September in the Rain, Harmonic Analysis

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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, here we are again, the start of a new month. November.

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Not only are the months flying by, but the years are flying by. I can't believe it. November, the start of the new month, though, a new month of jazz piano skills is always exciting, because a new month means a new tune. It's a time for us to always move on. When we flip the calendar, we move on right a fresh start, as I like to say. And it's so important to have these feelings of a new start, a fresh start when tackling a high level discipline like jazz piano, because this constant

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feeling of forward motion motivates us, and the opposite is also true, right? The feeling of running in place, right? Stagnation.

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It's like the kiss of death to our motivation. So we celebrate a new month. We celebrate turning the calendar over to a new month, because it's a fresh start. It's a time to move on, and it's a new tune. So today, we're doing just that. We're moving on with a new tune to help us accurately assess our strengths and weaknesses as jazz pianists. Right? We are all we're always, constantly searching for an accurate

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answer to the most important question of all, what jazz piano skills do I have a command of, and which ones do I need to work on? And after all, if we are capable of success, successfully answering that question, which we attempt to do every month here at jazz piano skills, if we can successfully answer that question, we have hope we know exactly what we need to practice in order to improve as a jazz pianist.

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Now we have spent literally, like the past five years, tackling essential jazz piano skills, everything from scales, arpeggios, chord scale relationships, harmonic function, piano technique, fingerings, improvisation approaches and the list goes on, right, all of it in preparation for our tune journey that we started back in January, that felt like last week, actually, but back in January. So you know, since the start of the year, we have dissected jazz standards every month, harmonically, melodically and improvisationally, to illuminate our strengths and weaknesses. The jazz piano skills that need attention. That's what we're hunting for. What are those jazz piano skills that need attention, not just conceptually, but physically, or maybe both. And I think for you, jazz piano skills, members who have faith, faithfully followed the agenda, you can honestly say that you have taken your discover, learn and play approach to jazz studies to a whole new level. So a new month, new tune, and in a few weeks, we'll be able to

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have an updated assessment of our jazz piano skills. Now, this month, we're exploring one of my personal favorite standards of all times.

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Right? They're all my personal favorites, but anyway, it's another masterpiece, very catchy melody, classic, traditional harmonic movement and lyrics expressing some heartfelt love. It's perfect jazz tune, right? It's hard to find a tune better than the 1937

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1937 standard by Harry warrence, September in the rain. I've always loved this too. Now we will start, as we always do, with a harmonic analysis of September in the rain. We'll take a look at form and chord changes, harmonic function, common progressions and voicings, left hand shell voicings, of course, and two handed structures. Next week, we're going to follow it up with a melodic analysis, which will involve learning the melody of September in the rain by ear, transcribing the melody, plus we'll check out fingerings and various treatments of the tune as well. We will then turn our attention, as we always do in week.

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Three focusing on improvisation development, and we will be using quarter and eighth note strings constructed with ascending and descending arpeggio and scale motion that incorporates mathematical and random silence. Now that's a mouthful, no doubt about it, but we'll worry about that when we get to the improv development in a couple weeks. Now, if you have haven't been a faithful jazz panel skills listener for the past five years, well, hey, man, no big deal. No worries. The tune study that we are doing and the process that we have implemented will help you, literally help you sift through and prioritize the last five years of podcast episodes so that you can begin to maximize your jazz journey, your jazz panel skills immediately. So as I mentioned last month and the month before and the month before and the month before, it makes no difference, right? Whether you are a jazz panel skills veteran, or if you're a jazz piano skills rookie, no big deal. Either way, you are in the right place, the right time to begin a jazz piano journey that will profoundly impact your understanding of music, and, of course, your jazz piano playing as well. So today we begin our harmonic analysis of September in the rain. So you are going to discover this 1937 classic jazz standard by Harry warrence, September in the rain. You're going to learn form, chord changes, harmonic function for September in the rain. And you're going to play September in the rain using my suggested voicings, plus the common harmonic progressions that we use for ear training development. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you're a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring September in the rain to be very beneficial, but, 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 listening for the first time, I want to welcome you. I want to invite you to become a jazz panel skills member, and your membership grants you access to the premium content for not only this podcast episode, but for every weekly podcast episode. And the premium content will help you thoroughly and correctly discover, learn and play the jazz standard that we are currently exploring, September in the rain. And you know what? There's so much more to the membership platform, other than just the premium content. For example, as a jazz panel skills member, you'll be able to access the past, current and future educational weekly podcast packets now these are the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs, or the backing tracks that I design and develop to help you get the most out of every weekly jazz panel skills episode, you also have access to a self paced and sequential jazz piano curriculum, which is loaded with comprehensive courses, all of them containing educational talks. There's interactive learning media to help you digest the jazz piano skill.

