There Is No Greater Love, 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. The first four months of 2024 are over. And what a four months it has been a jazz panel skills, talk about a whirlwind of material to think about, and to practice. Wow, we started 2024 with a study of there will never be another you. In February, we explored an ever popular standard back home again in Indiana. In March, we tackled the beautiful ballad these foolish things. And last month in April, the timeless gym by Henry min Seanie and Johnny Mercer, the days of Wine and Roses. Now we kick off the month of May. And we're going to do so with another staple and the jazz standard repertoire. No greater love or oftentimes referred to as there is no greater love. This is going to be a great month. So today we start with a harmonic analysis of no greater love. Formed chord changes harmonic function, common progression and voicings left handed shells and two handed structures. Yes, you heard me right. I begin including two handed voicings in the lessons and in your podcast packet starting today. Now next week, we will follow up with a melodic analysis which will involve learning the melody of no greater love by ear, plus fingerings. And various treatments. We will then enjoy the grand finale week three, focusing on improvisation development, using patterns, motifs, common tones, common zones, and of course, pension. As always, our three week exploration is a process a systematic approach to discover, learn and play a toe. As all of you who have been faithful listeners to jazz piano skills, no, we we are taking all of those essential jazz piano skills that we have studied over the past four plus years. And now applying them to tunes all of our chord work, voicing study scales, arpeggios, improvisational approaches fingerings, so much more. We're taking all those skills, and we're putting them into action. All the grunt work we have done over the past four years is going to pay off. Right? It's gonna pay off big time, and I love it. Now, if you haven't been a faithful listener, for the past four plus years, I keep reminding you no worries, right? It's no big deal, the tune study that we are doing. And the process that we have implemented will help you actually benefit you. When sifting through and prioritizing the last four years of podcast episodes so that you can begin maximizing your jazz piano skills right now immediately. So as I mentioned last month, and the month before, and so on, it makes no difference, right? Whether you are a jazz panel skills veteran, or a jazz panel skills, rookie, you're in the right place the right time to begin a jazz panel journey that will profoundly impact your understanding of music, and of course, your jazz piano playing. I'm thrilled and I hope you are too because having established a systematic approach to tune Steady means that we now have an assembly line if you will, that we can use repeatedly over and over again with every tune that we tackle. This means our learning process will only get faster. So today, we

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begin our harmonic analysis of no greater love. Today, you're going to discover classic standard in the jazz repertoire. There is no greater love. You're going to learn the four core changes in harmonic function four there is no greater love. And you're going to play there is no greater love using my suggested voicings, left handed shells and two handed voicings plus common harmonic progressions for ear training development. So I as always like to say regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner and intermediate player and advanced player, or even if you're an experienced professional makes no difference. You're going to find this jazz panel skills podcasts lesson, exploring, there is no greater love to be very beneficial. But before we dig in, before we get started, I want to as I always do welcome first time listeners to jazz piano skills. If you are a new listener, welcome, I want to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. Your membership will grant you access to the premium content for this podcast episode and every weekly podcast episode. Now premium content will help you thoroughly incorrectly discovered learn and play the jazz standard we are currently exploring and so much more. For example, as a jazz panel skills member you have access to 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 designed and developed to help you get the most out of each weekly jazz panel skills podcast episode. You will also have access to a self paced and sequential jazz piano curriculum which is loaded with comprehensive courses, all of them containing educational talks, interactive learning media, video demonstrations and the jazz panel skill in all 12 keys, and so much more. 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All of these amazing privileges are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazz panel skills.com. And of course become a member to enjoy premium podcast content. And of course, all of the other privileges that I just mentioned. If you have any questions once you poke around at the site, don't hesitate to contact me. I'm happy to spend some time with you and answer any questions that you may have. Speaking up questions, it's time to look at the question of the week. This week's question comes from Kevin Meenan. Living in Chicago, Illinois. And Kevin wants to know I need some help with the minor 251 progression. My understanding is that the two chord any minor 251 progression is a half diminished chord and five chord includes a flat nine and the one chord is a minor six. Do I have correct information? If so, what scale do I use to play over this progression? Just when I thought I was getting a handle on the 251 in a major key. I discovered the minor 251 help. Kevin, your question is a great question and it comes at the perfect time because you're about to discover in the tune that we are learning and playing this month no greater love. You're going to discover that this deals with the minor 251 throughout the entire bridge. Now you are correct. The two chord in a minor 251 is a half diminished chord and the five chord is altered with a flat nine. It also includes a flat 13 as well. And the one chord is often play It is a minor six, right? Or a minor seven, were a major seven, or even a minor major seven. What I'm trying to say is that the quality of the one chord following the minor two, five, isn't, it's not standardized. In other words, you'll find it to be all kinds of things. And actually, this is why I like to prefer to the minor 251 progression as simply as a minor, two, five, because the one chord can easily go to a whole bunch of different places more about this in a minute. So where does the minor two five progression come from? Obviously, it doesn't come from a major scale, because the two chord in a major key is a minor chord. And the five chord is pure. It contains no alterations, like a flat nine or flat 13. So where does it come from? Well, if it doesn't come from a major scale, then it must come from a minor scale. And indeed, it does. So what minor scale the answer, the harmonic minor scale. And what is a harmonic minor scale, the easiest way to think about and construct a harmonic minor scale, in my opinion, is to simply think of it as a major scale with a flat three, and a flat six. So the C harmonic minor scale would be C, D, E flat, F, G, A flat, and right, so we'll take our major scale, flat, the three and flat, the six right flat three, flat six. Now, if we take the C harmonic minor scale, and spell it from the second note of the scale, in other words, the note D, then we get D, E flat, F, G, A flat, B, and C. Right, and if we take every other note of that mode, we get D, F, A flat C, which is a D half diminished chord, right, the two chord in the C harmonic minor scale. Likewise, if we spell the C harmonic minor scale, starting on the note G, the fifth note of the mode, we get G, A flat, B, C, E flat, F. And if we take every other note of that mode, we end up with G, D, F, which is clearly a G dominant chord. However, however, the scale from which the G dominant chord comes the C harmonic minor scale, that scale has an A flat, A flat, which is going to be the flat nine in relationship to the G seven, and an E flat, which is the flat 13. So technically, we have a G seven, flat nine, flat, 13 sound. Now that's a lot of theory real quick, right? But these two chords, the D minor seven, flat five, and the G seven, flat nine, flat 13. Make up the minor two, five, coming from the C harmonic minor scale. Now, let's take a look at the first mode of this scale. C, D, E flat, F, G, A flat and B. Okay, if we take every other note of this mode, we get C, E flat, G, and B. Wow. What is this? Well, this is what we call a C minor, major seven.

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I love it. It's a beautiful sound. So if the minor 251 was going to be theoretically correct, it actually would resolve to the C minor major seven, we'd have the D half diminished. Going to the G seven flat nine flat 13. Resolving to our C minor major seven beautiful. However, the minor 251 is rarely played. theoretically correct. In other words, it rarely goes to the minor major seventh sound. This is because the one chord is often played. You'll find it play is a pure minor sound, you'll even find it resolving to a major sound. And this is why I like to refer to the minor 251 progression as simply the minor two, five, because you'll find the resolution of this harmonic movement going to a variety of places. So Kevin, I actually think you have a pretty good handle on the minor two, five progression, I would encourage you to take the time to write out all 12 harmonic minor scales, right remember the major scale with the flat three flat six, formulate the two and five chords from each of the harmonic minor scales and begin practicing, playing the scale over the half diminished, and the altered five chord or the flat nine flat 13. It's a classic jazz sound that you will find in 1000s of jazz standards, including the one we are tackling today. No greater love. So this is a quick run through to the minor two five progression and I hope this helps. However, if you have additional questions or further clarification is needed. Kevin, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to spend some time with you answer any additional questions that you may have, and help you of course in any way that I can. Okay, let's discover learn to play jazz panel. Let's discover learn and play. There is no greater love. Okay, quick review of my outline for learning any tone. Again, the genre makes no difference. Whether it's jazz, rock, pop, country, folk, r&b, and so on. It makes no difference. Here's how I go about learning to tune number one I listened always listen, I listened to various artists, vocalist, instrumentalist, and of course, yes, pianist. Number two I determined for every song has a form. Is it a B, A Form A, B, A, B, A, B, a C, right? Every tune has a form, what's the form of the tune that I'm trying to learn? Then I learned chords and the voicings and the common harmonic progressions like 251145 and so on. Then I turned my attention to the melody right. And I learned that melody by ear and right from listening to various treatments, various artists, alright. And then finally, I explored various treatments and improvisation of the tune, right various treatments meaning like ballad approaches, the swaying grooves, Bossa Nova style. And again, like no greater love that we're going to look at today, you'll discover out there many, many treatments of this standard classic tune from ballads to very fast up tempo, bebop and swing grooves. So that's my outline, listen, determine form learn chords, voicings, learn melody, explore various treatments and improvisation. That's it and nothing more, nothing less. So, this week's harmonic analysis will have us of course, listening, determining form learning the chord changes, looking at the harmonic function and voicings, for there is no greater love. And next week, of course, we will focus on the melodic analysis. And in two weeks, our treatments are improvisation, right? As always, we're trying to keep things very structured and very organized. As I like to say very clean and tidy with our discover learn and play approach. Whether it's a skill study or attune study, right, it makes no difference. Our conceptual understanding of everything that we do musically must be structured must be simple, so that it can be replicatable. Right? It can be repeated, managed, in other words, right? I've said it many times over the past four years. If your understanding of music or any musical skill is not structured, and sampled conceptually, right, then it's unorganized and confusing and if it's unorganized and confusing conceptually upstairs, I got bad news for you. You have no shot at executing it in your hands downstairs on the piano. Therefore, I strive very hard to keep our tune steady, very structured, simple, organized, and replicatable. So the educational agenda for today is as follows number one, we are going to begin part one to discover learning plain there is no greater love Number two, we are going to listen to a definitive recording of there is no greater love. Number three we will discuss the form of no greater love. Number four we will discover, learn and play the chord changes for no greater love. We will discover, learn and play the harmonic function of no greater love. Number six we would discover learn and play my suggested voicings for no greater love. Left hand shell voicings as well as two hand voicings. So, if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take a few minutes to download and print your podcast packets, right your illustrations your lead sheets in your play along so hit the pause button. download these packets, your membership grants you access to premium content for every weekly podcast episode, which of course includes all of the educational podcast packets, and I mentioned it every week. You should use these packets when listening to this episode. And of course, when practicing. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets in your hands, I want you to grab the lead sheets, right your lead sheets, you should have seven of them. lead sheet one diagrams the form of no greater love. lead sheet two identifies the unique chords that are found within no greater love. lead sheet three gives you the chord changes. Classic lead sheet for no greater love. lead sheet four provides you the harmonic function of no greater love. lead sheet five highlights six common progressions that we will use for your training purposes that are found within no greater love. lead sheet six diagrams, the left hand shell voicings that I use when playing No greater love and lead sheet seven our new addition for this month and moving forward. It provides you with the two handed voicings that I use when playing No greater love. So Wow. tons to dissect tons to get through today. So let's get after it. Let's get busy. What's the first thing we do when studying attune? As always? Right as we listen to it, because without question, listening to various renditions of attune is not only the first, but I believe it to be the most important step. I can't even imagine attempting to learn a tune before spending time becoming familiar with it, absorbing it. So I like to listen to different artists performing the two and typically, I turn to vocal renditions first, because vocalist typically not always, typically remain pretty true to the original melody. Right? Especially vocalist like Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Nancy Wilson, Dinah Washington who were about to listen to. Right, I turn to the and you know, what if I really want to get a very straightforward interpretation of the melody, I turned to folks like Andy Williams, Doris Day, Sammy Davis, Jr, Perry Como, some of those classic vocalist right entertainers, and then I'll turn my attention to instrumentalists horn players. And last but certainly not least, I turned to the pianist. But bottom line, right bottom line is I listened. And that's what we're going to do right now before going any further. So,

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as always right. Selecting the recording for these standards is always so difficult because there are just so many wonderful renditions to choose from. And there are a ton of great recordings for their will. There is no greater love. tons but one of my favorites is from one of my all time favorite vocalist Dinah Washington. And this is a live recording from 1957 recorded in Los Angeles. The album is Dinah Washington. It's Dinah jams. So I want you to grab your coffee as always, or your favorite beverage. I want you to get coffee, sit back and enjoy the great the one and only Dinah Washington. Singing No Greater Love. Enjoy this

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Wow, what a voice what a tune what a treatment. Like all great tunes, there is no greater love sounds great as a ballad, an up tempo swing and everything in between. Today, I'll be playing the changes of there is no greater love using a swing groove and a temple quite a bit faster, right? I'm going to do 140 today. So now that we know how this tune goes, let's explore those lead sheets right so I want you to grab lead sheet one. Let's take a look at the form of there is no greater love, which is 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 Visit jazz piano skills.com To learn more about membership privileges and become a jazz piano skills member. Thank you!