There Is No Greater Love, Melodic 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. week two, week, two of the month. And we all know what that means, right? It means that last week we did an extensive harmonic analysis of our tune of the month, which of course, is the great jazz standard, there is no greater love. But it also means that this week, we will do an extensive melodic analysis of there is no greater love. And next week in improvisation exploration, we have a tune study process, we surely do. And it's been set in place. And it feels great. Our harmonic study always analyzes the form of the tune. The standard chord changes the harmonic function, the common harmonic movement, and of course voicings, left hand shell structures, as well as two handed structures. Our Melodic Study, which we're going to do today has us learning the melody by ear of course, using target notes, phrases lyrics, and we'll also explore some fingerings. We then take a look at the melody and apply various treatments to digest it thoroughly. Without question our harmonic and melodic studies contain a ton of information that at times I know can feel very overwhelming, but I promise this process and all of the jazz panel skills within it will get easier and easier as we continue to march through the year and the years to come studying jazz standards every month. The bottom line is that there is a sequential order to learn how to play jazz piano and there is a sequential order to learn how to play tunes and this sequential order this process is stressed and experienced every month. How cool is that? Harmony form changes function harmonic movement voicings melody, ear training melodic target notes, phrases, lyrics, treatments, and improvisation chord scale relationships, common tones and zones arpeggio and scale movement, half step approachment. And of course tension. I mentioned last week that in previous weeks, that if you have been a faithful jazz panel skills listener for the past four plus years, you have become intimately familiar with the jazz piano skills needed to actually begin tune study. I also mentioned that if you haven't been grinding along with us over the past four plus years, no big deal right? No worries, this is a great time to jump on board and begin developing and enhancing your jazz piano skills. The tune study we are going to be doing every month will help you help you sift through and prioritize the last four years of podcast episodes so that you can begin maximizing your jazz piano skills immediately. So if you're a jazz piano skills veteran or jazz piano skills, rookie makes no difference. You you are in the right place at the right time to begin a jazz piano journey that will have a profound impact on your understanding of music, and of course on your jazz piano plane. So today, you're going to discover a melodic analysis of the jazz standard no greater love. You're going to learn melody guide tones fingerings phrases target notes of no greater love. And you're going to play three different melodic treatments of no greater love ballad Bossa swing. So as I always like to say regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner intermediate player and advanced player or even if you are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're gonna find this jazz piano skills podcasts less Send exploring no greater love to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to as I always do, I want to welcome first time listeners to the jazz panel skills podcast. If you are indeed a new listener if you're new to jazz piano skills, I want to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. Your membership grants you access to the premium content, not only for this podcast episode, but for every weekly podcast episode, and premium content will help you thoroughly and correctly discover, learn and play the jazz standard we are currently exploring, and so much more. For example, as a jazz piano skills member, you can access the past the current future educational weekly podcast packets, these are the illustrations the lead sheets. The play alongs are the backing tracks that I designed and developed to help you get the most out of every weekly jazz piano skills podcast episode. You also have access to a self paced and sequential jazz piano curriculum which is loaded with comprehensive courses containing educational talks, interactive learning media, video demonstrations and so much more. You also will have a reserved seat in my online weekly masterclass, which is held every Thursday evening, and if you can't attend the class, no big deal. Master Classes are recorded, and you can watch the video and rewatch the video of the class whenever and as often as you wish. As a jazz panel skills member you also have access to an online interactive Fakebook containing must know jazz standards with excellent chord changes chord scale relationships, harmonic function analysis, listening suggestions, historical insights. And as jazz panel skills member, you'll enjoy hanging out with some old jazz friends and making some new jazz friends in the online private jazz piano skills community, which hosts a variety of engaging forums. And finally, last but not least, your jazz panel skills membership grants you unlimited, private, personal and professional educational support whenever and as often as you need it. All of these amazing privileges are waiting for you wanting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So when you have a moment, check it all out at jazz piano skills.com. And of course, become a member to become to begin enjoying premium podcast content. And of course, all the other privileges that I just mentioned. Of course, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'm always happy to spend a little time with you answer any questions that you may have, and help you in any way that I can. All right. Speaking of questions, it's on to the question of the week. And this week's question comes from Winston smart living right here in Dallas, Texas. I love it. And Winston writes, Dr. Lawrence, I need your help. I am working on learning the traditional and contemporary shells and they are not sticking. What I mean is that no matter how much time I put into practicing them, it feels like I can't remember them. I must say it's more than a little frustrating. Are there specific ways to approach practicing voicings so that I am able to retain them and of course use them when playing? Thanks in advance for your help. Looking forward to your insight and tips. Winston, Winston Winston, my friend listen. I promise you you do not suffer from JR D. Which of course stands for jazz retention disorder. You do not suffer from JR D. In fact, what you are experiencing is 100% I want to repeat that again 100% Normal. You are asking

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the million dollar question that everyone studying voicings is asking and of course is searching for the answer. The good news. I do have some insight and tips that will help you the bad news. It's going to take time, practice and patience, which I like to call grunt work. But let me offer you some tips. Tip number one, focus on one voicing type at a time. So you mentioned that in your question that you were working on your traditional and contemporary shells, right? So I would say focus on one voicing type at a time. Alright, so if you're trying to gain a command of traditional three note voicings, 379735 structures, and you're trying to gain a command of the contemporary chord voicings, then I would definitely pump the brakes, and pick one and only one to vote that your time to one voicing type. Right? All your time, all your energy, all your efforts should be devoted to learning that one voicing type. Right again, you want you get if you get too many variables involved, the waters begin to get muddy very, very quickly. So pick one voicing type and go to work. Okay, that's tip number one. Tip number two, focus on one shape at a time within the voicing type that you are tackling. For instance, if you are focusing on traditional shell voicings, pick either the 379 shape or the 735 shape. To study and practice. Again, we want to limit the number of variables options, when we are trying to solidify our musical our music, muscle memory, right. So pick one shape at a time within the voicing type that you are tackling that you're studying. That's tip number two. Tip number three, have a set list of exercises that you are using to help you gain a conceptual and physical mastery command of the voicing type and shape. For example, if I am practicing a traditional 379 voicing type, and shape, my list of exercises might look like this. Are you ready? Here we go. Exercise number one, I'd like using half step movement, ascending and descending from various entry points, right. So if I'm doing a 379 shape that I'm working on, I'll start with C major, going to D flat major, D major, right E flat major, and so on, work my way up. Now, I won't always start with C but but that's a good spot to start at least at the beginning, but I would have various entry points, I would ascend and descend using that three note shape. Okay, using half step movement. Exercise Number two, I would do the same shape. But now I would use maybe counterclockwise circle movement, right. So now I'm going to play my C Major 379 go into my F major 379 to my B flat major 379 and so on. Again, I would use various entry points don't always start with C. Right? In other words, you know, why not start with F or B flat? Right? How about starting on D flat or E or G and so on mix it up, right but move counterclockwise around the circle. Another exercise I would recommend is minor third movement. So, C Major 379 going to E flat major 379 G flat major 379 to a major 379 Right. So use that minor third or that diminished chord shape. So maybe use the C diminished chord as my pattern D flat diminished chord is another pattern. D diminished chord presents yet another pattern right so minor third movement. I love that. Another exercise I would recommend is using whole tone movement right. So we have two different whole tone scales, C Major 379 to D Major 379 to E major 379 to G flat major 379 and so on right or start with your D flat and move Move the note D flat and move in whole steps. Again, these are all just various ways to look at the data to look at the shape, that 379 structure, right moving in half steps, counterclockwise circle, movement, minor third movement, hotel, a whole tone movement. Another exercise I would recommend is lead sheet reading for randomization. Now, this can be lead sheets out of a fake book, you could use maybe the jazz standard collection from iReal Pro, it really makes no difference. You're wanting to get your hands on lead sheets that have chord changes. And what I would recommend doing is, if you're working on 379 Major shapes, then every chord change that I see I would pretend it's a major chord. So it's, it's given me a random list of chords to practice my 379 shape, right? So this is another great way to do it. And you can go lead sheet after lead sheet after lead sheet. Every letter that you see represents a major chord, play it as a 379. Okay. Yeah, and then I would say, paper practice, right? Paper practice. I'm going to talk about that a second. I practice all of these exercises in and out of time, right? Nothing wrong with what I call a think and do approach. Right one day thinking, do you actually just sitting at the piano, and you're playing these shapes, not in time, it's giving you time to think about it, and then do it, followed by maybe the next day, what I call time and context approach, where you're actually using a backing track, that you're creating an AI real pro or band in the box, whatever application you happen to be using, but you're actually creating an exercise where you have to put these shapes into time and context. Okay, so regardless of the approach that you choose, whether it's a think and do or time and context approach, be sure to pick one of the exercises that I just mentioned, and do that exercise. And that exercise alone for that day. Right. So you're not going to try to practice half step movement, counterclockwise circle, movement, minor, third movement, whole tone, movement, lead sheet, reading for randomization movement, right, you're not going to do all those in one setting, right pick one a day, one a day. Okay. And finally, I will close with this. I mentioned earlier paper practice, do not, under any circumstances do not neglect paper, practice. As the old saying goes, a picture is worth 1000 words. And I cannot begin to tell you how important it is for you to write out the voicings, write them out. Now I'm not talking about putting them on staff paper. I'm saying to write them out on good ol plain scratch paper. Something you grab out of the garbage cans makes no scratch paper, right. So you're gonna write 379 voicings, you're gonna say C major equals E, B, D, F major, A, E, G, B flat major equals D, A C, right? You're gonna do that for all of your major voicings are all your dominant my whatever, whatever sound you're working on, right? Do this when lying on your sofa, sitting at your kitchen table traveling in a plane waiting at the carwash you get my point right wherever you are. And you have time to kill, do paper, practice, paper, practice, paper practice, I cannot stress it enough.

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Okay, great. Question, Winston and I hope I hope these tips help and as always, if further clarification is needed, or if you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact me again. I am always happy to spend some time with you and help you in any way that I can. Okay, let's discover learn play jazz piano. Let's discover learn and play. No greater love a melodic analysis last We could present it as I always do my outline for studying and learning anytime and again, genre makes no difference. I don't care whether it's a jazz tune or your rock, favorite rock tune, pop tune, country tune folk, r&b, makes no difference. Here's how I approach it. And number one, I listen always listened to various artists vocalist, instrumentalist, and of course pianist, I listen to various renditions of the tune. Number two, I, I always start with determining the form of the tune, every tune has a form what is it is it a b a b, a b, what is then I like to turn my attention to learning chords, the harmonic structures, the voicings of those chords for that particular tune, I zone in on the common harmonic movement and progressions like 251, or one four or five, that are laced throughout jazz standards and pop tunes and country tunes and so forth. I then after I have the harmonic foundation in place, I turned my attention to the melody and I learned the melody by ear, I do not read it off any kind of lead sheet. I learned that melody by ear based on the various renditions of the tune that I am listening to. And then finally I like to explore as we will do today, I with no greater love, I like to explore various treatments, and then improvisation which we'll focus on next week. But that's it right I listened determined form, learn chords and voicings, learn the melody, explore treatments, and work on my improvisation. That's it, and nothing more, nothing less. Right Now last week we focused on gaining the harmonic familiarity and command of no greater love. So we listened we determined form we explored the chord changes, we looked at the harmonic function, and we looked at at left hand shell voicings and two handed voicings for no greater love. This week, today, we turn our attention to a melodic analysis of no greater love. Our goal always, is to keep things really clean, really tidy with our approaches, whether it's harmonic approach melodic approach, whether it's a scale study or tune study, right makes no difference, always clean, always tidy. Our conceptual understanding of all that we do musically must be structured, organized, and simple, so that it can be replicated over and over and over again, right, just exactly like we're doing with our tunes study. And y'all can attest to the fact that I've said it many times and will continue to say it many times. That if your conceptual understanding of music, or any musical skill is not structured, it's not organized, it's not simple, then it's unorganized. And it's confusing, and if it's an organizing confusing, conceptually, you're in trouble. You are in trouble. So if it's unorganized and confusing conceptually upstairs. The bad news is you have absolutely no shot zero chance of executing it in your hands downstairs on the piano. Therefore, I try very hard to keep everything very structured, very simple, very organized, very replicatable with our tune steady approach. So with that in mind the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we are going to begin part two a melodic analysis to discover learn and play no greater love. Number two, we are going to listen to a recording of no greater love. Number three we will analyze the melody of no greater love. Number four we will discuss the melodic fingerings for no greater love. Number five we will discover learn and play the melodic phrases of no greater love. Number six we will discover learn and play the melodic target notes of no greater love. Number seven we will discover learn and play the melody with voicings for no greater love and number eight we will discover learn and play three different treatments of no greater love. So as always, we have a ton to get done. Right so if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to hit the pause button right now take a few minutes to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs. And again 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 have these podcast packets in your hands when listening to this episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you want these materials these podcasts packets sitting on the piano when practicing. So if you're listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories such as Apple or Google, Spotify, I Heart Radio Amazon Pandora, that list goes on and on then go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com Jazz panel skills podcast.com And you will find the active download links for each of the podcast packets in the show notes or you can log into your jazz panel skills account and from your Dashboard, navigate to this episode, where you will find one convenient link to download all three podcast packets in one convenient bundle. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets in your hands, I want you to grab the lead sheets, the lead sheets and you should have a total of six different lead sheets. Six. Now lead sheet one provides you a great template for learning the melody of no greater love using using your ears of course. And of course the the bat lead sheet has the melodic guide tones to help you help you discover the melody okay lead sheet to provide you with the actual melody of no greater love that you can check your work against right. lead sheet three provides you with the fingerings used for the melody of no greater love and lead sheet for highlights. What seven phrases yes seven phrases that we'll use for developing the melody of no greater love. lead sheet five illuminates the target notes used for melodic and improvisational development. And then finally lead sheet six combines the melody with the voicings that we took a look at last week. Putting them all together for no greater love. No question about it right some invaluable tools to help us discover learn and play. No greater love. So let's get busy. What's the very first thing we do when studying and learning to tune? Right? We do it every every month. We do it every week, right? We listen. Because that should be the first thing we do. I stressed it. Last week I stressed that the weeks before that listening the various renditions of the attune that we are learning. It's not only the first but I believe the most important step. Again, I can't I can't imagine the tempting to learn a tune. Before spending a lot of time checking it out and listening to various artists perform that to me. I want to absorb every aspect of it that I possibly can. Now I typically listen to vocal renditions like we did last week we checked out you know the one and only Dinah Washington. After I listen to vocalist, then I like to turn my attention to instrumentalist and of course and then I'll turn my attention to pianist, right. So I kind of do it in that order. That's you don't have to do it like that. You can you can do it in any order that you like, it really makes no difference. The idea is to listen and to listen a lot. So like I said, last week, we listened to the one and only Dinah Washington a vocal rendition. This week, we're going to turn our attention to an instrumental rendition, kind of. In other words, it's a vocal slash instrumental combo. It's vocalist singing and performing as instrumentalist.

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So it's a twofer. Now, I thought, You know what, I have to do a little promotion on my alma mater. I don't do it enough. The University of North Texas which, which is without doubt, the greatest collegiate jazz program in the world period, in the world period. So I need to promote that a little more. promote my alma mater. So here is a version of no greater love performed by the UN T jazz singers back in 2017. So I want you to grab your cup of coffee, or your favorite beverage and just sit back and enjoy this remarkable and swinging rendition. All of this jazz standard no greater love check this out

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pretty amazing right I'm bad for which college kids my days at UNT T North Texas State back in my day. Were fantastic days such a great environment so many great memories and friendships all centered around jazz. Okay, better stop man or I'm going to be going down memory lane for for several hours so. Okay, so now let's explore those lead sheets. So grab lead sheet one. Let's discover how to properly begin learning the melt We have no greater love using our 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.