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Conceptually. There are video demonstrations of the skill and all 12 keys and a ton more. You also have a reserved seat in my online weekly master classes, which are held every Thursday evening. And if you can't attend, it's no big deal, because the master classes are recorded, and you can watch and re watch the class whenever and as often as you wish. As a jazz panel skills member, you also have access to an online interactive fake book that contains must know jazz standards with excellent chord changes, chord scale relationships, harmonic function analysis, listening suggestions, historical insights and more. You'll also be able to take advantage of the online private jazz panel skills community, which hosts a variety of engaging forums. And finally, your jazz panel skills membership grants you unlimited private, personal and professional educational support whenever and as often as you need it now. All these amazing perks, all of these privileges, are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazz piano skills.com and, of course, become a member, not only to enjoy the premium podcast content, but all the other little perks that I've just mentioned as well. Of course, once you get to the site, if you have any questions regarding the membership plan and any of the benefits, please do not hesitate to con.

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Act me. I'm always happy to spend some time with you, answer any of your questions, and, of course, help you in any way that I can. Okay, we're on to the question of the week. It's back. We took the last couple of weeks off while we dealt with the hybrid arpeggios and hybrid scales. But it's back today, and it's awesome. This week's question comes from Peggy Mullins. Peggy Mullins living in Jacksonville, Florida, and Peggy writes,

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is the natural minor scale the same as the Aeolian scale.

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I know this should be simple to understand, but for some reason I'm confused. Maybe it's because two different names are used to reference the same scale. Is it me? Am I making this harder and more difficult than it is

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Peggy, Great question, great question. And a couple of things to address right away. Number one, it is confusing, and it's not simple to understand, because you are correct terminology. Language, unfortunately, especially in music, can get in the way, and it certainly does in this situation. And number two, it is not you, and you are not making it harder or more difficult than it is, all right. So with that out of the way, let's talk about the natural minor scale, or, as some people like to call it, the Aeolian mode, if you take traditional piano lessons and get taught

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traditional music theory. Then you are introduced to the Natural Minor Scale, which is always explained as the C major scale, starting on the note A.

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The two scales, the C major scale and the A minor scale,

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share the same key signature. Isn't that nice? That's how it's explained. Now, as a student, when this is being explained like to us, right?

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We nod our heads up and down in agreement with our teacher and politely respond, Sure, okay. I see

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when, in reality, we see nothing,

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and in reality, it makes absolutely no sense to us, why are we being introduced to this, and why are we calling the seven notes of the C Major scale something other than the C major scale, simply because It starts on a different note

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of the scale, other than the note C. And you know, after all, and again, this is what we're thinking in our head, right? After all,

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if we have seven apples, and I rearrange the seven apples, I still have seven apples, right? They don't magically become seven bananas.

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But to keep peace, to keep peace with our teacher, we continue to nod our head up and down and smile with joy and say, Wow, cool. Yeah, C major and a minor. Same notes, different starting, starting, starting point, same, same notes, one's the C major scale, one's the A minor scale, same seven notes, just a different order. So that makes them something completely different, right? Like seven apples become seven bananas. So we nod our head in agreement when we know that we have absolutely don't understand at all why this is being introduced to us or why it's important. Now, what we really want to say when the natural minor scale is introduced to us, what we really want to say and when it's explained like I just explained it, which is the case 99% of the time, what we really want to say is, you know, I gotta be honest. This makes absolutely no sense to me, and you're going to have to do you're

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gonna have to do a much better job of explaining this to me and convincing me as to why this is even important information. After all, piano playing is hard enough as it is so introducing frivolous music theory concepts that really have no bearing on my piano playing. You know what? It's not very helpful.

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That's what we really want to say,

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right? Yep, that's what we want to say, but we don't have the courage to say it

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so Peggy, it is confusing, and that's why you're asking the question.

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Because that's how it's been explained to you. I bet you a million bucks if I had a million bucks, but I don't, but it is confusing,

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and you are not making it harder than it is. In fact,

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it is the teachers making it harder than it is. So I will try my best to straighten some things out for you today. Okay, so let's, let's begin with this.

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The Major Scale consists of seven notes, seven notes,

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and we can play the scale,

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and I'm we can play the scale starting on any of the seven notes, all right? So the C major scale, for example, we do know how to always have to play the C major scale starting on the note C, right? If we play the same seven notes, we can start on any one of those seven notes. We're still playing the C major scale, right. So in doing so, we are not creating a new scale by just simply playing a variation of the scale right and and by the way, variations of the scale are oftentimes referred to or called modes. So if the word modes is confusing, just think of it as a variation right the C major scale played on any one of the seven starting with any one of the seven notes. Okay, now, each variation, each mode, produces a chord

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which is simply every other note of the variation, every other note of the mode.

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So each chord then produces a primary Sound of Music, Major, dominant, minor, half diminished and diminished.

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Now we can attach, attach the fancy names to each of these modes,

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like Aeolian, right, Dorian, Phrygian, but for, for our purposes today, totally, I mean, totally not necessary. I mean, in fact, I think it's better just to think of mode one, mode two, mode three, and so on. Forget the names, forget the fancy schmancy names, right? And so just think of the major scale as having seven variations or seven modes. Now

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let's stop right here for a second and realize that

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that it what what you that's what you need to know about the major scale. That's it. No natural minor discussion needed. And in fact, I would suggest, from this moment on, to stop thinking that there is some Nexus or some link between the major and minor scales, it only causes confusion. Okay? Instead, I suggest that whenever you begin to start thinking about minor scales,

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you think of the two minor scales that we actually deal with in jazz, the harmonic minor scale and the melodic minor scale. And

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what do these two authentic minor scales do? They provide us with the altered sounds of music, what I like to call the fancy schmancy sounds, right? Things like, I'm sure you've seen chords with like, flat nine, sharp nine, flat five, sharp, five, sharp 11, flat 13, right? The fancy schmancy, the altered sounds and the minor the minor scale also gives us the diminished chord, which is, of course, not produced by any of the seven variations modes of the major scale. So the major scales are in their own camp. Minor scales, we have two harmonic and melodic minor what do they do for us?

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They present the altered sounds and the diminished chords. Okay, so Peggy, all of this to simply say you can, you can stop thinking about the natural minor scale, because it is just the sixth variation or mode of the major scale, which actually makes it a major scale, starting on the sixth note. Okay, I'm going to say that again,

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the natural minor scale is just the sixth variation or mode of the major scale, which is actually the major scale, starting on the sixth note, right?

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Just forget it. Forget about it. Know that we do. We have two minor scales, the natural minor scales, not one, the two minor scales that we have, the harmonic minor scale, the melodic minor scale. So.

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Right? And those two scales validate for us the origins of the altered sounds that we hear and we play in jazz and music, and that's it. So stay focused on the major scale until you are ready to tackle altered sounds, and then when you're ready to tackle the altered sounds, then you can dive into the harmonic and melodic minor scales.

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Wow. Now I know

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this is a lot to take in in one Fast Five to 10 minute segment, but listen and re listen to what I just said, and I think it will begin to make sense for you. I know I have some podcast episodes out there that deal with the modes of the major scale, as well as the harmonic and melodic minor scales as well that you may want to check out listen to for a more in depth exploration of these three scales and their variations or their modes. And of course, as always, if you have some questions, once you do and you would like some further clarification, do not hesitate to reach out to me. As always, I'm happy to spend time with you and help help put an end to this natural, minor confusion. Okay,

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wow, that is like drinking out of a fire hose right there. That's just a lot of information fast. So

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let's discover learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover learn and play September in the rain. Okay, quick review. Here's my outline for learning any tune. And again, as I've mentioned many times, the genre makes no difference. I don't care whether it's a jazz tune, rock tune, pop, country, folk, R and B makes no difference. Here is how I go about learning a tune. I listen number one, most important listen. I listen to a lot of artists performing the tune, various artists, from vocalist to instrumentalist and of course, yes, pianist.

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After I listen to the tune, or while I'm listening to the tune, I start to lock in on form. I want to determine the form of the tune. Every tune has a form, right? So is it classic, A, a B, a or an, a B, A B, A B, a C, right? What is the form of the tune?

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Then I'll turn my attention to learning the chords and voicings, right? Common harmonic progressions as well falls into this camp. Like 2511451625,

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so on. After I feel I have a pretty good command of the harmonic foundation of the tune, the chords and voicings, I'll turn my attention to melody. And of course, I always learn melody by ear. Never read it. Learn it by ear, right? And then finally, after I got a handle on the melody, I like to turn my attention to various treatments of the tune, and, of course, improvisation. That's it, right? I listen, determine form, chords, voicings, learn melody, explore treatments and improvisation, nothing more, nothing less. That's it. I go through the same process every time. So this week, we are going to start with a harmonic analysis

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of September in the rain. And we will, of course, listen. We will determine the form of the tune. We will learn the chord changes, the harmonic function and various voicings for September in the rain. Of course, next week, as I've mentioned, we'll look at the melodic analysis, do a melodic analysis of tune, and then in a couple weeks, we'll dive into improvisation, right? So, as always, we like to keep things very structured, very organized, very clean, very tidy, with our discover, learn and play approach. And again, it makes no difference whether we're studying a tune like today, September in the rain, or whether we're studying a scale like we did the last two weeks with the hybrid arpeggios and the hybrid scales, right? Either way, we want to keep things very structured, very organized. And of course, our conceptual understanding of all that we do musically must be organized, must be structured, must be simple, right? Must be clean and tidy, so that we can replicate the process over and over again. Now, you know, I've said it many times over the past five years that if your understanding of music or any musical skill is not structured, is not simple, not clean, not tidy, not organized, then guess what? It's the opposite. Then it's unorganized, it's confusing, it's a mess. And if it's unorganized and it's confusing, if it's a mess, conceptually, upstairs, you got zero shot zero of executing it in.

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Your hands downstairs on the piano. Therefore we must pay careful attention to always keeping our study, whether it's tune or skill, structured, simple and, of course, replicatable.

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So the educational agenda for today is as follows, number one, we begin part one of our journey to discover, learn and play September in the rain. We're going to listen to a definitive recording of September in the rain. We are going to discuss the form of September in the rain. We will discover learn and play the chord changes for September in the rain. And we will discover learn and play the harmonic function of September in the rain. We will discover learn and play my suggested voicings for September in the rain, that the left hand shell voicings, and of course, the two handed voicings structures as well. 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. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs, the backing tracks.

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Again, your membership grants you access to the premium content for every weekly podcast episode, which of course, includes the educational podcast packets. And I mention it every week that you should have these packets in your hands when listening to this episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you should have the packet sitting on your piano when practicing as well. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets in your hands, I want you to grab the lead sheets. This is where we will focus today. And you should have seven lead sheets in your packets. I want to walk, walk us through those very quickly. Number one, lead sheet one diagrams the form of September in the rain. Number two, lead sheet two identifies the unique chords that are found within this tomb. Okay, the third lead sheet gives you the chord changes, a nice, clean lead sheet for September in the rain. Lead sheet four gives you the harmonic function for the chord changes of September in the rain and lead sheet five highlights four common progressions that I would suggest using for ear training purposes. Lead sheet six left hand shell voicings that I use when playing September in the rain, and lead sheet seven, the two handed structures, the two handed voicings that I use when playing September in the rain. So you can see we got a lot to get through, just getting through these seven lead sheets. So so let's get busy. What is the first thing we should do when studying and learning a tune, right? I hope you're all saying it together in unison. We listen to it, because, without question, listening to various renditions of the tune is not only the first step, but I think the most important step. You know, I can't imagine attempting to learn a tune before spending time becoming familiar with it, absorbing it. And as I mentioned earlier, I like listening to different artists performing the tune, and not just jazz artists. By the way, I'll listen to if there's a country artist performing the tune I want to learn. I check it out pop artists, same thing. So it doesn't always have to be a jazz artist, but I typically like to turn to vocal renditions first, because vocalists typically remain pretty true to the original melody, especially vocalists like Sinatra na King Cole Dinah Washington, Nancy Wilson, my favorite but, but if I really want to hear a straight version of the melody, I'll check out people like Andy Williams, Doris Day, Julie London, Peggy Lee, Perry Como right. I'll turn my attention to instrumentalists after I check out my vocalist, like Lester Young, Chet Baker, Stan Getz Clark, Terry Coleman, Hawkins, to name a few. And last, but certainly not least, I'll check out all my favorite pianists playing the tune as well. Bottom line, I listen, and I listen a lot to whatever tune that I'm wanting to learn, not just conceptually, but physically as well.

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So selecting a recording, you know, for these standards, however,

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it's not so easy, because there's so many great renditions to choose from, always, and September in the rain is no exception. There are a ton of of recordings of September in the rain by various artists too, right, not just jazz artists, but two of my favorites, two of my favorites. Yes, I said two, right? So I couldn't settle on one this week. So I said, What the heck I.

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Why not do two? There's two fabulous versions that I want to listen to today. They're short, but worth the listen for for certain, right? The first one is from the great Julie London. I have a crush on Julie London. She's awesome. Anyway, 1956

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album called calendar girl. Julie London performs September, no rain. We're going to check that out. And the second rendition is by the great jazz vocalist. Love this guy, Joe Williams, right? And he's with jazz trumpet great Harry sweet Edison. And this, this is a 1961 recording from the album. Have a good time. So we're going to do a couple listening. We listen to a couple renditions. So really want you to grab your coffee. Get two cups of coffee if you want get your favorite beverage, get coffee. Sit back, and we're going to enjoy these fabulous swinging renditions of September in the rain. So let's check out Julie London first. Here we go. Check this out.

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Wow, less than two minutes of perfection right there. It's amazing. Not only vocally Julie London fabulous, but the arrangement and the horn,

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the horn, the horn parts behind her, are fabulous. So check that out again when you get a chance and and instead of listening to Julie, check out the just zero in on the background and the horns and the arrangement. It's fab. It's fabulous. Like I said, under two minutes of just perfection, speaking of perfection, Joe Williams with Harry sweet Edison on Trump. So this is going to be

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a little freer version interpretation of the melodic line of September, no rain, because it's Joe Williams. So let's check this out, and then pay attention to Harry sweet Edison on trumpet. He gets a little solo in there, and man talk about a lesson in improvisation. So here we go, Joe Williams, check it out.

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Yes, another couple minutes of absolute perfection. Great horns backing him up, swinging like crazy. Great

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vocal rendition of the tune. And of course, Harry sweet Edison, one of my favorite trumpet players,

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like I said, He's everything he plays is fabulous. So hard to beat Julie London, hard to beat Joe Williams, right? You know? And today that they were playing at a snappy temple, today I'm going to be playing everything, all the demos that I do today, at a nice, comfy temple of 120 so, so now that we know how this tune goes. Let's dive in. Let's explore those lead sheets. So I want you to grab lead sheet one. Let's take a look at the form of September in the rain, which is a standard classic jazz.

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Thank you for listening to jazz piano skills. The remaining premium content of this episode is available to jazz piano skills members at jazz piano skills podcast.com

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Visit jazzpanelskills.com to learn more about membership privileges and become a jazz piano skills member. Thank you.