Satin Doll

Dr. Bob Lawrence  0:33  
Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence, it's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. For the last two weeks, we have relentlessly attacked the key of G flat major. And we've done so two ways harmonically and melodically. Our harmonic workout as it always does explored four different approaches to voicing the chords found in the key of G flat major, plus various rhythmic comping patterns. Now our melodic workout, as it always does methodically tackled the scales, the modes, and the arpeggios for each of the chords found in the key of G flat major, plus various linear lines to help us develop improvisational vocabulary. Now, for those of you who are faithfully doing the workouts, I know firsthand that the workouts require a ton of work, right. But as is always the case, when you practice correctly, the proper skills using the proper approaches, the payoff is always huge. It's always very significant. And how do we test that significant improvement? That significant development of our jazz panel skills? How do we test that? Well, no better way to test our improvement than by playing a tune right. And that's exactly what we're going to do today. So today, you're going to discover Duke Ellington's classic jazz standard satin bow, and you're going to learn the chord changes harmonic function, musical form of satin Tao, and you're gonna play various voicings and the correct chord scale relationships for satin Dow, which will then be cultivated into a jazz solo. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are, in your jazz journey, a beginner and intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you consider yourself a seasoned and experienced professional, you are going to find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson, exploring the great jazz standard by Duke Ellington satin down to be very beneficial. But before we get started, before we jump in, I want to take a moment as I always do at the beginning of every jazz panel skills podcast episode to welcome all of you first-time listeners. And if you are indeed new to jazz panel skills, a first-time listener to the jazz panel skills podcast, I want to personally invite you to become a jazz piano skills member, just visit jazz piano skills.com You can check out all of the abundant resources and materials and services that are available for you to help you improve your jazz panel skills. For example, as a jazz panel skills member you have access to all of the educational podcast packet This is four years of podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs that I develop and produce and make available for each weekly podcast episode. And these are invaluable educational tools that you want to have in your hands as you listen to this podcast episode. And you certainly want to have sitting on your piano as you practice. You also as a jazz piano skills member have access to the online sequential jazz piano curriculum, which is loaded this jazz panel skills curriculum is loaded with courses using self paced format there are educational talks, interactive media, video demonstrations of the jazz panel skill being taught in all 12 keys, play alongs and much more. You also as a jazz panel skills member heavy reserve 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. Awesome goes on.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  4:53  
As a jazz piano skills member you have access to the online interactive jazz piano Fakebook now, this fake book gives you access to jazz standards from the Great American Songbook. Enjoy the lead sheets outlining the chord changes. There's lead sheets that present the harmonic function of each tune, chord scale relationships, play along files, their historical insights, inspirational recordings, and much more. The interactive Fakebook is an ever-growing collections of tunes that you absolutely should discover, learn and play. You also as a jazz panel skills member have access to the online private jazz piano skills community which hosts a variety of engaging forums podcast specific forms, core-specific forms, and of course, there are just general jazz piano forms for you to enjoy as well. Last, but certainly not least, as a jazz panel skills member you have unlimited, unlimited, private, personal, and professional educational support whenever and as often as you need it. So when you have a moment, visit jazz panel skills.com. Learn more about all the education opportunities that await you and how to easily activate your membership. Now there are several membership plans to choose from. I am quite certain there is one that is perfect for you. However, once you get there and you poke around, you have some questions, please, please let me know. I'm always happy to spend some time with you and help you in any way that I can. Okay, let's discover learn to play jazz piano let's discover and learn and play the great Duke Ellington jazz standard. Satin Tao. Okay, I mentioned earlier that the last two weeks have been pretty intense, right with our key of G flat major harmonic workout in our key of G flat major melodic workout. Our harmonic workout was an extensive exploration of four very specific approaches to playing sound harmonically, in other words, playing chords. And our exploration was not simply about playing the seven chords that are found within the key of G flat major. It was about how to approach voicing the chords so that you are playing sounds that are stylistic ly correct. In other words, your chords should sound like jazz. So we looked at basic block shapes and root position and inversions, traditional left-hand shells three note voicings contemporary quarter voicings, again, three-note left-hand shells, and of course, two-handed voicings two-handed shapes, not all of them, all of these voicing types need to be in your arsenal. Now, on the other hand, our melodic workout was a thorough investigation of ascending and descending scale and arpeggio motion through each of the seven chords found in the key of G flat major. Our primary focus was to begin developing root independence, right by shifting the entry points of our scales and arpeggios from the root of the sound to the third, the fifth, and the seventh. Now, needless to say, if you have never intentionally played scales and arpeggios, varying your entry points and destination points, then these melodic workouts are probably pretty challenging. But the whole point of our key of G flat major harmonic workout in our key of G flat major melodic workout is to prep us right purpose for applying our skills to tunes. So we're going to take the practice approaches that we have explored over the past two weeks in the key of G flat and apply them to Satin Doll in the key of G flat typically played in the key of C, but not today. Not today. Oh no. We're playing satin ballon G flat. And not only are we going to put our harmonic and melodic jazz piano skills to work within a jazz standard,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  9:23  
we are also going to use our jazz piano skills to construct and play a jazz piano solo over the core changes of the two. So the educational agenda for today is as follows number one, we're going to explore the jazz standard satin Tao, we're going to look at the chord changes and the harmonic function of the tune. Number two we are going to discover learn and play various voicings for satin bow, our blocks, our traditional shells, our contemporary shells, and our two-handed voicings Number three, we're going to discover, learn and play the chord scale relationships for Satin Doll. In other words, the appropriate ascending and descending, scale, and arpeggio motion. Number four, we are going to discover learning play a jazz piano solo, for satin Tao using 100% diatonic scale, and arpeggio motion, focusing on various rhythmic patterns that we have been studying, especially the eighth note triplet, and the quarter note triplet. And number five, we're going to be using a classic traditional jazz swing groove with a tempo of 100. Now, if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take a few minutes right now when you hit that pause button. And I want you to take the time to download and print the jazz piano skills podcast packets, the illustrations, and the lead sheets. Of course, you have access as a member you have access to all the podcast packets. And as I mentioned earlier, you should absolutely be using them when listening to this podcast episode. And of course, you should be using them when practicing the material as well. So if you're listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories such as Apple or Google, Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, the list goes on and on. Then be sure to go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com. Go to the jazz panel skills podcast.com website to download your podcast packets and you will find the active download links within the show notes. And one final but extremely important note I mentioned this every single week and every single podcast episode that if you're listening right now, and if you are thinking in the back of your mind, you're thinking man sat him down. I don't know the various skills that we're about to discover, learn and play. This stuff sounds like it's over my head if that's what you're thinking, I want you to sit back I want you to relax, I want you to continue to listen, I want you to continue to grow your jazz piano skills intellectually by just simply listening to this podcast episode. Now keep in mind all skills are over our heads when first introduced and that is precisely why the first step we always need to take in order to improve our musicianship in order to improve our jazz panel skills. When being introduced to new concepts, the first step is always to simply listen. So do not shy away from conversations discussing foreign topics or using unfamiliar terms. Fancy words, stepping outside of our musical comfort zone always spawns significant growth. And you've all heard me say this a million times. All musical growth begins upstairs mentally, conceptually, before it can come out downstairs physically in your hands. So sit back, listen to this podcast. Listen now to discover and learn. The play as it always does, will come in time, I guarantee it. Okay, now that you have your lead sheets, podcast packet printed, and in your hand, I want to make sure that you have 11 lead sheets of 11 lead sheets skill one through skill 11.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  13:45  
We're going to go through each one of these here, this today. And so I just want to make sure you have the complete package. Now, skill one, let's take a look at that. First. This is your basic lead sheet of satin doll, the chord changes. But as I mentioned earlier, this is sat down in the key of G flat this is not sat and out in the standard key of C. So why did I pick set now of all tunes? Why did I pick senton though? Well, number one, there's not a lot of jesting understand the key of G flat major first of all, so it's going to have to be a standard. Some other standard that we actually play in the key of G flat. But I picked sat down for a couple of reasons. One, you're going to find that as we analyze the lead sheet, you're gonna find tons of Circle, circle motion, right tons of two, five relationships in this standard. But also, not just the two five relationships but the keys that those two five relationships point to when we place that in dial in the key of G flat. So for instance, right away you look at the first measure, you have the A flat minor seven to D flat seven, that's clearly a two five and what key and the key G flat, then in measure three, we have a B flat minor seven E flat dominant seven combination, that's clearly a two five relationship and what key of A flat, then look at measure five, we have an E flat minor seven, a flat dominant seven, which is a two, five relationship in the key of D flat. And then right after that, we have a two five relationship in the key of C, we have a D minor seven to the G dominant seven. So in the first six measures, right, we find ourselves in the key of G flat, we find ourselves in the key of A flat, and we find ourselves in the key of D flat, and we find ourselves in the key of C. So I picked that up now because just think about those key centers for a second, G flat, A flat, and D flat. These are three keys that we spent the last three months studying. How cool is that? Right? So Satin Doll is, as you can see, this is a classic, ABAA form. So we have two A sections, followed by a bridge with finishing up with an A section, those letters A, B, C, and D that you see on your lead sheet. Those are rehearsal markings, those are not denoting the form of the standard. Okay? So we get to the bridge, look at the bridge, C sharp, minor seven, F sharp, dominant seven, holy moly, we're in another key, right, it's pointing us to the key of B major. So a lot of different key centers. And oh, by the way, B major is what is the key that we're looking at next. So we have the keys that we've looked at the last three months, and this song sat down was pointing us to the key that we're about to go into next month, the key of B major. All right, so lead sheet one skill one is your classic lead sheet, chord changes only for SAT and out in the key of G flat major. Now, look at lead sheet number two, skill number two.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  17:07  
This is a harmonic function lead sheet. So here is how we denote the what I like to what I like to call the harmonic DNA of the piece. This is what makes that endow set and Tao. And it establishes by looking at these Roman numeral relationships, all analyzed and produced based on the parent key of the piece, in this case, G flat. But once you get these to fit, once you get these Roman numerals laid out, the parent key really doesn't matter does it? Because you can actually play this, this is the whole point of a harmonic function lead sheet is that once you understand the harmonic function of the piece, you can play it in any key that you wish, provided that you know that key, right. And that's why we're going through all 12 keys this year, to make sure that you do know your keys. So skill to lead sheet two is classic harmonic function, DNA of satin Tao, all our roman numeral relationships. Okay, I strongly encourage you to spend time with this lead sheet and be able to number one, lay on your sofa and be able to recite the chord changes based on the harmonic function that you're seeing before you. And then it's also a great idea to go to the piano and play the chord changes of this piece in the key of G flat, of course, using this harmonic function lead sheet as well. Okay, let's take a look at lead sheet three, skill three. We're gonna look at our voicings first, and we're going to start with our block chords. So lead sheet three, has the block chords laid out for Satin Doll, and the suggested inversions that I use when playing sat down and when I'm using my block chords, okay. Now, the question I'm always asked is, well, can I choose other inverted shapes, as opposed to the ones that you have notated here? And the answer, of course, is yes, of course you can. This is a suggestion here for you. This is how I would approach playing satin bow using block chords in the key of G flat while playing the melody over the top of these changes. So what I want to do now is I want to bring the ensemble in, I want to play through satin bow twice the first time through, I'm just going to play these block chords in my left hand, I'm not going to be doing anything fancy with them. I'm literally going to be playing them as notated here on the lead sheet right, using half note values, whole note values, and not playing anything rhythmically with these voicings because I want you to hear the sound of these shapes in a musical setting in a musical context. The second time through, I'm going to actually place the melody of a satin bow on top of these chord changes. So you can just simply hear how beautiful it is right? So here we go let's bring the ensemble and let's listen to satin doll key of G flat major using block voicings in my left hand alright here we go check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  22:46  
Nice right, you know, I've mentioned this before, and I want to take time to mention it again that if this is where you are voicing wise, in other words, you're playing block voicings. And that's it, then congratulations, this is fantastic because here's the reality this is the truth if you do not have these shapes under your hands, these block fundamental block voicings, then trying to do the traditional left-handed shells, contemporary shells, 200 voicings are going to be very, very difficult. And in addition to that, if you do not have these block shapes under your hands, and their inversions, you know root position in three inverted shapes, then you're going to find it very difficult to develop jazz improvisation vocabulary. Because just a quick glance at any transcription, you'll start to see that these shapes are very significant in developing the lines that you hear all the great improvisers using. Alright, so our melodic ideas are going to flow from our understanding of these block shapes and root position and their inversions. So if this is where you are, or if this is what you're working on right now, fantastic, you can not spend enough time solidifying your understanding of these shapes and sounds, you just simply cannot. Okay, so now let's look at lead sheet for scale for traditional shells. Now, these are three note shells that typically include the third, the seventh, and the ninth, or the seventh, the third, and the fifth of the sound. But if you look at the lead sheet here, you're gonna notice that a lot of my three-note shapes here are actually two-note shapes. So what what is up with that? Um, a lot of times here in this lead sheet I am leaving, leaving out the top note of the voicing in order that might in order To allow my left hand and my right hand to play nicely with one another. And you will see when you start playing the melody of satin Tao with these voicings, they're both hands seem to be playing in the same sandbox playing in the same on the same playground. So they have to be able to work with one another, get it out of the way of one another, to successfully play the shapes and the melody. So wherever you see these two note voicings notated on the lead sheet that that's not a typo, this is intentional, right, these two note voicings are played so that I can make room for the melody in my right hand. So what I want to do is bring in the ensemble right now let's take a listen to satin doll again, I'm going to play it two times through the first time I'm just going to play these shells in my left hand so you can hear these sounds in a musical context. Second time through I will place the melody of Satin Doll on top of these voicings to great sounds so check this out here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  28:37  
Break cool, I love it. Traditional shells are that they're they're called traditional for a reason, right? They're used, used by every jazz pianists that I know is very familiar with the shapes and with the sounds. So now let's take a look at lead sheet five, skill five. These are the contemporary shells. Now these also are three note shapes. But these three notes are built using primarily the interval of a fourth, right as opposed to having the primary interval being a third. So once again though, you can look at the lead sheet, and just like the traditional shells, all of a sudden you're saying wait a minute there. There are lots of two note voicings here as opposed to three note. And again, the reason you're seeing two note voicings is to allow once again the melody and then my right hand to play nicely with the harmony in my left hand. Okay, so the two note shapes that you're seeing here are intentional where I'm leaving the top note of the voicing out. But you're gonna find that it doesn't impede the greatness of these quarter voicings at all. So let's bring the ensemble Lin and let's check it out. And once again I'm going to play two times through first time I'm just going to play the shapes nothing fancy just play in the shapes as notated on the lead sheet. Second time through I will bring the melody in so that you can hear these voicings and the melody side by side together Okay, so here we go let's check it out and see what we think.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  32:56  
really cool sounds, I love it. I absolutely love the quarter shapes. Now, I will say this, I don't want you to fall into the trap to thinking that somehow the chordal shapes are hipper than the traditional shapes. And the traditional shapes are somehow hipper than the blocks. That's a huge trap to fall into. And it's just simply not true. In fact, all three of these voicing types, your traditional blocks or traditional shells, your contemporary shells, you need to have in your arsenal because you're going to be using them, all of them, all of them when you play within the same song. Right? I model all of these, I keep everything real clean and tidy. And these lessons right where we look at sat down with just all quarter voicings and we look at it with all traditional three note shows. When we look at it with just block voicings as real clean, that's real tiny, but that's not reality. That's that's what we do when we're learning something and we study something to be effective with our learning. We want to keep things tidy and clean. But the reality of it is once you get these shapes sorted out conceptually once you get these shapes sorted out physically once you get these shapes sorted out orally, then you're going to find that you will be intermixing these these shapes and sounds when you play as you should, right as all accomplished jazz piano pianos do. Okay, so now let's take a look at lead sheet six or skill six. These are our two-handed shapes. Okay, five-note voicings you'll see on the lead sheet. I always have to in the left, I always have three in the right. This is how I approach two-handed voicings. Now, what I'm going to do is when we bring the ensemble in again, we're going to play through it twice. And we're playing first time these voicings as notated here, as written, nothing fancy, again, no rhythmic variation. Second time through I'm going to play the melody but of course I'm going to play the melody using a muted trumpet sound so you can kind Hear these voicings accompanying an instrumentalist. All right, so let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check out sat and down using two-handed voicings first time through to hand voicings the second time through with a muted trumpet playing the melody so here we go let's have some fun check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  37:53  
How cool is that right? Here's another trap I don't want you to fall into do not think that two-handed voicings are only used for ensemble plain wrong. These voicings are used while playing solo piano all the time. Okay. So again, these are shapes that you need to have under your hands when playing in a solo format, or solo situation and when playing in an ensemble situation. Okay. Wow. All right. So now let's take a look at lead sheet seven, lead sheet eight, nine and 10 Okay, now, I do not have time in this podcast episode the play through scale 789 and 10 that this these scales are are ascending scale motion, Root Entry, descending scale motion, Root Entry, ascending arpeggio motion, Root Entry, descending arpeggio motion Root Entry. And of course, you should do skill 789 and 10 using third entry for a fifth entry and seventh entry as well. But notice that I have the chord scale relationships laid out for you with these ascending scale motion and descending scale motion. So these lead sheets are included the play alongs in your play along packet there are play alongs for each one of these as well. So of course spend time practicing these if you have any questions, please let me know. Okay, so now let's grab lead sheet 11 Our last lead sheet skill set, this is where we're gonna get into the solo. This word gets really fun, right? This is where our our all our hard work pays off. So what I have here is written out for you. A solo that I played, we were sat in Dow and the key of G flat. And I just want us to look at it here just briefly a couple things I mentioned this earlier as well. That everything you're seeing here is 100 plus sent diatonic motion with regards to the chord scale relationship. Okay 100% diatonic motion so I'm not using any notes do not fall out of the chord scale relationship 1% diatonic. Now the other thing to pay attention to is the various rhythmic ideas that I'm using, I'm intentionally playing this solo, focusing on the various eighth note patterns that we have studied throughout the last couple of months and primarily focusing on the eighth note triplet and the quarter note triplet feel within this solo, so what I want to do, I want to bring the ensemble in, I'm going to play sat down, three times through, okay, first time through, I'm going to play satin bow, I'm going to play my voice ends, I'm going to play the melody the piece, second time through, I'm going to take a solo I'm gonna play this solo, and then the third time through, come back and have a little recapitulation, if you will, where I play the melody again, and then have an ending on Sarin Doll. So let's bring the ensemble in. Let's listen to Satin Doll by Duke Ellington in the key of G flat major, how fun here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  45:40  
How cool is that? Right? Man? You know, it's funny. So oftentimes, right? We always play standards in the standard key. And that's cool, right? That's cool. You go out to play gigs and somebody calls satin doll. Everybody on the bandstand immediately thinks KSC because it's a standard key. But I gotta tell you, so oftentimes, when I play standards in different keys, I actually ended up falling in love with that tune in the new key more so than the standard key. I think Sandahl sounds fantastic in the key of G flat. So don't be don't be afraid of keys, it's great to be able to take songs and move them around and find keys that you enjoy playing the tune in, right? So that's, again, validates why we are spending this entire year going through all 12 keys with an harmonic workout and a melodic workout. So that you can get comfortable moving songs around. How awesome so here we are, right? It never fails you. We always unpack a ton of information, and each and every podcast episode, and today, Wow, I feel like I was running a sprint to try to get everything in. Today. He was certainly no exception, as we set out to discover, learn and play satin bow. You know, as I tried to do with every tune study, every tune study that we do, I want to model for you how to begin truly learning a tune. And that's how we that's what we did today. How to how to connect the what and how that you are practicing to an actual piece of music. In other words, how did the jazz piano skills that you are spending time practicing translate to real playing. And of course, I'm all I always say real paying, you know, this, I always say real playing with my air quotes, right. And kind of tongue in cheek because real plane is actually, in my opinion, real plane is actually having a command of jazz piano skills, which in turn, allows you to eventually add a melody, which in turn allows you to play 1000s, of tunes. And, and once we add a melody to our jazz panel skills, we give it a title like satin Tao. And wow, now everyone's happy, right? You're happy because you're playing a tune, your listeners are happy because they're hearing a tune. But the reality of it is that Tao is made up of jazz piano skills. So I want you to think about this. I've mentioned this before, too, that if you are able to apply your practice approach to the learning of a tomb like we did today, I would say to you that you need to seriously sit down and examine the what, why and how of your practicing. Another way of saying this is in the tunes that you are playing, you do not see the jazz piano skills that you are practicing, then you have a disconnect between the two, which is not good. Right? You've heard me say this many times on many different occasions that harmony and melody are one in the same and indeed they are. And I can also say that jazz piano skills and tunes are one in the same, which indeed they are. And what I'm saying is that you didn't if you do not practice jazz piano skills, then you will not be able to successfully play tunes. That's just it. I mean that I cannot be any

Dr. Bob Lawrence  49:11  
more transparent, open, honest, and truthful with you than that. So hopefully, you're beginning to see that jazz piano skills, our tunes, and tunes, our jazz piano skills. The only difference? One has a fancy name like Satin Doll, and one does not. So if you're beginning to see the jazz piano skills that you're practicing as tunes and the tunes that you're practicing as jazz piano skills, then you are on the right track. You are on the correct path. Congratulations. I've said this in previous podcast episodes and I say I want to say it again. If if you stay with me, stick with me this year, right all the way through. We've done it we're over halfway now right but If you stick with me through this entire year, you are going to experience a ton of jazz piano growth and you are going to love where you are musically. A year from now, I guarantee it. Most of all though, as we go through the year as we work in these various keys harmonically we work on these in these various keys melodically we apply it to tunes our skills to tunes. As always, I want you to be patient, right developing mature, professional jazz piano skills takes time. So begin structuring your practicing after the planned demonstrations that I modeled for you today in this podcast episode, and you will begin to see you will begin to feel you will begin to hear your progress I promise you. Well, I hope you have found this jazz piano skills podcast lesson exploring the great standard by Mr. Duke Ellington satin doll. I hope you found it to be insightful and of course beneficial. And don't forget if you are a jazz panel skills member I will see you online Thursday evening at the jazz piano skills masterclass. It's 8 pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode lesson exploring satin bow in greater detail and to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general. One more very important push and plug and stress to you that use the educational podcast packets, your lead sheets, your illustrations your play alongs for this podcast lesson. And also be sure to use the jazz panel skills courses to maximize your musical growth. And make sure that you are an active participant in the jazz piano skills community online community which is growing daily. Get out there, get involved, introduce yourself, contribute to the various forums, make some new jazz panel friends. Okay, always a great thing to do. You can reach me by phone 972-380-8050 My extension here at the Dallas School of Music is 211 You can reach me by email that's Dr. Lawrence drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or you can use the nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is found throughout the jazz piano skills website. Well, there is my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the classic jazz standard sat down. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano