Just Friends, Harmonic Analysis

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Bob, welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr Bob Lawrence, it's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. Well, here we are again, right? Seems to be every other day we're starting a new month. Hello, October. You know a new month, right? A new month is always exciting that jazz piano skills, because a new month means a new tune. It means that we're moving on. It means a fresh start, right? And it's so important to have right, these feelings when tackling high level discipline, like learning how to play jazz piano, so important to constantly feel forward motion. Forward Movement, right? Forward motion, as I like to say, motivates. But the opposite is also true, the feeling of running in place, all right. And we've all experienced that, the feeling of running in place, no forward motion, that allows stagnation to set in, which is the kiss of death to motivation. And that is why we do what we do. Every single month we move on. And so today, new month, October, we move on, how fun, and by moving on right, by tackling a new tune, we get to start all over again with assessing our strengths and weaknesses as jazz pianists, we are constantly searching for right, those accurate answers to the all important question, what jazz panel skills do I have a command of, and which ones do I need to focus on? Which ones need attention? So important to answer this question, right? So important we need to know exactly what we need to practice in order to improve. And we have spent, wow, we have spent the last four plus years, five years, tackling essential jazz piano skills, right? And the list is long, right? We have scales, arpeggios, core scale relationships, harmonic function, piano technique, fingerings, improvisation, approaches and so so much more right. And our journey, our tune study journey right, started back in January with the goal of dissecting a new jazz standard every month, dissecting it harmonically, melodically, and, of course, improvisationally, all in an effort, all in an effort to illuminate our strengths and weaknesses, right, to discover the jazz piano skills that we that need attention, that we that need attention, conceptually or physically or both. And I think for you jazz piano skills members you know who have faithfully followed the agenda since the start of the year, you can honestly say that you have taken your discover, learn and play approach to jazz, study to tune study to a whole new level. So again, new month, new tune, and in a few weeks, a new assessment of our jazz skills. And this month, we're exploring one of my personal favorite standards of all time. I say that every month because these are my favorite standards of all time. And this is a masterpiece. It's it's gorgeous, right? Great changes, heartfelt lyrics, right? A tune that can be played a variety of ways, a variety of tempos, no matter how you play it as a ballad, up tempo tune, Bossa tune, small ensemble, large ensemble. Sing it acapella. It doesn't matter. This tune is fantastic. It's the classic standard, just friends. So we will start our harmonic analysis of just friends. Today. We'll take a look at the form the chord changes, harmonic function, the common progressions that are found within just friends. And of course, my voicings, the left hand shell voicings that I recommend and the two handed voicings that I recommend. Now, next week, of course, we'll do our melodic analysis of just friends, and then the week after that, we tackle improvisation. So we have a busy month ahead of us. And of course, it will fly by like a day, and we'll be here. I'll be here in November. It's. Talking about another two so, so here we go, right? We have a lot to get done. And if you've been a faithful listener, you know for the past four plus years, right? You know you're ready. You're ready for this kind of tune study. And if you just jumping on board, if you're new to jazz piano skills, well, then you know you're ready to you're you're in, you're in a great place to begin maximizing your jazz piano skills right now, immediately in the previous podcast episodes over the last four years will help you actually tone up, tune up, the jazz skills that you need to continue marching forward with the tune study that we do each and every month. So like I like to say, it makes no difference whether you are a jazz piano skills vet or a jazz piano skills rookie, you're in the right place at the right time to begin in phenomenal jazz piano journey that will have a profound impact on your understanding of jazz piano. But you know what? Even more importantly, on your understanding of music. So I'm thrilled. I hope you are too, because having established this approach that we've been implementing since the start of the year, with every new tune, right? It means that our learning process that we go through every month gets faster and faster because our skills are getting better and better. So today we begin our harmonic analysis of just friends, and you're going to discover this classic standard, just friends. You're going to learn the form the changes, chord changes and harmonic function for just friends, and you're going to play just friends using my suggested voicings, my left hand shell voicings, my two handed voicings, plus we're going to look at the common harmonic progressions, and do that with the hope of developing some great jazz ears. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you're a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring just friends to be very beneficial. But before we get started, as I always do, I want to welcome new listeners to the jazz piano skills podcast. And if you are new to jazz piano skills, I want to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. Your membership grants you access to premium content, not only for this podcast episode, but for every weekly podcast episode, the premium content, of course, will help you thoroughly and correctly discover, learn and play the jazz standard that we are currently exploring. And as the old saying goes, so much more. For example, as a jazz piano skills member, you'll be able to access the past, current and future educational weekly podcast packets. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs, or the backing tracks that I design and develop for every podcast episode to help you get the most out of the episode, right? You'll also, as a member, have access to a self paced and sequential jazz panel curriculum, online curriculum, which is loaded with comprehensive courses, all of them containing educational talks, interactive learning media to help you conceptually digest concepts. There are video demonstrations, playing I play the skills in all 12 keys and so much more. You'll love the courses, and you'll also have a reserve seat in my online weekly masterclass, which is held every Thursday evening. It's a great group of folks that get together every week. Of course, we talk about jazz, all things jazz, and jazz piano. And if you can't attend, it's no problem. It's no big deal, because the master classes, they're recorded, and you can watch and rewatch the class the video whenever and as often as you wish. You can also access an online interactive fake book that contains must know jazz standards like just friends, all of them with excellent chord changes, chord scale relationships, harmonic function analysis are done and listening suggestions, historical insights. You also, as a member, can enjoy the online private jazz piano skills community, many forums to participate in, to jump into and enjoy the conversation. You can hang out with some old jazz friends, make some new jazz friends, always a great thing to do. And finally, your jazz piano skill skills membership grants you unlimited private, personal and professional educational support whenever and as often as you need it. What a package, right? All of these amazing privileges are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So check it all out at. Jazzpanel skills.com become a member, begin and join premium podcast content, plus all the other privilege, privileges that I just mentioned. Man, I'm having a hard time talking.

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Wow. So listen. Go to jazz piano skills. Check it out. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Happy to spend some time with you, answer your questions and help you in any way that I can. Okay, on to the question of the week. It's nice to have it back. We took it off last week. Took a break from the question of the week. But here we go with a new question. That's a good one, and this question comes from Julius Frederick, living in Granada, Spain, and Julius writes, I have been told countless times a great way to begin learning how to improvise is to practice playing the blues. I've been doing this for some time now, but I feel very little progress, if any at all. In fact, quite often I feel as if I am just poking around on the blue scale with nothing musical happening. Should I continue to practice? Should I continue practicing the blues? Or would you suggest experimenting with a different approach? I love the podcast and materials. Thank you so much for your time and your help. All right. Well, great question, Julius and and believe it or not, it's actually a pretty common question, and it's a pretty common experience. In fact, I think I have had similar questions regarding the blues that I have addressed in previous podcast episodes, and I know I've, I've done a couple episodes in the past on the blues that may be worth checking out for you as well, if you haven't done so already. But let me, let me go through your question for you and hopefully shed some light and help present the blues, maybe in a little different perspective for you that you feel like using this tool will be very beneficial for you. So Okay, so here is why you've heard it countless times that you should use the blues to begin improvising. It's because the blues is a great format, right? It's just a great format to use for developing improvisational skills. And here's why, I'll give you five reasons. Number one, it's a very short form. It's 12 measures long, right? So it's a nice, manageable length of time that we deal with, 12 measures that just loops over and over and over again, perfect, right. Number two, it's the chord progression. Is typically a very simple progression. In fact, the most common, most fundamental or basic blues consists of three chords, a one chord, a four chord and a five chord. Okay, so that's nice, right? You're not dealing with a whole bunch of chord changes. Number three, all the chords, typically, again, in a classic, traditional blues, all have the same quality. In other words, they're all dominant chords. So now you don't have to deal with major, you don't have to deal with minor. Have diminished, diminished. Now, of course, there are complex blues progressions that incorporate these sounds, but I'm talking about the fundamental, basic blues progression that somebody would would be recommending to you to utilize as a platform or a tool for developing improvisational skills, right? The chords, the 145, are dominant chords. Now number four, which makes practice in the blues really nice, is that there's a predetermined pattern, right? We call it the blues scale. It's really a pattern, but we'll call it the blue scale. That you can actually use this pattern, this blue scale, right? I'm sure you've heard that. In fact, that may be what you're playing, is the minor blue scale. There's also a major blues scale, but I'm talking about the minor blues scale right now, which is in the key of C, the C, E, flat, F, F, sharp, G, B, flat, right, 123456, it's a six note pattern. So we have this pattern, or this blue scale that you can play over the one chord, the four chord, the five chord. So now you have a simple chord changes. You have a nice compact form. You have this pattern that you can play over all three chords, right? And then finally, number five, I would say, you. You can the blues is wonderful because you can explore various temples, right? The Blues doesn't mean that it's always slow, right? I think a lot of times people think or get in their mind you're talking the blues must be slow, right? No, not necessarily. A blues can be played up tempo. It can be played slow. It doesn't matter. It sounds great at any tempo. So you have five reasons why jazz educators, jazz musicians, will recommend to you to practice the blues, short form, simple chord, chord progression, all the chords have the same quality. There's a predetermined pattern that you can play over all three chords, and you can easily finally explore various tempos with this, with this blues progression, and you're going to sound great. Okay, so that's a pretty awesome list, and it's tough to beat, especially when comparing the blues to other tunes, right? Like just friends like that, the one we're about to do today, which has a whole lot more chord changes than three and deals with a variety of chord qualities as well. Now, with all that being said, here's a list as to why the blues is challenging, a challenging format to use when learning how to improvise. Number one, the short form, all right, the short form, coupled with the blues scale that is used over all three chords, lends itself to an abundance of repetition. Repetition is good and necessary in the necessary in the blues. But just like all things good, it can be overused, and pretty soon you find yourself playing the same thing over and over and over again. And along those same lines, the blues, because of the blues pattern, the blues scale, the short form, it's so easy to overplay, way too easy to play too much. In fact, last week's podcast episode was on, was titled The practicing silence, right? I mentioned that as piano players, we love to fill up space. Man, we we do that better than anybody. Fill up space. So this nice little compact form with this pattern that can be played over all the chords. Man, we can, we're off to the races, and we can fill up the space and overplay. And finally, you know, with the few chord changes, right? Again, I mentioned traditionally, there's only three it, it creates a huge element of transparency, which I mean. And what I mean by that is that that transparency allows people to quickly assess the depth of or lack of depth of depth of your jazz vocabulary, right? So this is why, Julius, you get these, these feelings that you're experiencing when practicing the blues, you're finding a challenge to develop these improvisational skills using the blues. It's for these reasons, right? So on one hand, there's a whole list of, you know, really valid reasons that support why you should be practicing the blues to develop improvisational skills. On the other hand, you know, like they say, the blessing can be the curse, right? On the other hand, it creates some other issues and problems as well. So with all that being said, let me give you just a couple quick suggestions that tie in, again, nicely to last week's podcast episode on how to practice silence, you know, for how I want to tie that into how to practice the blues so that you gain maximum results. Okay, number one, be formulaic, right? I know that's it sounds

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it's counterintuitive, right? I mean, it doesn't seem make sense to be we're talking about improvisation here, right? How can we be formulaic at the same time that we're developing improvisational skills? Well, that is the key to developing improvisational skills is having a formulaic approach to practicing any skill that you're wanting to gain a command of. So with this skill of improvisation, be formulaic, right? I would play the blues pattern, not just from the root of the blues pattern, if we're talking the C minor blues, not just from the notes C, which everyone does, right? And then they get stuck into this rut. They're seeing the blues pattern from C to B flat, C to B flat, C to B flat. That's a very little. It's a very small playground, very, very small. So I would expand that playground by playing the blues pattern starting from the third and then starting from the fifth and starting from the seventh. It gives it a whole new dynamic, a whole. New sound when you think regional, right? You're working from the root of the blues pattern or the third or the fifth or the seventh. So be formulaic. Now that you understand what I mean by being formulaic, I would say the next step is to now, along with that formulae process be intentional about the insertion of space, the insertion of silence. The Blues pattern is perfect for this, because you have think of four measures. You have three groupings of four measures, right? Three groupings of four measures each. So you have two measures where you can play create sound followed by two measures of silence. Second line, two measures of sound followed by two measures of silence. Third line, two measures of sound followed by two measures of silence. So let me demonstrate. Okay, so I'm just playing blues. Pattern up, playing down, silence. Measure three, measure four. Here's five and six. I'm going to play up the pattern, right back down the pattern, followed by two measures of silence, not going to play anything. Last line, two measures up coming down the blues pattern, two measures silence, that makes sense, so let's listen again. Top of the blues sound now. Silence, no improvisation. Up the pattern, down the pattern, silence. So important. Last line up the pattern, down the pattern, and silence, right? That's it, right? So you're intentionally, you're intentionally putting in space. You're intentionally adding space. You're also intentionally simply playing the pattern, ascending and descending from not only the root. You do the same thing. Do it from the third, do it from the fifth. Do it from the seventh. Okay. Once you have this formulaic process under your hands and in your ears, right, then you can begin to think motifs, creating motifs and repetition, using the pattern right. But remain formulaic, and remain with two measures on, two measures off, right? With that same formula, two measures on, two measures off. So what you've done is you've set up, really, you have set up a process for you to measure success and failure, all right, are you capable of actually creating a melodic motif and then following that melodic motif with silence, coming back in, create another motif, follow it by silence. Come back in, create another motif, follow it by silence, right? You have a way now to measure whether or not you're accomplishing the goal at hand so important so Julius, I would recommend following these tips, and it will prevent you from simply poking around on the blues pattern, hoping to find something that sounds like jazz, hoping to find something that sounds musical, right? It rarely happens when you do that. So try these tips for a while. Try this approach for a while. And be formulaic, insert space and explore various regions of the blues sound, blues pattern. And then let me know what happens. Spend some time, be implementing these tips, and let's see what happens from there. So give me an update here in a few months. Okay, all right, so now let's discover learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover learn and play one of my favorite tunes. Just friends. Okay, so as you all know, especially those who have been following the podcast for some time, there is an outline for learning a tune that I follow right and it makes no difference the genre. I don't care whether I'm learning a jazz tune, rock tune, pop, country, folk, R and B makes no difference. I have this outline, and I follow it all the time for every tune. And here's the outline. I listen Number one, first and foremost, I listen to as many artists as I possibly can, vocalist, instrumentalist, and, of course, pianist, but I listen after I listen, I zero in focus on form. I want to know the form of the piece. Is it a classic? AABA? AC again, every tune has a form. I need to know the form of the tune. After I know the form, I turn my attention to the harmonic foundation of the tune, the chord changes, right? I look at the chord changes I want to know, discover the harmonic progressions like 2511451625, what are the common harmonic progressions or movement of this tune? And along with those, learning the chords, I explore my voicings at the same time, then I turn my attention to the melody. I learned the melody, of course, by ear, right? We never learned the melody out of a reading it off a piece of paper. We learn it by ear. And then finally, I like to explore various treatments of the tune, after I had the harmony down, the chords, the voicings, the melody. Then, then the fun begins, really right? I get to turn my attention to various treatments. And then, of course, improvisation, playing through the changes, adding my own, my own embellishments, my own treatment to the tune. So that's it, right? Nothing more, nothing less.

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I follow it every every time I pick up a new tune to learn. I listen, determine form, learn the changes and voices, learn the melody, explore various treatments and improvisation, right? So this week's harmonic analysis should be no surprise. All right, we'll be doing exactly that. We're going to listen. We're going to determine the form, learn the chord changes for just friends, look at the heart, common harmonic function that exists within the tune. And then, of course, my voicings, my left hand shell voicings, and my two handed voices. And of course, next week we'll look at the melodic we'll do our melodic analysis, followed up in two weeks with our improvisation exploration. So as always, we're going to try to keep things really very simple, very structured, very organized, as I like to say, very clean and tidy with our discover, learn and play approach. And again, that's that's the goal with regardless of what we're doing, whether we're doing a tune study or a skill study. Again, that makes no difference, right? We want our we want our conceptual understanding of all that we do musically. We want it to be structured. We want it to be simple, so that we can replicate it over and over and over again. And I said it many times over the past four years, that you know if your understanding of music or any musical skill is not simple, right? It's not conceptually simple and structured, well, then it must be unorganized and confusing. It's either one or the other, right? And if it's unorganized and confusing conceptually upstairs, well, bad news. You have no shot at of executing it in your hands downstairs on the piano. That's just a musical fact. Therefore, it's essential that we keep our tune study structured and simple and, of course, replicatable, and that's what we do every month. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. We're going to be in part one, our harmonic analysis. We're going to discover and learn and play the great standard, just friends. We are going to listen to a definitive recording, of course, right? Of course. We're going to listen to a definitive recording of just friends, and then we'll discuss the form of just friends, then we will discover learn and play the chord changes for just friends. Then we will discover learn and play the harmonic function of just friends. And then, of course, we will discover learn and play my suggested voicings for just friends. So we have a lot to get done. So if you are a jazz panel skills member, I want you to take a few minutes hit the pause button. I want you to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations and the lead sheets, the play alongs again. Your membership grants you access to the premium content for this episode, for every podcast episode, which, of course, includes the educational podcast packets. And I mention it every week that you should have these packets in your hands when listening to the episode. And of course, you should have them sitting on your piano when practicing as well. Okay, so now that you have your packets, your podcast packets, in your hands, I want you to grab the lead sheets. That's what we're going to focus on today. And you should have seven you lead sheets in your packets. I want to just walk you through them very quickly. Lead sheet one, of course, as always, diagrams the form of just friends. Lead sheet two identifies the unique chords that are found within just friends. If you take a look at lead sheet three, we have a really clean, nice lead sheet of the chord changes for just friends. Number four we you'll see the harmonic function, the Roman numeral analysis of just friends. And then number five, I highlight the common progressions that we want to focus on today, that we. Will use for ear training purposes. And then, of course, lead sheet six, I have my left hand shell voicings that I'll be playing for you, that I play when using just friends. And then, of course, lead sheet seven, my two handed voicings that I use when playing just friends. So again, we have a ton to do. So let's get after this as always, the very first thing we do when studying a tune, we listen, and that's what we're going to do today, right? And I've said this many times, I cannot even begin, you know? I can't even imagine trying to learn a tune without listening to it. Just to me, it just seems that's crazy, right? So listen, and we want to listen to various renditions of a tune. And you know, I've mentioned this too as well. I like to, I turn to vocalists first. When learning a tune, I like to listen to vocal renditions, how vocalists are going to treat the tune. And then, of course, then I turn to, I like to turn to instrumentalist, horn players, the trumpet players, sax players, and then finally, of course, I turn my attention to pianist. So over the course of this month, we'll, we'll listen to vocalists, we'll listen to instrumentalists, and of course, we will listen to pianists. But today, today, right? And it's so hard picking, picking the one that I want to include in in the podcast, because there's just so many wonderful renditions to choose from. They're just a ton of great recordings for just friends. But one of my favorites is from one of my all time favorite vocalists, the late great Tony Bennett. And this recording is from his 1960 61 somewhere right in there album. It's Tony Bennett, sings for two. And it's a fantastic album. It's such a great album. And, and he's with his long time pianist, who I've Ralph Sharon, so good, right? So good. What a great combination the two of them made over the years. So I want you to grab your favorite beverage. I want you to sit back. I want you to get comfy and relax. And let's listen to Mr. Tony Bennett and Ralph Sharon give us their rendition of this great classic that we're going to learn and focus on this month, just Friends check it out.

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Just friends, love is no more, just friends, but not like before, to think of what we've been and not to kiss again. It seems like pretending it isn't the ending to friends drifting upon loved two friends, but one broken heart. We loved we laughed, we cried and suddenly loved the Story. End, well, just friends.

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Absolutely love it. How about that? Right? One chorus, one course, there's a lesson right there. Right? One chorus, they played one chorus of just friends, and they get done with one course, and it's like, hey, nothing more needs to be said, right? They let the tune speak for itself. And I think it's fantastic. Again, that's Tony Bennett sings for two off his album. I think it's around 1919, 6019. 61 somewhere in there, if you haven't, if that's not part of your collection, it should be part of your jazz collection, go check it out. You're going to love it. Okay, all right, so I'm going to be playing Autumn Leaves today temple about 120 and so now that we've listened to just friends, we know how to tune goes. Let's dive in. Let's explore those lead sheets. So I want you to grab lead sheet one, and let's take a look at the form of just friends, which is a standard tune. Thank you for listening to jazz piano skills. The remaining premium content of this episode is available to jazz piano skills members at jazz piano skills podcast.com Visit jazzpanelskills.com to learn more about membership privileges and become a jazz piano skills member. Thank you.