Let It Snow

Dr. Bob Lawrence  0:32  
Welcome to jazz pm skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. Well, well well. Here we are the last song of the year. Throughout this entire year, we have explored various bebop tunes each month to test fingering development, which has been our primary focus of the entire year. Of course, good fingering is needed to play the heads of bebop tune, so it only makes sense to use these great melodies to test our jazz piano skills. And in addition to using bebop tunes to test our fingering skills, we extracted various melodic motifs from the melody of these great tunes to use for improvisation development. Of this again makes perfect sense because the melodies of bebop tunes are like little improvisational solos. It's funny longtime jazz piano skills member Joyce Cummings, who also runs salon 13 500 here in Dallas where I get my hair cut, but that's that's beside the point. Joyce had the perfect quote. She said to me the other day. When I was in getting my haircut, she said to me, I'm not sure I get the bebop tunes, but I do get the patterns found in the bebop tunes. isolating them makes it easy to begin discovering and developing my own improvisational ideas. Now when Joyce said that, to me, it was like it was like music to my ears because that's the entire point of extracting classic bebop melodic motifs. And of course, we will be doing that again today. With a classic Christmas to not exactly a bebop tune, right. But what the heck is Christmas. And I thought I thought let's let's look at a Christmas tune to see what hidden gems we can find in the melody. To help us develop our improvisation help us develop our jazz piano skills. But let's first recap this month, we have looked throughout the month of December here we have looked at five different jazz improvisation patterns for the primary sounds of music major dominant minor, half diminished, diminished, plus the altered sounds, altered dominant sounds deriving from the harmonic and melodic minor scales, the sharp 11, flat 13, flat nine flat 13. And the fully altered sound, the flat nine, sharp nine, flat five, sharp five, we looked at all this from the root note of G. And we applied these five jazz improvisation patterns to these iconic sounds. Then we studied and applied proper fingerings to the patterns making it possible to play with an authentic jazz articulation. The goal of our fingerings is always throughout the entire year is to allow the continuous incremental shifting of our right hand across the keys so that we articulate correctly. And of course, of course, never run out of fingerings fingers. It only makes sense, right? That the continuous shifting of our right hand when playing establishes small movements, right, which are much more manageable and much more accurate than making giant leaps. I've said it many times, many times throughout this year that it's imperative that you understand this truth and that it becomes paramount. It's paramount when improvising and playing melodies of tunes, right? Especially bebop tunes and even Christmas tunes Christmas tune that we are about to discover learn and play today. So today you are going to discover a classic Christmas tune. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow and you're going to learn the chord changes harmonic function melody and fingerings for let us know and you're going to play multiple paths ERNs extracted from let us know, for developing classic jazz language to use when improvising. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson, exploring Let it snow to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to as I always do welcome first time listeners to jazz piano skills. And if you are indeed new to jazz panel skills if you're listening to the jazz panel skills podcast for the very first time, welcome. I want to invite you personally invite you to become a jazz panel skills member. Your membership will grant you many privileges that will help you expedite your discovered learn and play process. For example, as a jazz piano skills member you have access to all of the educational weekly podcast packets. These are the illustrations the lead sheets and play along the backing tracks right designed and develop to help you get the most out of each weekly jazz piano skills podcast episode. You also as a jazz panel skills member have access to a self paced and sequential jazz piano curriculum which is loaded with comprehensive courses containing educational talks, interactive learning media, video demonstrations and a whole lot more. You also has a jazz panel skills a member heavy reserved seat in my online weekly masterclass which is held every Thursday evening. Now if you can't attend, no problem all the all the master classes are recorded and you will be able to watch and or rewatch each masterclass whenever and as often as you wish. You also as a jazz panel skills member have access to an online interactive notebook containing the best jazz standards. From the Great American Songbook with excellent chord changes chord scale relationships mapped out for you, harmonic function analysis, and much more. As a jazz piano skills member, you can hang out with all the new jazz friends in the online private jazz piano skills community which hosts a variety of engaging forums. And finally, you will enjoy. Of course as a jazz panel skills member you will enjoy unlimited, private, personal and professional educational support. Right? All of these amazing privileges are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So check it out. Visit jazz piano skills.com When you have a moment, and of course become a member. If you have any questions once you get there, please do not hesitate do not think twice. about reaching out to me. I'm happy to spend some time with you and answer any questions that you may have. Okay, on to the question of the week. This week's question comes from Tammy Johnson. Living in Lincoln, Nebraska. Tammy writes, I have heard you on various occasions, stressed the importance of studying jazz history. And I was wondering exactly how much time each week should I devote to this endeavor? And will it really helped me develop my jazz piano skills? Never liked history, but willing to give it a try? is too funny, Tammy? It's a great question. I feel your pain. I was never a big history buff. I was never Big History guy when I was in school. I am now but when I was young and going through school, I had the attitude of I really don't have time for this history stuff. I want to look forward anyway. I don't want to look backwards, which of course is backward thinking but I didn't know that right? I was a kid. So with that being said the answer to your question. in all caps. Yes. 100% Spend time every week studying jazz history. Right reading or listening to some book exploring the history of jazz. You will not I promise you, you will not regret it. And yes, yes, it will improve your playing. In fact, the evolution of jazz is

Dr. Bob Lawrence  9:53  
a jazz curriculum. Right? I'm gonna say that again. The evolution of jazz is a jazz curriculum. that outlines the steps, the process that you that all of us should be following, to develop our jazz panel skills. Now, if I had to recommend one research source for you, Tammy, to begin with, it would be a book by Dr. Billy Taylor called jazz piano, a jazz history. Now, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it's still in print. But I know you can find copies of it online to purchase. Billy Taylor, of course, was an awesome, a tremendous jazz pianist, and, and scholar. So just check out the chapters of this book. Listen to this. Chapter One, the history and development of jazz piano. Everybody should read that right. Number two improvisation and the jazz vocabulary. Number three African roots for early jazz, five boogie woogie, six Ragtime stride, seven urban blues, eight swing and pre Bop, nine bebop, 10, cool. 11 Hardbox, progressive jazz, funky jazz, and the third stream 12, post Bop, and Neo gospel 13, abstract jazz, mainstream jazz, mainstream jazz, modal jazz, electronic jazz fusion, and 14 really fascinating chapter, the future of jazz. He also has sections in the back of this book, additional materials for study of jazz piano styles. There's resources for improvisation techniques, and piano styles. There's a list of influential jazz pianists. And a discography as well. pretty thorough the book is really, it's concise, but thorough at the same time. And of course, there are, you know, there are many other great jazz history resources available. But this, Tammy, this is a good one to get you started. And will give you a very nice overview of the fabulous world of jazz and specifically, jazz piano. Again, right, make time to do some jazz study away from your instrument every week, especially jazz history. Without an understanding of jazz history, listen carefully, without an understanding of jazz history, you will end up playing something.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  12:38  
But more than likely, it will not be jazz. Think about that. I hope this helps Tammy. And if you want to discuss jazz history and resources further, let me know again, reach out to me, I'm happy to spend time with you and help you in any way that I can. Okay, so let's discover, learn and play the Christmas classic, let it snow. All right, I've delivered this message here now. I think there's 12 months in a year, I think I've delivered it 12 times once every month, and I'm going to deliver it again today that you know all of us begin our jazz journeys, we all do it, we all invest a lot of time, effort energy, searching for the secrets to learning how to play jazz, right? No one else has found it, but we will find it right. That's kind of the mentality that we have, we'll find it. We try all kinds of approaches all kinds of little gimmicks, in hopes that we discover a shortcut that really shaves years off our developmental timeframe. Again, we've all done it. And today, right? Today, it's easier than ever with the internet, you know, YouTube and a gazillion other sites out there. It's easy for us to gather a bunch of data fragments run down a million different rabbit holes, of course, in search of the secret formula for playing jazz, right? And like I just said, right, we end up with a ton of data fragments and we have ultimately we end up with no idea how to connect them or even determine if we should try to connect them at all. Right and like I've said it right technology is fantastic. I love it. Right? It's enormously beneficial for aiding in our musicianship development the very software applications out there that we that we all use to help develop you know backing tracks for us to practice along with it's it's fantastic right no question about it. But you know, sometimes as I always like to remind everyone the old fashioned ways are still the best ways and when it comes to developing good technique, articulation fingerings improvisation vocabulary, right? The study of of playing bebop, PES bebop melodies, I think is is still the greatest Goldmine that exists within the world. All That Jazz. And it's new and you'll discover today is that a lot of times it doesn't even have to be a bebop tune, it can be just a great standard with a great melodic line that when you start to really examine that melodic line further, you find all kinds of great little gems, little ideas that you can utilize to help you develop your improvisational skills. So, the educational agenda for today is as follows number one, we will explore the Christmas classic let us know. And number two, we're going to examine the chord changes and harmonic function of let it snow just like we did for the bebop tunes, right. Number three, we will play the melody of let us know. And just like with the bebop tunes, explore proper fingerings. Number four, we will extract for you classic patterns from the melody of let us know to use for discovering and developing our very own jazz vocabulary. And number five, we will be playing or I will be playing all examples today at the Temple of 110. nice and comfy, nice and relaxed, right. So 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 and print your podcast packets, your illustrations, the lead sheets. And of course the play alongs. Your membership again, right I just want to remind you that your membership grants you access to all of the educational podcasts for every weekly podcast episode. And I mentioned this every week, you should absolutely be using these podcast packets when listening to this episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you should be using the podcast packets 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, right Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Stitcher, the list goes on and on. Then be sure to go directly to jazz piano skills. podcast.com. Again, that's jazz piano skills podcast.com To download your podcast packets, and you'll find the act of download links within the show notes. Now, one final but very important message. If you are listening in if you think that the various skills that we are about to discover, learn and play as we explore the ins and outs of the Christmas classic, let us know if you're thinking all of this is going to be over your head, then I would say to you please No worries, it's Christmas. It's Christmas for heaven's sakes. Right. So relax. Just continue to listen and grow your jazz piano skills intellectually by doing that by just listening to this podcast episode. And I just want to remind you and everyone right that 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 feel completely out of place, right? We were hearing things that we've never heard before. And so we're forced to grow intellectually. And I say it all the time all musical growth begins upstairs mentally, conceptually before it can come out downstairs physically in your hands. So listen to this podcast, listen now to discover and learn. That's it, right? The play, the play will come in time. It always does. I guarantee it. Okay, now that you have your lead sheets in your hands, I want to walk you through them quickly that you will see that lead sheets wanting to present the chord changes and harmonic function for let us know right now to help you truly discover and learn the changes and harmonic function for let us know I strongly recommend using the lead sheet template found in your illustrations podcast packet. It's a great little worksheet that you should use over and over again, as you're digesting the changes in harmonic function of this tune. Now lead sheet three has the chord changes along with the melody in the lead sheet for includes, of course the chord changes in the melody but also includes the fingerings that I use when playing let it let it snow. Spend time, a lot of time playing the melody over and over again. Right. I will be modeling this for you here shortly. But playing the melody and keeping it simple is crucial. It's It's the very first step to developing improvisational skills, you have to be able to play the melody of the tune. And you have to be able to play it. Improvisational like, right. Vocal like. So anyway, we'll get to that lead sheets five through eight, deal with four patterns that I have extracted from Let it snow that we're going to use as launchpads for developing your jazzboat vocabulary for improvising. So, we got a lot to do today, we got a lot to get through as always, so let's get busy. Okay, so I want you to grab lead sheet one, skill one, and lead sheet two, skill two found within your lead sheet packet. Okay, now lead sheet one skill one, as I mentioned, is your classic lead sheet, right? has just the chord changes, that's it, lead sheet scoot to skill two, as the harmonic function of those chord changes, right, the Roman numeral representation of the chord changes now, let us know is a classic, standard AE be a form, right? So we have three a sections and we have a bridge in this town. So it's important to know the form, it makes it so much easier when you realize that you're you're we're really talking about learning 16 measures of music here, right? We're talking about learning a section, and we're talking about learning a B section. So okay, so now we have, I want you to put these two lead sheets side by side. So on the left hand side, you have lead sheet one, with the chord changes laid out on the right hand side, you have lead sheet two with the harmonic function notated. Now I'm going to play through, let us know, I'm going to play through it two times just the chord changes, no melody. And the idea here is that you want to start practicing, you want to start developing a very important skill, you want to be able to look at lead sheet one with the chord changes. And you want to be you're going to see those chord changes, but you want to be thinking harmonic function. So in measure one, we're in the key of F, and measure one starts with a G minor seven, it's a two chord, then we have a five chord, then we have a one chord, we have a four chord for dominant, right. So when I'm looking at a lead sheet, when Spani, when I'm looking at a lead sheet with chord changes, I'm seeing the chord changes. I'm thinking and I'm hearing harmonic function. Okay, now, lead sheet two has the harmonic function laid out. And I want you to be able to look at the harmonic function, you're seeing the Roman numerals, but I want you to be able to see, I think, the chord changes. So you see where it says two minor 257 and measure one, we're in the key of F. So you're going to be thinking G minor seven, the C sub, if you're in the key of C, you'd be thinking D minor to g7. If we're in the key of B flat, you'd be thinking C minor to F seven, right. So as I mentioned, this is a big time skill, to be able to think the opposite of what you see, I'm going to say that, again, the ability to be able to think the opposite of what you see. So the first time I play through, let it snow, focus on lead sheet one on the left hand side, look at those chord changes and see how well you do at thinking harmonic function as you're looking at the chord changes. The second time through the chord changes from want you to turn your attention then to the right hand side, your right hand side with lychee to with harmonic function notation. And I want you to see how well you do with thinking the chord changes based on the harmonic function that you're seeing. Right. So again, it's a big time skill, it takes practice. And I would encourage you to do this with every single tune that you tackle. Right? It's great for your intellectual development. And guess what, it is great for your ear development. It's fabulous ear training as well. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in. Again, nice comfortable tempo of 110 I'm going to play through Let It Snow twice.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  24:33  
First time through think chord changes. Set up. Look at the chord changes think harmonic function, second time through, look at the harmonic function, think chord changes. All right, here we go. Check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  27:09  
Not an easy, it's not an easy skill at all right? So look, if you found that to be difficult if you found that to be challenging, know that you're not alone. Everybody goes through this process, especially when you start trying to think the opposite of what you see. In fact, many people never go through this process, which is why they have difficulty learning tunes and developing their Jazz Piano skill. So you need to, as I mentioned earlier, approach learning every tune this way, right? Learning the chord changes, understanding harmonic function, be able to think the opposite of what you see, and to be able to hear that harmonic movement as well. Okay. All right. So now, let's grab again in your lead sheet pack, and let's grab lead sheet three, scale three, and lead sheet for scale four. And let's place these two lead sheets side by side as well. So on your left hand side, you're gonna have scale five, lead sheet, five. And on your right hand side, you're gonna have lead sheet for skill four. Now you'll notice lead sheet three, we now have our chord changes that we just got familiar with. But now we also have the melody of Let It Snow included as well. You'll see in lead sheet four, we have our chord changes, we have our melody, but we now have our fingerings notated to. Okay, so I'm going to bring the ensemble in. I am going to play through this twice again, right. So first time through, follow along with lead sheet three, focusing on the melodic line, these melodic ideas, you'll see these are eighth note quarter note ideas, all throughout the entire tune right throughout the entire tune. And then the second time through, turn your attention to the lead sheet for skill four, and follow along with the fingerings and pay attention to where the hand shifts are taking place that we have been studying throughout the throughout the entire year. So even though this is not a classic bebop tone, right, we're, we're still going to employ apply proper fingerings that have incremental shifting of our right hand moving across the keyboard so that we can articulate this melody correctly as well. Okay, so All right, so let's bring the ensemble and let's check out lead sheet three leech lead sheet for side by side, the melody and fingerings for Let It Snow. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  32:22  
would agree to right? Come on. I mean, that's one of my favorite, all time favorite Christmas tunes. Great too. And you're gonna find out here shortly, right? There's some great little little melodic ideas here that we can lift from Let it snow to utilize as launching pads for our improvisation development. So let's get to that. So now I want you to grab skill five, lead sheet five. And we're going to look at our very first pattern for today, which comes from measure one right out of the chute, measure one. So look at measure one of lettuce, snow, right? We have How simple is that right, descending from the fifth of the key from our sea, descending straight down the scale to the root. So simple, and so often overlooked, a nice little melodic motif, starting with an eighth pair of eighth notes, and descending down the scale. I wonder if I can take that idea and develop it. Have some fun developing that idea and moving it around, launching it from various points entry points from within the sound. As I play over my 251 progression from I don't know. Let's see, let's bring the ensemble in. I'm going to play the 251 at the beginning for a few measures to get into the feel and the groove that I will state the melodic motif from measure one pretty much as as notated there and then I'm going to start playing around with it playing around with a little bit rhythmically and then moving that motif around with in the sound within the key write various entry points. Now. I will play around with it rhythmically but I will keep the same shape from the fifth of the key the C descending using scale motion down to the root. All right. So let's bring the ensemble in and let's check out pattern number one from measure one of Let It Snow. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  36:14  
Wow, who knew, right? Who knew that simple descending scale motion from the fifth of the key down to the root could be utilized to develop improvisational ideas? Right? I think our initial thought is what not, that's just, that's way too easy. That's too simple. That can't be what the heck, which is, again, that's backwards thinking, right. So being able to take simple scale motion from the fifth key down to the root and play with it rhythmically, you can come up with all kinds of great little melodic motifs, I encourage you to spend some time with this very simple, and often overlooked, melodic idea. Okay, so now let's grab skill six lychee, six, six, our second pattern, our second pattern actually comes from measure 17. So jump down to that you see the rehearsal marking there in in the lead sheet, letter C and in your lychee, with the melody, you'll see it's the start of the bridge, measure 17. Okay. And here again, notice we have a pair of eighth notes on count one. And we're starting on the fifth of the C Major, we have a little diatonic motion C major to D minor, I'm going to resolve it back to C major, so we just have some diatonic movement here. But we have a simple eighth note pattern idea on count one. Just that little idea. So now we've added a little contour, a little contour to our shape, right. So we're going to take that melodic idea, just as I did with the very first one for measure one, I'm gonna bring the ensemble in. And I will play the pattern of front for four measures that I will play the melodic motif as notated there and measure 17 of your lead sheet. And I will then develop that idea and move it around from two different entry points within the sound. Okay, so here we go. Let's check this out and see what happens.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  40:00  
Wow, love it. Now you'll notice on your lead sheets on with the patterns, you notice how I have the the motif laid out in the next key moving counterclockwise around the circle of fifths, and then I have it laid out for the next key on the circle of fifths. And then I got that little message down there that we've done all year long, continue moving around the circle of fifths. So the idea is you learn this motif in the original key, the original setting from Let it snow. And then you start moving it around the different keys, helping you develop your harmonic vision, your melodic vision within the different keys that we have to deal with when we play as a jazz piano. So even though I don't have everything laid out, and all 12 keys in these lead sheets, I've done for three, I want you to use your intellect and your ears to move through the remaining keys moving counterclockwise around the circle of fifths. Okay, so now I want you to grab the lead sheet, seven, skill seven, which is going to introduce us to pattern three, which comes from measure 19. Again, it's found within the bridge of Let It Snow measure 19. And we're back to a 251 movement. And we have eighth notes, a pair of eighth notes on count two, we have a pair of eighth notes on count four, this is a classic. This is a classic melodic idea melodic line that can come from many, many different transcriptions of jazz solos, right, so we have lovin, starting off the third of our minor chord. So I'm going to utilize the same approach that I've done with the first two patterns, I'm going to state that motif first to five, one in the key of C there. And I'm going to then begin moving it around within the sound within that within that key right within the key of C. So let's bring the ensemble in. And let's check out skill skill seven lead sheet seven patterns three, let's see what I can come up with let's have some fun here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  43:40  
All right, too much fun. And and unfortunately, we're down to our last pattern for today. So grab lead sheet, eight, skill eight pattern number four, this little motif comes again from the bridge measure 19. And again, it's to like a 251 moving with that the minor the D seven now it's a dominant, right, we have a D seven go into a g7 D seven go into a g7. And then I'm going to resolve that to a C major. So I'm creating kind of a 251. But the the two chord instead of being minor, like the pattern that we just we just did. Now the two shifts to a dominant sound which is again, very, very common in jazz literature. Again, quarter notes, I mean, eighth note grouping a pair of eighth notes on count one pair of eighth notes on count four, we got a quarter notes on count two and three. Wow, we've done all this kind of work. We have studied these kinds of rhythmic ideas in the past through various podcast episodes that I've done. So here we have a nice little line starting on the seventh of that D seven right very, very simple, but can help us develop a lot of great little J As improvisational ideas, and like the other patterns, I'm going to state that that rhythm of that melodic motif first and then I'm going to start moving it around within the sound see what I can come up with. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check out measure 19 our D seven G seven, the C major and let's see what I can come up with let's develop some improvisational ideas here we go check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  46:57  
See, isn't it interesting, right, even a Christmas song, right doesn't have to always be a bebop tune, even a Christmas song can provide us with many great little melodic motifs that we can use that we can absolutely use for developing jazz, improvisational language jazz ideas. So do not write off simple little tunes and their melodies as being just that too simple. Because if you do, you're missing some really golden gems right before your very eyes. Now, there are many other patterns. Actually, I actually had a hard time selecting patterns out of Let It Snow that I wanted to use for this podcast episode because there are others in there as well. So I encourage you to go back through the lead sheet, you may find some other ones that you enjoy, even more so than the ones that I've highlighted today. And I would encourage you to just then extract those melodic ideas from from the from the melody, and then begin to utilize that melodic idea for developing your own improvisational vocabulary. Okay, do not, again, do not skim over studying and learning the core changes in harmonic function really, truly digesting that those skills for let us know, before tackling the melody, learn that harmonic foundation. Then, as I mentioned earlier, in the podcast episode, practice playing the melody of the tune over and over again, I used to have a teacher. I mean, he was relentless about this, if I could not play the tune of the melody of a tone. And if I could not swing that melody, if I could not interpret that melody in such a way, articulate that melody in such a way that it sounded like jazz, then he would say to me, I have no business, thinking about trying to improvise over the chord changes of that too. And he would make me play the melody over and over and over again. And I am so thankful he did. Because by digesting that melody by being able to play that melody, with a nice jazz articulation, and be able to recall that map of that melody at any point within my solo transform transformed my improvisation. So do not skim over learning the harmonic function, do not skim over learning the chord changes, and certainly do not skim over learning the melody of any tune that you are working on. And most of all right and most of all, as you do this kind of work this kind of tune steady in this kind of work. Be patient right? Or developing mature professional Jasmine mental skills takes a lot of time. In fact, it takes a lifetime. So begin structuring your study begin structuring your practicing. After the after the demonstrations that I modeled for you today in this podcast episode, and I guarantee it You're tuned learning will will become a whole lot easier. And you'll actually learn the tunes and you will begin to see and feel and hear your musical progress not only with playing the melodies of tunes, the chord changes of tunes, but your improvisation as well. Well, I hope you have found this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring the Christmas classic let us know to be insightful, and of course to be beneficial. Don't forget if you're a jazz panel skills member, I will see you online Thursday evening at the jazz piano skills masterclass. That's 8 pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode, exploring Let it snow in greater detail and of course to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general, if you can't make the class, no worries, they're recorded, you'll be able to access the class through your jazz panel skills membership dashboard. Also, be sure to use your educational podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets to play alongs not only for this podcast episode, but for every podcast episode to maximize your musical growth. And always I want to make sure that you are become an active participant in the jazz panel skills community. Get out there, get involved, introduce yourself, make some new jazz panel skills friends. It's always always a great thing to do. If you have any questions, you can reach me by phone. My number here at the Dallas School of Music is 972-380-8050 My office extension is 211 if you prefer to reach out by email, not a problem. My email address is Dr. Lawrence, drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or I have a nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is located on every page of the Jazz Piano Skills website. You can reach out to me through that little widget as well. It's very very hip. Well, there is my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, Merry Christmas, from my house, my home, my family to yours. Merry Christmas, and a blessed New Year. Enjoy. Let us know. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano!