Key of G Major Harmonic Workout

Dr. Bob Lawrence  0:32  
Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. Well, can you believe it? Here we are, in month 12 of our journey to explore all 12 major keys in a single year, harmonically melodically, and rhythmically. Wow. Last January, right, we set sail with the key of C major. And we have been moving around the circle of fifths month, by month. And here we are, month 12. December. And the key of G major. I don't know about you, but I think it's been an amazing study that has been enormously beneficial intellectually, orally, physically, and of course, creatively. You know, that's actually the formula you should be using to assess all of your practice routines, you should be asking yourself, Is what and how I am practicing at this very moment, improving my intellectual understanding of jazz, my aural skills, my technique, and my ability to create? If you answer yes, for each of those questions, you have an excellent practice routine. If you answer no for any one of them, then there is a disconnect that needs to be assessed and appropriately modified. So today, we are going to intentionally improve our intellect, our musical ears, our technique, and our creativity as we take the final turn in our year-long journey through each of the 12 major keys. So today, you're going to discover a key G major harmonic workout, you are going to learn how to think within the key of G major harmonically. And you are going to play essential jazz piano voicings block chords traditional contemporary shells, two-handed shapes using common harmonic motion and on top of all that, on top of all that, we are going to do a killer review of the various rhythmic patterns we have tackled throughout the entire year. So as I always like to say regardless of where you are in your personal jazz journey, a beginner intermediate player and advanced player even if you consider yourself a seasoned and experienced professional, you're gonna find this jazz piano skills podcast lesson, exploring a key of G major harmonic workout to be very beneficial. But before we dig in, I want to take a few minutes as I do at the beginning of every jazz piano skills podcast episode, I want to welcome all first-time new listeners to jazz piano skills. And if you are indeed a new jazz piano skills listener, I want to welcome you I want to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. All you have to do visit jazz piano skills.com And once you arrive at the homepage, you can begin to explore the abundance of jazz educational resources, materials, and services that are available for you, ready for you to use to help you significantly improve your jazz piano skills. For example, as a jazz piano skills member, you have access to all of the weekly educational podcast packets. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets, and the play alongs that go along that literally go along with each episode. I produce I publish these educational resources for every weekly podcast episode. They're invaluable educational tools that you want to have in your hands as you listen to the podcast lesson and you certainly want to have sitting on your piano as you practice. You also, as a jazz panel skills member, have access to the sequential online jazz piano curriculum. which is loaded with comprehensive code courses. All of the courses use a self-paced format there are educational talks for you to enjoy interactive media, test your conceptual understanding of the jazz panel skill being taught. There are video demonstrations and all 12 keys, play along, and much much more. You also as a jazz panel skills member have a reserved seat as I like to say in the weekly online master classes which are, in essence, a one-hour online lesson with me each and every week. You also, as a jazz panel skills member, have access to the online interactive Fakebook, which grants you access to jazz standards from the Great American Songbook, you'll be able to enjoy the chord changes lead sheets, harmonic function lead sheets, there are play along files, historical insights, inspirational recordings, and much more. It's an ever-growing collection of tunes that you should absolutely discover, learn and play. You also, as a jazz panel skills member, have access to the private online jazz piano skills community, which hosts a variety variety of engaging forums, there are podcasts specific forums, course-specific forums. And of course, there are just general jazz piano forums for you to enjoy as well. You have access to all of the forums, and you will be able to contribute to them, which I strongly encourage you to do get out there, share, engage and grow. And last certainly not least, you have access as a jazz panel skills member to unlimited private, personal and professional educational support provided by me whenever and as often as you need it. Again, just take a few minutes, visit jazzpianoskills.com. Wow, trip up on that jazz piano skills.com To learn more about all of the educational opportunities that await you and how to activate your membership. Now there are several membership plans for you to choose from. So once you arrive at the site, you're poking around you have some questions, by all means, 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 in any way that I can. All right. Let's discover, learn and play jazz piano. Let's get after our final key for the year of 2022. Wow, here we are December. So let's get after this key of G major harmonic workout. All right, if you've been listening for the last 11 months, then you know that when we embark upon a new key, we go through this little this little mental exercise to get us pumped up about the new key we are about to tackle. We go through this little routine every month because Well number one, it's tradition. And number two, today, especially we do it because it's the last time great sadness. So if you're ready, okay, you're ready, here we go for the last time, st along with me. The Keys of C, F and B flat are long over the keys of E flat, A flat, D flat, oh over the keys of G flat B and E over the key of A and the key of D major. Over it's time to move on to our last key, the key of G major.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  8:55  
Wow. Now, that has to feel great, right? Of course, it does. It always feels good when we we take the final turn of any journey which we are doing today. And of course, it always feels good to be moving on. Even even when we know that we may not have a complete handle on the skills we've been working on in the previous months. It's okay. As I have said many times throughout this journey. It's a big deal. It's a very big deal to keep forging ahead, no matter what. No matter how well. You think you have mastered or have not mastered the essential jazz piano skills in the previous keys or how shaky you may believe your jazz panel skills are in the previous keys right. So irrelevant. We must always be moving forward forward motion without question is the key to developing In our jazz piano skills, and to becoming an accomplished jazz pianist, I mentioned this point throughout the years several times, and want to bring it to your attention once again. If you are truly serious about improving your jazz piano playing, which I know you are, because you wouldn't be listening to this podcast, then your goal should be to experience as much data as possible. In other words, you must plan to efficiently and successfully cycle through essential jazz piano skills in all 12 keys. Right? Your jazz journey must be constantly must be constantly experiencing forward motion as I as I like to say you cannot allow grass to grow under your feet. When studying jazz. You've heard me say this before. I'm gonna say it again. The number one reason why people find it challenging to improve their jazz playing is that they continually practice the same things in the same keys over and over and over again. In essence, they are simply running in place, they never push forward. They write they never push forward and move through the keys as as we have been doing throughout this entire year. 12 months 12 keys, essential jazz piano skills, voicings scales, arpeggios, chord scale relationships, improvisation rhythmic ideas, right, such a good plan, such a good approach, and actually an amazing timeframe one year. So today, we begin tackling the key of G major, our final key. And as I have stressed over and over, once we move on, we move on. In other words, we do not try to sneak back to the previous keys, which I know is a temptation. So we don't sneak back to previous keys, we simply move on, right, we don't want to check out try to check out how well we remember the voicings or the scales of the arpeggios in our previous keys. Remember, they're over, we're forging ahead, it's time to move on. So the books on the key of D major for the month of November, we spent the entire month of November in the key of D major. Books are closed, right? We march on with much excitement and anticipation to our final key the key of G major. And as we have done with the previous keys, we explore throughout the year C F, B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, G flat, B E, A, and D. We begin harmonically we will explore the seventh chords of the key of D major. I'm sorry, G major. We're moving on, we're moving on. So we're going to explore the seven chords in the key of G major, G major seven, a minor seven B minor seven, C major seven D dominant seven, E minor seven F sharp half diminished. We're gonna explore each of those chords using four specific approaches to voicings for specific approaches to voicing each chord. Okay, our blocks are traditional shells, contemporary shells, and our two-handed shapes. And we were then, as we did with all of our previous keys, apply those voicings to rhythmic patterns, right, which have become, as you know, if you've been on the journey with me for the last 1111 months, you know that these rhythmic patterns have become increasingly more and more challenging, challenging each month. Now, remember, you can always, as I've stressed before, you can always take the various rhythmic patterns that we have studied throughout the years and various keys and play them using using the voicings that we're about to get under our fingers in the key of G major. Right. That's not only okay, but it's a great idea. But you know what? The rhythms I got laid out today, you're going to be doing just that anyway. So we bring forward today all the rhythms that we have studied throughout the last 11 months. And we're going to literally take a look at each of them today. I cannot stress enough right how how important I, you know, I know we talk about voicings a lot we talk about chord scale relationships and modes and scales and arpeggios, right? But I just cannot stress enough how important rhythmic rhythm study is, right? In other words, you know, improvisation vocab Hillary is a lot, a lot broader than just melodic plain, right? It's only a third of the picture. Right? So in addition to emphasizing melodic development, we need to spend time discussing and focusing on harmonic development, yes, and rhythmic development. Right. So when the topic of improvisation vocabulary is mentioned, right, it's, it seems to always be mentioned and discussed from a melodic perspective. And that's a pretty shallow perspective, if that's where you stay and you do, you do not stretch it into harmonic development, and, most importantly, rhythmic development. That's precisely what all of the harmonic workouts really are about harmonic and rhythmic development. So today, we're going to look at all of our rhythms. And we're going to do so in a very unique way. And that what we've done in the past with our previous studies, we've always dropped those rhythmic ideas into a kind of rhythmic line and into a musical context. But if you if you remember, I've said this often, in many times that the hardest thing for a jazz pianist, especially jazz pianist to play, is silence is nothing. And so today, when we isolate each of the rhythms, and we're going to surround those rhythmic motifs, those rhythmic ideas, with Guess what? Silence, so that focus becomes not only our rhythmic idea, but the focus also becomes time and the placement of that rhythmic idea, within time on either count one or two, or three or four. Right. So it's going to be a new challenge that we have. Not we've, we've addressed it, but we have not actually done it. And today, guess what? We're gonna do it. So today, we tackle the key of G major. And the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we begin our key of G major harmonic workout. Number two, we're going to play essential harmonic voicings that you need to discover learn and play have already mentioned that right there for black chords, traditional shells, contemporary shells and two-handed voicings. Number three, we are going to utilize a very relaxed Bossa group today of 100. Number four, we will explore all all of the rhythms that we have studied throughout the year. And number five, we will apply those rhythms as we have done in the past

Dr. Bob Lawrence  18:02  
to the classic 251 progression in the key of G major, A minor seven to D dominant seven to G major seven. Now if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take a few minutes right now I want you to hit the pause button, and I want you to download access and download and print the podcast packets, your illustrations, and your lead sheets. Again, your membership right. 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 this episode. And of course, when you're practicing to get the most out of this episode, I want you to have those materials in your hands. Now, if you're listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories such as Apple or Google, there's a ton of them right Amazon, Spotify iHeartRadio Pandora list goes on. Then be sure to go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com to access and download your podcast packets, you will find the active download links in the show notes. Okay. And one final but very significant message if you are listening, and you're thinking that the key of G major harmonic workout and the various skills that we are about to discover, learn and play. If you're thinking that these skills are over your head that I would say to you please relax, sit back. No works. Continue to listen. Continue to grow your jazz piano skills intellectually by listening. That's it right every new skill. Every new skill is technically 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 maybe for the very first time, we're hearing things that we've, we've never heard before. So we're forced to grow intellectually. I say it all the time, all musical growth begins upstairs mentally before it can come out downstairs physically in your hands. So just sit back, relax, listen to this podcast. Listen now to discover and learn. The play will come in time, I promise you it always does. Okay, the first thing I want to address is the last page that you'll find in your lead sheets packet. Right? It's labeled skill 17. The title of the page is copying rhythms, you will notice 36 Yes, let me say that again. 36 rhythmic patterns, labeled letter A. to letter J. To write you will also notice that these rhythmic patterns focus with methodically focus on all the various rhythms that we have explored throughout the entire year. And you will also notice that each of these rhythmic patterns is to be played as we have done all year as well with the 251 progression, which is precisely what we will do today. Now, do not practice. Do not bypass practicing skills one through 16. I say this every month when we start our harmonic workout, do not bypass practicing scales one through 16 found in your lead sheets packet. All four voicing types should be practiced. And get comfy under your hands. Right before tackling skill 17. Awesome. Use the play alongs included in your podcast packets. I do not have time, I do not have time. Unfortunately, in this podcast episode, the play through all 16 exercises and the 36 rhythmic patterns. So I'm going to trust as I always do, I'm going to trust that you do not get the card ahead of the horse that you spend time practicing scales one through 16 for the key a G major to make sure you have a handle on each of the four voicing types. All right, then, turn your attention to developing your comping skills using the voicings as you play the 251 progression in the key of G major, which again is a minor seven to D dominant seven to G major seven. Okay, so let's get started. I want you to take a look at letter A, B, C and D. on skill 17 your lead sheet. And you can see all four of these lines are dealing with a pair of eighth notes. All right, that's how we started the year with a simple pair of eighth notes. And you can see letter A. Our eighth notes are placed on count for letter B our eighth notes are played on count three placed on count three, letter C, count two, and letter D. The eighth notes are placed on count one. Now what I'm going to do, I'm going to bring the ensemble and we're going to play this 251 progression in the key of G major I'm going to use two-handed voicings, you can use any voicing structure that you're comfortable with whether they're blocks to traditional shells, contemporary shells, I'm going to use my two-handed voicings, and I'm going to play each line letter A, B, C and D twice and you're going to hear these eighth notes. Shifting from count four to count three to count two to count one. I also want you to notice the silence, right there's nothing in these rhythmic lines, other than the simple pair of eighth notes placed on the various beats within the measure surrounded by silence. So you're gonna have to count you're going to have to feel time. Okay, so the first time through, I'm going to play just to five one last time through 251. Letter A, B, C and D will be repeated twice between my two five ones on the on the end at the beginning and at the end. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check out letter A, letter B, letter C, and letter D. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  26:38  
Nice. So now you see how I'm going to move through all our rhythms today, right, I'm taking a rhythmic idea, a specific rhythmic idea. And I'm going to move it through different beats within the measure. And each beat is going to be surrounded by silence. So again, there's an emphasis being placed on your internal sense of time being development, along with the rhythmic motif that you're playing. Okay, so now let's move on, I want you to take a look at lines E, F, and G. Now, instead of just our eighth notes, now we have a dotted quarter, eighth note combination, letter E, you'll see that the dotted quarter eighth note is placed on counts three and four. And letter F, the dotted quarter note, eighth note is placed on count one and two, and letter G, the dotted eighth a dotted quarter eighth note, rhythmic idea is placed on counts one and two, and three and four of each measure. So once again, I'm going to bring the ensemble in, I'll open up with just playing 251. Then I'll play line e twice, line f twice, line G twice, followed by 251 to end now, I'm playing these exercises this way today because of the sake of time, you should isolate each of these lines, right? By them, play them by themselves over and over and over again, until the rhythmic idea becomes internalized. Right? We talked about muscle memory when we're playing melodic ideas, but there's muscle memory as well with rhythmic ideas. So spend time with each line. I'm only playing through each line twice today moving from one to the next line to the next line because of time restraints, okay, so let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check out E, F, and G here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  30:07  
creep. Love it. All right, so let's keep marching ahead right, letter H, letter I, letter J, we have now we flip it, we have an eighth dotted quarter rhythmic idea. And letter H, we're going to place that eighth dotted quarter on counts three and four. Of measure one, measure two, and measure three. And again, we ought, every one of these lines, all of these lines, all 36, you'll notice that measure four is a measure of rest why I call that measure, rest and assess. It's your ability, use your time to go, wow, what was good, what was bad, what was ugly, what do I need to fix before I play it again? Okay. So, letter I, the eighth dotted quarter pattern is placed on counts one and two of each measure. And then finally, in letter J, eight that quarter on counts one and two, and on counts three and four, of our two chord of our five chord and of our one chord on our one chord. All right, so here we go. Let's bring the ensemble in. And let's check out our eighth dotted quarter rhythm here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  32:47  
Love it right. You know when we saw it surround our rhythmic motifs was silenced. There's nowhere to run, there's nowhere to hide. It's very transparent. Whether or not you are playing the rhythm correctly, and to whether or not you have a handle on the rhythm. So, if when you're practicing these if you're finding it to be a challenge and a struggle, well hey, welcome to The Club. This is not easy practice. So now, we're going to take a look at lines K, L, M, N N. Remember the eighth note triplet. Well, here we go right k, l, m and n all deal with our eighth note triplet. Once again, letter K, the triplet is placed on count four letter L. On count three letter M, we placed the triplet on count two and letter N. The triplet is on count one, right again we rest in measure four and rest and assess and we start the process over again. So I'll open up with 251 A play each line K L, M and N twice. And then in with a 251 progression. Okay, wow, here we go. Let's have some fun

Dr. Bob Lawrence  35:47  
Why don't you know if we deal with the eighth note triplet, we have to deal with the quarter note triplet. And we did that throughout the year as well. So if you take a look at O and p, now we have our quarter note triplet, and we place line Oh, we have our quarter note triplet placed on counts three and four, and measure one, two and three. And in line P, we shift our quarter note triplets. Over to counts one and two, for measure one, two, and three as well. All right, so again, we're gonna bring the ensemble in, we're gonna play through each line twice. Alright, coordinate triplets, placed on three and four, and then quarter note triplets placed on counts one and two. All right, here we go. Let's check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  37:38  
So after we dealt with eighth note triplets, right, we've had our pair of eighth notes, we had dotted quarter eighth combinations and eighth dotted quarter combinations, we dealt with eighth note triplets, and then we dealt with quarter note triplets. Then we started turning our attention to 16th notes. So if you look at Q, R, S and T, we have a grouping of 4/16 notes, right. In letter Q, those 4/16 notes are placed on count four. And now you know the routine right letter are we shift those 16th notes to count three letter S, we shifted the count two and letter T, we shift the 16th notes to count one. So I'm going to use the same format. I'll open up with playing just the simple 251 progression to get get the groove in my hands. And then I will play each line twice shifting my 16th notes from count four to count three to count two to count one, and then I'll end with the 251 progression. All right. So let's have some fun with our 16th notes. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  40:30  
That easy, right? Not easy at all. So now, after we introduced the 16th notes during the year, we then started doing combination of eighth note 16th Note eighth, eighth 16th combinations. So if you take a look at u, v, w and x, we have the classic eighth to 16th note pattern, right, the eighth to 16th notes being together. So we place as we have done with all our rhythms, we're going to place that motif on count four in line u. And then in v we shifted to three, count three W, blind W count two, and line x. Finally, the eighth 16th pattern placed on count one. All right, wow. So let's bring the ensemble in. And I'm going to follow the same format open up with 251 Then play each line twice and then close with 251. So bring the ensemble in let's check it out and see what this sounds like here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  43:16  
Pretty amazing as we go through all these rhythms and we place a spotlight upon each one of these rhythmic motifs, you start to realize just how much we have covered throughout the year, we have a lot more to take a look at but it's just amazing the the amount of rhythmic vocabulary that we have studied throughout this year. So now look at lines y, z, and then I started labeling them a two and b two. Okay, we've gone through the alphabets, we start back over again. And I'm just placing two after each letter, the number two. So now in y, z A two and b two we flip our 16th or eighth note and 16th notes. So now we have our pair of 16th notes on the front end beamed with an eighth note. And once again, we place that rhythmic motif on count four and letter in the letter O align y and then in line Z we shifted to count three, count two in line a two, and then count one in line b two. All right, we're gonna follow the exact same format or playing this over 251 in the key of G I'm using two-handed voicings going to play to five one up front, followed by each line twice and then ending with 251. Alright, so ensemble. You ready? Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  46:26  
So now we've looked at our 16th notes, grouped in a four-note 16th Note grouping, we've looked at eighth 16th Note combinations. And now we're going to start looking at dotted eighth 16th combinations. So if you look at C to D to E to an F two, right, we have a dotted eighth 16th On count four, and then we shifted the count three than a count two. And then the count one, again, each one of these rhythmic ideas, this dotted eighth 16th is surrounded by silence, once again, this is so that you start really focusing on time, your internal sense of development, whereas count one, whereas count two, you want to be able to have an instinctual feel for the passing of time when you're playing jazz. Right? Then you don't develop that unless you practice that, and that is what these exercises will help you do and help you develop. So let's bring the ensemble, and we're gonna listen to C to D to E to an F two all right, dotted eighth 16th pattern here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  49:28  
Wow you really have to focus you really have to focus fact I clicked one of the rhythms I clicked one of those dotted eighth 16th there in the in the last line on count one. So I mean you have to focus these are not easy exercises. Not easy to do, and you will pull your hair out and I promise getting these right in it's part of the process that's part of the development and do not fret over plain have Some rep reps that don't go well, right, that's just part of the process. So now we are going to look at our final set, we have G two, H two, I two and j two, what what are we going to do, we're going to flip that dot dotted eighth 16th, we're going to flip it over, and we're going to put the 16th in front followed by the dotted, dotted eighth. And once again, count for shifted the count three shifted to count to shift the count one surround each line, each measure is surrounded with that rhythmic idea surrounded with silence. So you have to count Wow, love it. So let's bring the ensemble in and let's take a listen to our 16 dotted eighth pattern here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  52:27  
Well that's a lot of rhythms. Right? We've done it again, we've unpacked an enormous amount of information in one very short and very fast hour. Again, do not underestimate the importance of practicing these rhythms. And practicing these rhythms in time practicing these rhythms surrounded by silence, practice these rhythms using your voicings right, do not underestimate how important this is, as with all rhythmic patterns that we have studied throughout the year, right, we were focusing on developing our ability to track and feel tired. And I've said this before, right that so often when students struggle with playing jazz is because of their inability to successfully track time. In other words, knowing where count one is count to count three, count four, and that guessing, knowing it and feeling it, right, if you guess, if you guess you have a greater chance of winning the lottery being struck by lightning or leaping tall buildings in a single bound than you do at guessing rhythm correctly. I promise you I know I've tried, I tried. And then I finally said, You know what I have to learn how to play rhythmically. So let all that sink in. Embrace the importance of rhythmic practice and use these exercises. Okay, next week, we're going to jump into the key of G major melodically and of course, we're going to do our rhythmic review from a melodic perspective. And once again, I want to encourage you all that jazz panel skills members, I want to encourage you to use those podcast packets, these lead sheets, the play alongs, the illustrations to help you with your voicings right. These are educational tools that will help you gain a mastery of these jazz piano skills conceptually physically and musically. And most of all, I want you to be patient. Developing mature professional jazz piano skills takes a lot of time and commitment. Begin structuring your plan Actors seen after the plane demonstrations that I just modeled for you in this podcast episode and if you do, if you do I guarantee you, you will begin to see feel and hear your progress harmonically and rhythmically. Well I hope you have found this jazz panel skills podcasts lesson exploring the key of G major harmonic workout to be insightful and of course to be very beneficial. Don't forget if you are a jazz piano skills ensemble member I will see you online Thursday evening at the jazz piano skills masterclass. That's 8pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode. Exploring the key of G major harmonic workout in greater detail, and of course to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz. Again, use those educational podcast packets, your illustrations, your lead sheets, your play alongs also check out the jazz piano skills courses to maximize your musical growth. And make sure that you are an active participant in the jazz piano skills community get out there, get involved contribute to the forum's introduce yourself and make some new jazz piano friends. Now 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, Dr. Lawrence, drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or there's a nifty little SpeakPipe with widget found throughout the jazz panel Skills website where you can also reach out to me using that platform. Well, the hair is my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the key of G major harmonic workout, and most of all, have fun as you discover, learn, and play jazz Piano.