Practicing Silence

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Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence, it's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. Well, we have spent the month this month tackling the great jazz standard, Angel Eyes. Of course, we've studied it harmonically. We've looked at the form, the changes, common progressions, voicings. We've studied it melodically, right? We transcribed the melody, fingerings, phrases, various treatments, and we've taken a look at it improvisationally. You know, the melodic representation of harmony using arpeggio, motion, scale, motion, right zones, motifs, tension in the last week of the month, right, which we are currently in is usually an interview or a lecture series presentation. Well, today I've decided to do the lecture series presentation because I think I have some cleaning up to do. I made a mess last week talking about practicing silence, and I heard from several of you expressing, huh, what are you talking about? And you know, I got to tell you, as a teacher, it's never a good thing to hear, huh, what are you talking about? So today, I'm going to take another stab at it and see if I can present a clear picture of how to practice silence. So with that being said, you're going to discover a crystal, clear approach to practicing silence today, and you're going to learn why practicing silence is critical for developing mature and professional improvisation skills, and you're going to play four approaches, four approaches that you should be using when practicing silence. 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, makes no difference. You're going to find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring the art and skill of practicing silence to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to, as I always do, I want to welcome first time listeners to jazz piano skills. If you are new to jazz piano skills, new to the jazz piano skills podcast, welcome. I want to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. Now your membership grants you access to the premium content for every weekly podcast episode. Now, premium content will help you thoroughly and correctly discover, learn and play the skills or the jazz standard that we are currently exploring. And as the old saying goes, a whole lot more. For example, jazz panel skills members can access the past, current and future educational weekly podcast packets. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs are the backing tracks that I design and develop to help you get the most out of every weekly podcast episode. 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I'm happy to spend some time with you and answer any of your questions and help you in any way that I can. Okay, so typically, typically at this time, I address a question of the week, but we're going to bypass the question of the week this week, because I have a ton to get through. So so that at the end of this podcast, my goal is that at the end of this podcast episode, you are you're good to go, and you're ready to begin successfully practicing silence. So I thought I would just put the question of the week on hold this week. We'll get back to that next week as usual, but I wanted to be able to dive into the podcast content as quickly as possible today. So with that being said, let's discover learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover learn and play the art of practicing silence. Okay, so some thoughts before, before we get into it, I guess the very first thought, you know, we all, every one of us, we all have a tendency to over play, especially pianists, overplay. You know, this is why recording yourself is so important. When you're practicing, say, your improvisational skills, or practicing playing a tune, it's so important to record and listen to yourself, because you're going to hear that you overplay. It's just, we all do it, and it takes great effort to lock in and be aware of that, and to consciously practicing dialing that back right, to not overplay. And in fact, we overplay because there's a lack of what there's a lack of silence in our plane. That's the problem, and that's why we are discussing today the art of practicing silence. So number one, we all over play now pianist, we're a unique breed, right? Not only you know we overplay because we're absolutely as pianists. Can you all you pianists can relate. I know we have a lot of non pianists listening to this podcast, but, but for pianists, you can relate, right? We're afraid of silence. We're terribly afraid of silence, right? Because I think somehow we have this notion that our hands have got to be constantly in a state of moving, of motion in order for people to say, hey, they're playing the piano, right? So we kind of have this weird kind of obsession that both hands have to constantly be be moving, and both hands have to constantly be producing sound. So as a result of that, we obviously we overplay, and we will literally avoid silence at all costs, right? And I think another reason for that is because we don't have to breathe right now, all you instrumentalists out there, it's kind of built in to your instrument. You have to breathe. Trumpet player, you're playing, you have to take a breath. Sax, you have to take a breath. But for us pianists, you know what? Same thing with guitar, right? We don't have to breathe. And that's kind of a problem, and it kind of lends itself to promoting, to promoting over playing just naturally, because of this, this ability of being able to play without breathing. So the mindset is, is kind of like, hey, you know what? We don't have to breathe, and if we don't have to breathe. That means we don't have to be silent. Oh, thank goodness. We'll overplay. But you know, that's okay. We're going to overplay. We avoid silence because we don't have to breathe, good, right? Well, wrong. Now the other, the other issue that we have, oh, that silence illuminates that silence makes painfully obvious is our internal sense of time. How good is our internal sense of time?

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So the weaker what I have found over the years, the weaker your internal sense of time, the more afraid of silence you are. We have to keep playing. We have to keep marching on. We have to keep marching on. We do not want silence, because if we have silence, that means I'm going to have to track time, and if I have a weak internal sense of time, I'm going to be exposed, because the silence is going to cause some major issues in my plane, right? So, so your ability to track time is the is the key. It's the key to becoming comfy with silence, with space. So again, I have found that the weaker your internal sense of time, the more afraid of silence you are in silence, the irony is, silence is what helps us develop our internal sense of time. Okay, so today, so today, the educational agenda is as follows. Number one, we are going to discover learn and play four approaches that I strongly recommend for practicing silence. Number two, we will discuss a harmonic improvisation approach for practicing silence. Number three, we will discuss a common tone improvisation approach for practicing silence. And number four, we will discuss a restricted improvisation approach for practicing silence. And number five, we will discuss a free improvisation approach for practicing silence. So you see why I'm skipping the question of the week this week, this, this is a lot to discuss, and this is a lot to conceptually first and foremost, to conceptually digest. So as always, you know, we have a ton to get done today. So again, that's why we were putting the question of the week on hold. Now, Likewise, likewise, there are no podcast packets with this lecture series episode. And instead, you know what I want you to do, I want you to just sit back. I want you to listen and then think about it, and then rethink about it, and then think about it some more, and then conceptually digest what I'm going to teach today. It's that important. It's that important. Okay, so let's dive in. Okay, so before we go any further, I am going to be modeling everything today using this progression. I'm going to be playing in the key of E flat, and I'm going to be playing G minor to A flat dominant of a half step to A flat seven back to my G minor to A C altered to the F minor, to the two to the five to The one right. So it's going to be 347, back. To three. Minor, six altered to the two to the five, one, okay, so G minor, seven to A flat seven back to G. Minor seven, the c7, Alt to F. Minor, seven to B, flat, 7e. Flat major seven. Now, this is the very last line of the standard. There will never be another. U, okay, so we could use any we could use any line from any standard, quite honestly, right? This was what's great about studying tunes, right? You could take any line of any tune, you got a great exercise, and so we're going to use the last line of there will never be another you as the exercise today. Okay? And we're going to use this exercise to practice silence, right? We're going to use this exercise to practice silence, harmonically practice silence using common tone. Practice silence using a restricted improvisation approach and practice silence using everything, what I call free improvisation approach, right? So, okay, so the very first thing I want to do i I'm going to bring the ensemble, and we're going to play this progression several time, and I'm just going to play it, and I'm going to incorporate, not going to say anything other than this. I'm going to incorporate all of these approaches. I'm going to be utilizing a harmonic improvisation approach, a common Toad improvisation approach, a restricted improvisational approach, using arpeggio on scale movement, right? I'm going to use all those approaches, all right. So I'm actually, I'm actually doing what I call is the free improvisation approach for practicing silence. So I'm actually going to start with the end product in mind. In other words, I'm not going to say a word. I want you to listen and see if you can recognize when I'm using harmonic improvisation, common tone improvisation, scale and arpeggio improvisation in kind of a restricted manner, right? See if you can identify these various approaches in my plane. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble, and let's Start with the finished product. Here we Go. You.

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Okay, so that's a lot of information to try to digest there, right? That's, again, that's the finished product that I'm using. Everything I'm using, harmonic improvisation, approach, common tone improvisation, approach, restricted improvisation approach using arpeggio and scale motion, scale movement, right? So that's a lot to process, and we're going to come back to that. But now what I want to do, I want to bring you on some right back in I'm going to play through this again, but this time I'm going to be very intentional. You're going to hear me play several times through the progression to start using only harmonic improvisation and practicing silence using harmonic improvisation, then you're going to hear me move into common tone improvisation, and then you're going to hear me move into a restricted improvisation approach using arpeggio and scale movement. Okay, so I want you to the goal here is for you to listen to me play now and be able to clearly identify when I'm in each practice phase, right that you're gonna like, Oh, I hear it. I hear the harmonic, his harmonic improvisation approach, and hear the silence with that. Oh, now he's playing common tone improvisation, a common tone, improvisation approach, and I hear the silence. Oh, now he's playing a restricted improvisational approach using arpeggios and scale, but I hear the silence, right? So the goal here is, I want you to be able to identify, identify those approaches as I move through them. Okay, so let me bring the ensemble back in. Let's go through this again and see how well you do with this. Identify, identifying these three approaches. Okay, so here we go. We're.

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Wow. Okay, so you know that's still a lot to take in right, but hopefully you are you could hear my harmonic improvisation approach with silence moving into my common tone, improvisation approach with silence moving into my what I call restricted improvisation approach using arpeggio on scale, movement, motion along with silence, hopefully you could hear when I was transitioning from one to the next one to the next one. Now what I want to do is isolate each one. Now, right? Isolate each one and talk about it. So we're going to start with the harmonic improvisation approach. So this is where I'm going to use voicings for the progression. Right for this progression, I'm going to use two handed voicings, but you could use block voicings. You could use shell voicings, left hand, traditional shells, left hand, contemporary shells. You can use any voicing structure that you are comfortable with. And what I like to do is take a progression like this one that we're playing today, the G minor seven, A flat 7g, minor to c7 all to F minor to B flat seven to E flat, right? A lot of changes, a lot of changes, two beats each for each chord change. So it's going to require, if I try to play every chord of every measure, right? We're talking about in a four measure phrase or four measure pattern. We're talking about two chords in each measure. We have the G minor to the A flat measure 1g, minor to c7 alt. Measure 2f, minor to the B flat seven. Measure three, going to the E flat major, measure four. Okay, so this, that's a lot of chord changes flying by in just four measures. If I try to play every chord every time, I guarantee you you know what's going to happen. I'm going to overplay, and if I overplay, it means I'm choking out silence, literally getting rid of silence. So what I like to do is take a progression like this approach it first harmonically, and practice intentionally, leaving out chords, tracking time, knowing that those chords are there, I'm not playing them, I'm silent, but I'm able to track time and track the harmonic motion through time, the harmonic movement through time. Okay, so I'm going to bring the ensemble back in, and I want to play this exact same progression, but now all you're going to do is hear me comp, in other words, using my voicings and intentionally creating space, intentionally leaving chords out. And this is a huge problem for pianists, because we have this notion, again, that if we see a chord symbol on a piece of music, it means, means we have to play it. Because, if we didn't have to play it, why is it written, right? So it's kind of like it kind of rubs us the wrong way. In other words, we see the chords. And we should be, we should play that, no, not really. And in fact, as I loop through that this progression, you'll see, sometimes I'll play the A flat seven, sometimes I don't, sometimes I play the C alt, sometimes I don't, sometimes I play the five chords, sometimes I don't. All right, so listen, listen to our approach practicing silence using two handed voicings, and again, you could use any voicing structure that you're comfortable with to Practice silence. So here we Go. Check This out. You.

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Right, all chords, all voicings, all harmonic movement with space. I'm not playing all the chords. In fact, there was never a time, at any time, where I played all the chords within that phrase, within those four measures, Never, not once, not once did I go, G minor seven, the A flat 7g, minor seven, the c7 Alt, F, minor seven, the B, flat 7e, five, Major, not once, right? And this takes some practicing. This takes some patience, right? Because I remember the first time I started trying to practice comping, it was very frustrating because I was not tracking time, and I felt like I was just kind of dropping chords and when I could and hoping and praying that I was playing the right chord at the right time. So it takes so it takes time, and it takes patience. It takes practice, right? So that's the very first way that I would begin practicing space, is using harmonic voicings, my chords right, playing the chords, and again, using whatever voicing structure you're most comfortable with. So if you're playing blocks, that's where you are, then use your blocks. Okay, if you're only comfortable with playing shells in your left hand, do the same thing that I just did, but play the shells in the left hand and then hopefully eventually playing two handed voicing structures through this type of practicing. So now next, the next approach is, is what I talked about last week with with Angel Eyes, and it's what I call a common tone improvisation approach. It's where I like to take start on a specific note, and then I like to hover around that note as much as possible through the entire progression. So for example, if I start with the note G on this progression, I'm going to try to improvise through the entire progression hovering around that note G, and, of course, utilizing space with my musical thoughts as well. Okay, so it's, it's this common tone approach, I think is, is very challenging, because, again, it's going to illuminate how well you understand harmony, because you can't identify this note as being a common tone between G minor and a flat seven. If you don't really understand the harmonic structure of G minor and the harmonic structure of a flat seven, how in the world would you be able to identify a common tone? You couldn't, right. So what's challenging about this is being able. Take a specific note and kind of thread that note through the progression as much as possible, and when you do have to move, move as little as possible on either side of that note, either half step below, half step above, whole step below, whole step above, right, this will illuminate, this will validate for you how well you understand harmony. And by the way, a lot melodies flow from your understanding of harmony. So if you're weak harmonically, you're going to be weak melodically. And this goes for any instrumentalist, not just for pianists. This applies to saxophone players, trumpet players, violinist, cellist, harmonica play. I don't care who you are. If you are are weak harmonically, you're weak melodically. Okay, so this exercise is critically important, all right, to practice, to do this kind of practicing. So now I'm going to bring the ensemble back in play the same progression, right? The last line of there will never be another U. And you're going to hear me move through. I'm going to be I'm going to be working off the very first chord, which is the G minor seven. So I'm going to be creating melodic lines through the entire progression, starting on the note G, and then I'll eventually move to the note B flat, and then eventually move to note D and the note F. So what I'm doing is I'm using the root, third, fifth and seventh of G, minor seven, as my entry points, and then I try to weave that note through as much of the progression as I possibly can. If I have to move, I'm going to move a half step below, half step above, or whole step below or whole step above. I'm going to try to create some nice melodic ideas, staying put, using common tones. So let's bring the ensemble in, and let's check this out. And again, pay attention to space as well. Here we Go. You

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nice, right? It's always amazing to me how hovering over a note and being able to thread that note through harmonic movement, being able to see the common tones that exist within that harmonic progression. It's amazing to me the melodic ideas that can come come out of that, especially when utilizing space in conjunction with this common tone, common tone plus space can equal some very hip plane as we'll find out a little later here in the podcast. Right? So okay, so we have looked at practicing space using harmonic improvisation. We have looked at practicing silence, I should say practicing silence using harmonic improvisation. We've looked at practicing silence using common tone improvisation. Now I want to look at practicing silence using what I call a restricted improvisation approach. And so what you're going to hear now is you're going to hear me. You utilize harmonic arpeggio and scale motion through this progression, but I'm going to be very formulaic about it. You're going to hear me, play measure one, rest on Measure two, play measure three, rest on measure four. So you will hear this alternate. Back and forth between sound and silence, sound and silence, very intentional, very restricted, right? I'm actually pre determining here's where I'm going to move and create sound. Here's where I'm going to stay put and create silence. Right? Again, I have to be able to track time in order to do this, and I have to be comfortable harmonically. Obviously, I have to be comfortable with my harmony to be able to represent that harmony melodically using arpeggio and scale emotion. So let's bring the ensemble in, and let's check this out right, restricted improvisation approach, very formulaic playing sound and alternating sound and silence every measure. So here we Go. Check it out.

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You. I see so very restrictive in that I've predetermined what I'm going to create sound and when I'm going to create silence, not a bad variable to incorporate into your practicing of silence, whether you're using quite honestly, whether you're using the harmonic improvisation approach, the common tone improvisation approach, or this restricted arpeggio scale improvisation approach, right? Not a bad idea at all to be to predetermine when you're going to create sound and silence, because then you can easily assess in doing so. You can easily assess whether you succeeded or you failed, succeeded or failed, right? So, okay, so now what we've done, we've taken a look at the three primary approaches that I used, practicing silence, the harmonic improvisation approach, the common tone improvisation approach and the restricted improvisation approach. Now at the beginning, the very first, if you remember the very first example I played, I just played for you, and I just said, Hey, I'm just going to play through this progression, through this harmonic motion, movement, and I'm going to just play and know that I'm using these various approaches, but just listen, and then we'll go from there. And if you recall I said, Hey, that's a lot to take in, right? That's a lot to take in. But now what I want to do is I want to, I want to go back and I want to play that example again, and now you're going to hear that totally different, differently, right? You're going to hear that now you're going to go like, holy moly, there's where he's playing there. I hear the harmonic improvisation. I hear the common tone improvisation. I hear the restricted improvisation as well, right? Intentionally putting in space in there that harp and using that scale and our arpeggio motion, right? So let's bring the ensemble back in. Let's listen to that example again, and now you're going to listen with a different set of ears. So check this out. You.

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I say, I told you you would hear it differently, very differently, right? You know, it's amazing, too, right, how we can take a line from a standard and utilize it as a exercise. In this case, the last line of there will never be another you, and use that harmonic movement as an exercise to practice various skills today, practicing the art of practicing silence and using different pianistic skills to do that, right, our harmonic structures, our common tone, harmonic understanding, and then, of course, our arpeggio and scale movement as well. So, you know, I was thinking, you know, who? Who could I use as an example, a master of silence, a master of single note, common tone playing, a master of arpeggio and scale motion. Who could I use as the perfect example of what I am trying to teach or explain today, hmm. And you know, it didn't take me very long to make a selection, and as I was preparing for this podcast episode, I could not help but to continually think about and come back to the great pianist, Amal Jamal, and what better recording than his 1958 recording of but not for me at the Pershing hotel in Chicago, Illinois, right? If you, I'm sure many of you are very familiar with this recording. Some of you may not be. That's okay, because you're going to be familiar with it here right now. And so what I want to do is I want to for us to sit back, relax again, grab your favorite beverage, because this is an awesome treat. And I want you to listen to Amal Jamal playing, but not for me. And I want you to think about as you're listening to this recording of but not for me performed by Amal Jamal I want you to think about practicing silence. I want you to think about the use of space in your improvisation. I want you to think about harmonic improvisation, and does he use it, and do you identify it when you when you hear it? I want you to listen for common tone improvisation. Does he hover around any particular note at any time during his playing of this tune and create some melodic ideas around that common tone with with the inclusion of space. I don't know. Listen for that. Do you know when you're listening? Listen for ascending and descending arpeggio and scale motion, and see if the great Amal Jamal is incorporating any of these jazz piano skills right when playing, but not for me. Let's think and listen and determine whether or not we can assess if Amal Jamal spent any time in his lifetime practicing silence. So here we go. Let's sit back. Let's listen to this. This iconic recording of this great Gershwin Standard. Here we go. Check it out. You.

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Well, what can I say? Do I need to say anything? I think that says it. I think that says it all right. I think that is a great example. That is a great example of what we have been exploring, what we have been discussing today in this podcast episode. You know, there's no question about it. Practicing silence is a critical, critical skill for developing mature and professional improvisational skills. There's no question about it, right? And again, you know, we've unpacked a ton of information here today in one very short and very fast hour. And I'm hoping, I'm hoping and I'm praying, that I've cleared up some of the mess that I made last week in my effort to talk about this topic that quite honestly, needs an entire episode, actually multiple episodes, to dive as deep into this topic as we actually should. You know, at the beginning of this episode, I I mentioned that we all overplay just but listen to Amal Jamal Jamal when we just listen to Holy cow, how about the space in that plane? Right? Right? That we all overplay as pianists, and we all overplay quite honestly, because we are afraid of silence. We're afraid of silence, and we're afraid of silence because it exposes our internal sense of time, right? And mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, the weaker your internal sense of time, the more afraid of silence you are. So your ability to track time is key to becoming comfortable with silence. And what's the again, the irony is that you have to practice silence in order to develop your internal sense of time. Okay? And obviously, Amal Jamal is a master at this skill. You know, another thing that I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, you know, that we have to battle as pianists, is that, you know, we play an instrument where we do not have to breathe, and because of that, we can create a lot of I like to call run on sentences, right? Run on musical phrases. They run on and they run on and they run on. So you need to be aware of that. And this is why I stress the pianist all the time to spend a lot of time listening to instrumentalists, listening to instrumentalists, listening to the Chet bakers and the Stan Getz of the world, and listening to their lines, and then trying to mimic and imitate those lines on the piano when playing right? To breathe like an instrumentalist, to breathe like a vocalist, right? This we've spent a lot of time stressing how important it is to listen to vocalists and the lyrics and the presentation of those lyrics and and the phrasings, the phrasing that great vocalists use, right? So you know, I hope, I hope that you have found this jazz panel skills podcast lesson today, exploring practicing silence. I hope you found it to be insightful and beneficial, and again, I hope it has cleared up any confusion that I've created last week. Now don't forget if if you are a jazz panel skills member, I will see you online Thursday evening at the jazz piano skills masterclass. That's going to be 8 pm central time, right? We'll discuss this podcast episode lesson exploring the art and skill of practicing silence in greater detail, and of course, we'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general. So I'll see you Thursday evening at the master class. If you can't make it no big deal again. The master classes are recorded, so you can watch and re watch the video of the class as often as you wish. And you can have access to the recording of the master classes through your jazz piano skills account through your dashboard. Okay, if you have any questions whatsoever, I encourage you please post them in the jazz panel skills forum so all the members can benefit, and all the members can actually share and help you as well. Now, if you need to reach me, you can do so easily by phone my number here at the Dallas School of Music is 972-380-8050, my extension, my office extension here at the school is 211, so when you dial in, if you get the automated attendant, just press 211, it will forward you right to my office. If you prefer email, my email address is Dr Lawrence. drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com or you can use the nifty little speak pipe widget that is literally found on every page throughout the jazz piano skills website. Well, there is my cue. That's it for now, and until next week, enjoy practicing silence. See what I did there silence. Enjoy practicing silence, and most of all, have fun as you discover learn and play jazz piano!