, sharp nine, flat five sharp five. As we've been doing all year, right, we've used the same format all year, we use five specific melodic patterns to focus on developing mobile fingerings. Using these primary sounds fingerings that will allow our hand our right hand to be in a constant state of movement. And we all know by now that by constantly moving and positioning our right hand, we're establishing optimal fingerings optimal fingerings needed to produce a strong and authentic jazz articulation. And of course, making sure we never run out of fingers in the middle of a musical phrase as well. Now, we have utilized like I've mentioned, we have utilized this intentional approach for the primary and altered sounds of music since the beginning of the year. And we will continue to do so for the entire year. And today, we follow the same format that we used in June with D flat and our C sharp sounds. And we're going to do the same format. Today using exploring the G flat or in most cases it will really be referred to as F sharp, the G flat F sharp primary sounds. So today we are going to discover essential jazz improvisation exercises. We are going to learn developmental arpeggio and scale patterns of G flat, F, F sharp primary sounds. And we're gonna play five arpeggio and scale patterns, focusing on fingerings and articulation. For the primary G flat, F sharp sounds of music, major dominant minor have diminished and diminished. So as I always like to say regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner intermediate player and advanced player even even if you are an experienced and seasoned professional, you will find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for G flat, F sharp primary sounds to be very beneficial. But before we dig in, I want to as I do every week I want to welcome all new listeners to the jazz panel skills podcast and if you are new to jazz piano skills, I want to personally invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. There are various membership plans to choose from so when you have a moment check out jazz piano skills.com To learn more about all the perks of each membership plan. There are educational weekly podcast packets, illustrations, lead sheets and play alongs and There are, there's a sequential jazz piano curriculum which is loaded with comprehensive courses, online weekly master classes and our active Fakebook private jazz piano skills community which hosts a variety of engaging forums. And of course, there's unlimited private, personal, educational, professional educational support available as well. All these perks are depending on the membership plan that you choose, these perks are waiting for you wanting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So again, when you have a moment, check out jazz piano skills.com. And of course, become a member. Once you get there, if you have any questions regarding any of the membership plans and the various perks associated with with each plan, by all means, do not hesitate to reach out to me, please let me know I'm always happy to spend a little time with you answer any questions that you may have, and help you in any way that I can. Okay, on to the question of the week, I received an email from Kevin Meenan in Lincoln, Nebraska, residing in Lincoln, Nebraska. And Kevin writes, I have recently started my jazz piano journey. And I am very excited. And I am all in my question may be difficult to answer. But I would love to get your perspective. How long will it take before I'm able to play at a level that I as well as others will enjoy hearing me play? Thanks for any insight and hope that you can give me? Well, Kevin, great question. And believe it or not, man, believe it or not, I get asked that very same question by every student that I begin teaching. And I will give you a quick and blunt answer first. Then offer offer you some food for thought. Okay, so number one, how long will it take you to play at a level that you will enjoy your play? The answer? Never listen to me Never. Let me explain. The beauty of studying music, especially jazz is that you are always, always always in a constant state of development. You are constantly seeking ways to get better. And you will always experience always experience a sense of frustration with your plane because you want to improve. So learning how to play the piano. Keep this in mind learning how to play the piano. And how to play jazz is not like putting together a model airplane, it just simply is not where there is a beginning, a middle, and an end, that once the model has been put together, you're done. It's all over, you're done. Time to move on to something else. There is always something to discover, learn and play when it comes to the study of music when it comes to the study of jazz, always. Number two, with regard to how long it will take for someone else, family and friends for someone else to enjoy your playing. The answer to that is rather quickly. Especially if you are studying and practicing the correct material in the correct manner. My students, honestly my students are typically playing at a level within a year where their family and friends are actually impressed with their musicianship, you know, to the point to the point that their family and friends if they were to be honest, or even a little envious, and again, the key is are you studying the correct materials in the correct way. So I want to offer you some friendly advice as you begin your jazz journey which by the way, congratulations. So here's my top five list my top five list of things to avoid things to avoid.

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If you want to make daily, weekly, and monthly progress number five number five Make sure that you are practicing consistently. And by consistent, I mean daily practice, at least the majority of the time, you're not going to get better practicing. Once in a while, no more than you're gonna get fit by exercising once in a while or once a month, right? So make sure that you are practicing, you're getting your hands on the keys daily, as much as possible. Number four, do not make the mistake of thinking that music theory is a practice approach. Academic explanations of musical realities. Simply validate why we practice what we practice. Let me say that again, academic explanations of musical realities. Simply validate why we practice what we practice and nothing more. Nothing less. Theory is not a practice approach, or an improvisational method. Number three, do not spend hours upon hours upon hours attempting to transcribe jazz solos, as you begin your jazz journey. Listen, listen to all the jazz you can for sure. But do not fall prey to one of the most common battle cries of so many musicians offering you advice on how to develop your jazz skills. There, there will come a time when you will want to do some transcribing and of course study transcriptions. But at this stage of the game, the beginning stage, avoid that transcription trap. Number two, do not dive into the pool of jazz until you know what is beneath the surface. And how best to conceptually organize and approach the study of the essential elements or the data as I like to refer to it. In other words, if you want to study jazz, make sure you know what jazz is the study of you must be aware of the musical facts, the shapes and the sounds of jazz. If you hope to have a well thought out practice approach that will ultimately produce legit legitimate results. And number one, drum roll drum I don't have a drum kit but you get it right. Number one, do not. Do not make tune plane, the center of your practice routine. I know this is another popular battle cry today amongst many musicians offering you advice but the skills needed to play a tune are not taught to you by the tone. Let me say that again. The skills that you are needing to play that are needed to play a tune are not taught to you by the tone, jazz piano skills chords, voicings scales, arpeggios patterns, fingerings must be thoroughly explored conceptually and physically. Apart from any specific tone. Bottom line, you have to gain a command of jazz piano skills in order to apply jazz piano skills to the tunes you want to play. And once you gain a functional command of the essential jazz piano skills, you will go from plain zero tunes to 1000s of tunes in what will appear to outsiders, your family and friends as happening overnight, which of course we all know is not the case. Wow. So Kevin, I hope I hope my answer and some of my insight. I hope you find them to be helpful and as well Always if further clarification is needed, do not hesitate to reach out to me. Okay, I'm happy to spend some time with you and, and dive a little deeper into this subject matter for you. Wow. As always, another great question from another wonderful jazz piano skills member.

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Okay, onward and upward with our exploration of jazz improvisation exercises for G flat, F sharp, primary sounds. Okay, poor fingerings. Alright, without question. For mentioned this before, based on decades of teaching experience is without without question number one reason people have difficulty playing the piano. Right, it's it's a lack of hand and finger mobility, a type of hand paralysis, as I like to call it. That makes it difficult for folks to generate melodic lines. Now, scaling arpeggio practice is of course a great way to begin developing hand mobility. However, melodies do not just simply ascend and descend in a straight line using scale and arpeggio motion. Therefore, it's important to begin practicing melodic patterns like like the ones we have been exploring since the start of the year, and melodic patterns that challenge us to begin shifting our hands across the keys. Practicing intentional shifting, which we're about to do, begins to simulate a musical reality that pianist must deal with pianist must address this musical reality, the need to always have fingers available, allowing us to move in either direction, up or down, must be practiced in such a way that it develops proper musical instincts and of course, muscle memory, musical instincts and muscle memory that allows us to properly and easily articulate melodies so that they sound like jazz. This is precisely why the melodic patterns that we are exploring today focus on intentionally creating handshapes intentionally creating hand shifts within a melodic line. Even if it's possible to play them a lot in line with no hand shift, we insert a hand shift, right, the objective is to begin establishing and developing hand finger mobility. In fact, some of the fingerings I have notated in the lead sheets include multiple hand shifts, within one measure within one melodic idea. So throughout this year, we are devoting our effort to exploring all five primary sounds of music for all 12 notes using arpeggio and scale developmental improvisational exercises that will force us to deal with fingerings that will help us develop hand mobility. We are also utilizing the same approach to explore the altered sounds of music, dominant sounds the flat nine sharp, nine, sharp 11, flat five sharp five flat 13. Right. We're doing the same thing. We'll be doing that next week. But each month, we focus on one of the 12 notes, one week of the month devoted to primary sounds. One week devoted to the altered sounds. Again, we'll do alter sounds next week. We will then we then as we've been doing since beginning of the year followed up with a bebop tune to help us apply our new fingerings and articulation to a musical setting. So with all that being said, the educational agenda for today is as follows number one, we begin our jazz improvisation exercises for G flat F sharp sounds. Number two, we will play essential arpeggio patterns that you need to discover learn and play from the root to the 13th of the sound the entire sound using a root, third, fifth and seventh entry for different zones. Number three, we will play essential scale patterns that you need to discover learn and play again from the root to the 13th of the sound using a root third, fifth and seventh entry and again creating basically four zones within the entire sound. Number four, I will be playing all jazz improvisation exercises today using the half diminished sound. And number five, I will be playing all jazz improvisation exercises using a traditional swing groove of 110.

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Wow. So if you are jazz piano skills member, I want you to hit the pause button right now I want you to take a few minutes to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets and the player logs. And again, your membership grants you access to the podcast packets for every weekly podcast episode. And as I mentioned, every week, you should indeed be using these podcast packets have them in front of you as when you listen to this episode. And of course, you should have them on your piano when practicing as well. So if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories, which there are a gazillion of them, Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora and the list goes on, then be sure to go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com jazz piano skills podcast.com There you will be able to access to download your podcast packets, and you will find the active download links within the show notes. And one final but very important message that I make up a point to bring up every every week. If you are listening to this episode, and you are thinking that the jazz improvisation exercises for the primary G flat F sharp sounds, the various skills that we are about to discover, learn and play. If you're thinking that this is way over your head, then I would say to you no worries, sit back, relax, and get ready to enjoy this episode. Just continue to listen, continue to grow your jazz piano skills intellectually by just simply listening to this episode. Every new skill is over our heads when first introduced. But this is how we improve right? This is how we get better. We place ourselves smack dab in the middle of conversations where we and we are hearing things that we have absolutely no idea what's what's going on. Right. This is how we grow intellectually. I say it all the time our musical growth begins upstairs mentally conceptually, before it can come out downstairs physically in your hands. So sit back, relax. Listen to this podcast episode. This podcast lesson now to discover and 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 just a few things before we get started. You will see that lead sheets one through five deal with arpeggio motion while lead sheet six through 10 deal with scale motion. You also notice that the jazz improvisation exercises are the same for all five primary sounds major dominant minor, half diminished and diminished. The exercises are of course, of course modified to reflect the proper sound. Now you also notice that my suggested fingerings are included for every note of every exercise for every sound. And as I've mentioned before, you can modify the fingerings slightly, but be careful. And remember fingerings are what allow you to play with the proper jazz articulation. And also remember that we have intentionally inserted hand shifts to help us develop our hand mobility, right. So you may be inclined to change the fingering because you're thinking Mike and get rid of some of these hand shifts and it will be a lot easier. However you're easier may make it harder for you to play with the proper jazz articulation and actually work against the objective that we have set out to address and achieve. So I'm just throwing that caution to the wind here. Just be careful if you make any modifications to the fingerings Okay, so let's dig in. I want you to grab skill for lead sheet for and I want you to grab leads Sheet, nine, right lead sheet four and lead sheet nine lead sheet four deals with the half diminished sound using arpeggio motion. lead sheet nine deals with the half diminished sound using scale motion. Okay, so we're going to begin with skill for lead sheet for looking at our F sharp half diminished. Sound, right? Using five patterns each pattern letter A, letter B, letter C, letter D, and letter E. These are the five patterns that we've been using all year with our previous sounds that we have explored for C, F, B flat, E flat, A flat, and D flat. And of course, we're going to start with simple arpeggio motion outlining the four zones that we'd like to explore we, we like to play these arpeggios 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. Right. So simple arpeggio outline our four zones are gonna bring the ensemble in this is dealing with the F sharp half diminished sound, check out these four notes every one of these arpeggios even though there's four notes, only four notes involved has an intentional hand shift inserted, right. So here we go, let's bring the ensemble and let's listen to letter a pay attention to the hand shifts here we go.

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Very cool, now I forgot to mention I'm going to play each pattern today in each zone four times, right so from the root to the from the root to the seventh, four times third to the ninth, four times fifth to the 11th four times and seventh to the 13th four times. Okay. So all right, now with that being said, let's look at letter B pattern number two arpeggio motion again, right, but now we have a little contour to our arpeggio, it's just not just straight, a four note pattern spans three beats of the measure, and so it's gonna sound something like this. That slight variation creates a nice little contour. And again, we have our hands shifts that are intentionally inserted in each one of these patterns. All right, so let's bring the ensemble in. Let's listen to letter B pattern to F sharp half diminished Root Entry, third entry, fifth entry, seventh entry. Again, pay attention to the fingerings and I will play each pattern four times. Here we go check it out.

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Love it really nice. I love the half the medic sound. You know, I mentioned earlier, earlier that I'm playing all the tempos today at 110. And as I mentioned every week, that's just a nice relaxed tempo for me to, you know, keep the podcast as short as possible. But I would encourage you to, as always play these patterns especially so that you can get acclimated to the hand shifts. At much slower tempos, I'm talking 60 7080, right? Always be practicing at a tempo that will allow you to succeed to allow you to process the information needed, especially these hands shifts, okay? And, and allows you to pay careful attention to and focus on your articulation as well. So do not think that you have to play everything at 110. Feel free, and I encourage you to do so to play and practice at slower tempos. Okay, so now let's take a look at pattern three letter C. Again, we have our F sharp half diminished sound, and by the way, it's F sharp half diminished, not G flat half diminished, because the F sharp half diminished sound derived derives from the G major scale. G major is a sharp key, G major scale is spelled G, A, B, C, D, E, F sharp, so it's F sharp half diminished, not G flat half diminished. Okay, so back to letter C pattern, pattern three, we have maybe my favorite pattern because it really forces you to move the hand this is where hand mobility starts to take place right. You'll see these handshakes in order to articulate that phrase correctly, you will have to use these handshakes. So let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check out pattern three letter C, F sharp half diminished Root Entry, third entry fifth entry seventh entry here we go.

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right onto letter D dreaded letter D with the eighth note triplets right? So, a lot of movement here, we have to deal with eighth note triplets they are laced throughout jazz literature. So what better way to begin getting acclimated to this field to this articulation than to have a pattern that helps us develop our Han shifts at the same time right? We're killing multiple birds with one stone so to speak. So we have triplets throughout the entire pattern that lasts for the entire measure now right so again though we keep with our four zones that we have laid out route to 730 to 9/5 to the 11th, and seventh to the 13th. So let's bring the ensemble in pay attention to these hand shifts. As I've encouraged you in previous podcast episodes, I would encourage you to take a yellow highlighter and maybe mark where those shifts are taking place illuminate those for yourself to help you lock in and when the hand is moving, okay. So here we go letter D pattern for F sharp half diminished root third fifth seventh entry each one four times here we go.

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All right, we are down to our last F sharp half diminished pattern utilizing arpeggio motion pattern five or letter E. Now our musical phrase extends through the entire measure and into in through count one of measure two, right so we get a nice eighth note feel back to straight eighth notes, no triplets, we get okay shifting going on there. And again this same pattern is being played through the third with third entry fifth entry and seventh entry. All right, so without further delay, let's bring the ensemble in let's listen to letter E pattern five F sharp half diminished root third fifth seventh entry here we go.

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All right, so on to skill nine lead sheet nine. Now are you going to We'll have a look at our AF F sharp half diminished sound using scale motion. These patterns these five patterns will utilize scale motion. So letter A or pattern one pretty straightforward, right, just as we did with the arpeggios we did root the 7/3 Denine, five to 11/7 to 13th, straight up, and we're going to do the exact same thing with our scales straight up from the Root Entry, third, fifth and seventh entry of the sound. Again, intentional hand shifts are placed within these scales. So make sure that you note note, make note of them and utilize them. All right, so let's bring the ensemble in and let's listen to our F sharp half diminished scale from the root from the third, the fifth and the seventh here we go.

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You know, letter A for lead sheet nine letter A for lead sheet, lead sheet for skill for any of them right for the major dominant minor diminished sounds as well. letter A. So, very important, get a command of your straight up arpeggio motion straight up scale motion, before moving on to your pattern 234 And five. Okay. So now with that being said, let's take a look at pattern two. And just as we did with the arpeggio, we still are dealing with primarily scale motion here we have a little contour line. That helps it so it's just not straight up scale motion. So we have a little we have that little leap there at the beginning. And we do that same motif from the third from the fifth and from the seventh. Once again pay attention to those fingerings. That's the whole point of these exercises. inserting these hand shifts in here so we develop muscle memory to stabilize to have hand mobility. Okay, so here we go. Letter B, F sharp half diminished root, third, fifth, seventh entry, check it out.

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I love it. All right, let's see, we're back to our eighth note triplets, right and through the entire measure eighth note triplets that extend through the entire measure, cross over the bar line into the first count of measure to right. So again, lots of fingering going on here. And lots of shifting in order to pull off that articulation that phrasing through the entire measure. Okay, so pay attention to the fingerings as always, and as always, we will do a root, third, fifth and seventh entry. So here we go, let's have some fun check it out.

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All right, onward to letter D, or pattern for our musical line continues to get longer, we're playing through count one of measure two. Now, we're back to straight eighth movement. But again, we have quite a few hand shifts inside of this scale movement. So pay careful attention. And as always, we're using the same format, we have our root, third, fifth and seventh entry. By the way, and practicing this way your ears should be on fire. And what I mean by that is so nice when you have a specific entry point, going into a specific destination point, hearing that seventh sound or that ninth or that 11th, or that 13th. I cannot think of any better ear training than practicing in a way that you are locking in on specific sound that you are consciously aware of in your ears are able to say got it. That's what the seventh sounds like. That's what the ninth sounds like. That's what the 11th and the 13th sound like. If you want to get good at hearing those sounds, then you need to practice in a way in which those sounds are illuminated. And that's what we've been doing from the beginning of the year through all of these primary sounds. And of course, like next week when we deal with our altered sounds as well. So okay, so pattern four letter D. Let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check it out. Here we go.

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All right, we are down to hard to believe we're down to our final pattern for today, pattern five or letter E. Again, just the eye test, you can look at it there and see it. Wow, our melodic line is getting longer again, right? straight eighth movement, right we have our eighth notes again. Again, several hand shifts have been inserted to help us develop our hand mobility. So again, without further delay, let's bring the ensemble then let's do root third fifth seventh entry for F sharp half diminished here we go.

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Wow like I say man, I feel like I run a sprint every week to get to try to get through everything. But we've done it again, right? We've unpacked an enormous amount of information in one very short very fast hour. And again, even though I played these improvisation patterns, exercise exercises, they using the half to diminish sound right? Modeling everything using the half diminished sound Be sure to practice the exercises the same way for your major dominant for your minor and your diminished sounds too, right? They are all laid out for you and your lead sheet podcast packet with fingerings included and remember, right I mentioned earlier too, you can make some modifications to the fingerings to best suit your hand. But be sure that you're not eliminating finger shifts intentional finger shifting in their right to go against our our objective our goal here in developing hand mobility and movement across the keys. Right. So again, you can make some slight modifications, but do so very, very carefully. Okay. You have a ton to do this week. Without question right? So use your practice time wisely. Next week, we jump into jazz improvisation exercises for F sharp, altered dominant sounds. Wow. I want to encourage you again, right all of you jazz piano skills members to use your podcast packets, your illustrations or lead sheets or play alongs to guide you as you study. And of course as you practice, these are educational tools that are developed that I developed to help you gain a mastery of the jazz panel skills conceptually, physically, and of course musically, and most importantly, most importantly, be patient. Right developing mature professional jazz piano skills takes time. Did you hear that Kevin takes time. So began structuring your improvisation development. After the plane demonstrations I modeled for you today in this podcast episode and I guarantee it, you will begin to see you will begin to feel and hear your progress Well I hope you have found this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for G flat F sharp primary sounds to me insightful and of course to be beneficial. And don't forget if you are a jazz panel skills ensemble member I'll see you online Thursday evening. At the jazz panel skills masterclass, that's gonna be 8 pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for the G flat F sharp primary sounds in greater detail, and to answer of course, any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general. If you have any questions before, then you can always reach me by phone 972-380-8050 My office extension is 211 you if you prefer email, that's fine. I can be reached at Dr. Lawrence, drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or you can use the nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is nestled on every page throughout the jazz piano skills website. Well, there is my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the jazz and improvisation exercises for the G flat F sharp primary sounds. Have a fabulous Fourth of July celebration. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano!