Jazz Piano Skills
A podcast introducing aspiring Jazz Pianists to essential Jazz Piano Skills. Professional Jazz Piano Lessons by Dr. Bob Lawrence, President The Dallas School of Music
Jazz Piano Skills
Have You Met Miss Jones, Melodic Analysis
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills; it's time to discover, learn, and play Jazz Piano!
Every Jazz Piano Skills weekly podcast episode introduces aspiring jazz pianists to essential Jazz Piano Skills. Each Podcast episode explores a specific Jazz Piano Skill in depth. Today, you will discover, learn, and play "Have You Met Miss Jones." In this Jazz Piano Lesson, you will:
Discover
The classic jazz standard, “Have You Met Miss Jones”
Learn
Melody, Guide Tones, Fingerings, Phrases, and Target Notes for “Have You Met Miss Jones”
Play
“Have You Met Miss Jones” using three different treatments, tempos, and grooves
Use the Jazz Piano Podcast Packets for this Jazz Piano Lesson for maximum musical growth. All three Podcast Packets are designed to help you gain insight and command of a specific Jazz Piano Skill. The Podcast Packets are invaluable educational tools to have at your fingertips while you discover, learn, and play Have You Met Miss Jones.
Open Podcast Packets
Illustrations
(detailed graphics of the jazz piano skill)
Lead Sheets
(beautifully notated music lead sheets)
Play Alongs
(ensemble assistance and practice tips)
Educational Support
Community Forum
SpeakPipe
Episode Outline
Introduction
Discover, Learn, Play
Invite to Join Jazz Piano Skills
Lesson Rationale
Exploration of Jazz Piano Skills
Conclusion
Closing Comments
Visit Jazz Piano Skills for more educational resources that include a sequential curriculum with comprehensive Jazz Piano Courses, private and group online Jazz Piano Classes, a private jazz piano community hosting a variety of Jazz Piano Forums, an interactive Jazz Fake Book, plus unlimited professional educational jazz piano support.
If you wish to donate to JazzPianoSkills, you can do so easily through the Jazz Piano Skills Paypal Account.
Thank you for being a Jazz Piano Skills listener. I am pleased to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano!
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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, I hope everyone enjoyed last week exploring the harmonic structure of the great standard. Have you met Miss Jones? And as always, we tackled many essential jazz piano skills. We looked at the form of Have you met Miss Jones, the standard chord changes of Have you met Miss Jones? The harmonic function of Have you met Miss Jones, the common harmonic movement found within Have you met Miss Jones. And of course, we looked at my suggested voicings, for Have you met Miss Jones, left hand shell voicings as well as two handed voicings. Right so without question a ton of information that hopefully gets easier and easier every month with every new harmonic study that we do. You know, I've mentioned on several occasions that there is a sequential order to learning how to play jazz piano, which indeed there is. There's also a sequential order to learn how to play tunes. step one. Step one is all we studied last week, right all the form that changes the function, harmonic movement voicings, right all things harmony. This week, step two, a thorough study of melody and melodic analysis. And next week, step three will happen a deep dive into improvisation, using have Have you met Miss Jones as our as our template. So harmony melody improvisation, no doubt a sequential order allowing us to discover learn and play tunes successfully. You know, I mentioned that every week 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 successfully begin tune study. Now I've also mentioned that if you haven't been grinding along with us over the past four plus years, no worries, no sweat. This is a great time to jump on board, begin developing and enhancing your jazz piano skills. The tune study that we do every month will help you sift through and prioritize the last four plus years of podcast episodes so that you can begin maximizing your jazz piano skills right now. So if you're a jazz piano skills veteran, fantastic jazz panel skills, rookie not a problem. You're in the right place the right time to begin the jazz journey that will have a profound impact on your understanding of music and of course, on your jazz piano plane as well. So today, you are going to discover a melodic analysis of the great jazz standard. Have you met Miss Jones, you're going to learn melody guide tones fingerings phrases target notes of Have you met Miss Jones, and you're going to play three different melodic treatments. Of Have you met Miss Jones ballad Basa 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 consider yourself a seasoned and experienced professional, you're gonna find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring Have you met Miss Jones 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're a new listener, if you're new to jazz panel skills new to the jazz panel skills podcast, I want to welcome you and I want to invite you to become a jazz panel skills member. Your membership grants you access to the premium content for this podcast episode and for every weekly podcast episode. premium content will help you thoroughly and correctly discover learn and play the jazz standard we are currently exploring and as the old saying goes a whole lot more. So for example, as jazz panel skills member you have access to the past current and future educational weekly podcast packets. These are the illustrations the lead sheets, the play alongs that I design and develop to help you get the most out start of every weekly jazz panel skills podcast episode. Now you'll also have access to a self paced and sequential online jazz piano curriculum which is loaded with comprehensive courses containing educational talks interactive learning media, there are video demonstrations of the jazz panel skills in all 12 keys and a ton more. You will also have a reserved seat as I like to say in my online weekly master classes, which are held every Thursday evening. Now if you can't attend, it's no big deal. It's not a problem because the master classes are recorded. And you can watch and rewatch the video of the class whenever and as often as you wish. You also have access to an online interactive Fakebook containing must know jazz standards. All the standards have excellent chord changes, chord scale relationships are highlighted. harmonic function analysis is explored listening suggestions and historical insights as well. As a jazz panel skills member you can hang out with old friends and make some new friends in the online private jazz panel skills community, which host a variety of engaging forums. And finally, as a jazz panel skills member your premium membership grants you unlimited, private, personal and professional educational support whenever and as often as you need it all have 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 become a member to enjoy premium podcast content. And of course, all of the other privileges that I just mentioned. Of course, if you have any questions once you get to the site poking around, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'm always happy to spend some time with you answer any questions that you may have, and help you in any way that I can. Okay, on to the question of the week. This week's question comes from Dolly Hogue. Living in Madison, Wisconsin. Love that area. Dolly writes. I am a jazz piano skills member and have been listening to your podcast for a couple of years now and have learned a ton. But I must confess, I still have a hard time learning melodies of tunes simply by using my ears. I know this is a jazz sin, but are they? okay with it? I know this is a jazz and but are there any fake books that you recommend that I can use to quickly play tunes without having to devote time to learning the melody by ear? All right, daddy, great question. Not a jazz person, not a jazz singer at all. But first of all, thanks for being a jazz panel skills member. And thanks for being a faithful listener to the jazz panel skills podcast. I appreciate it very much. I want you to know that I know exactly. How you feel about wanting to simply open a book. See chord changes, play chord changes, see melody, play melody. And I will go on record as saying there is absolutely nothing wrong. There is nothing sinful about that at all. In fact, I think having some books handy. I think having some books that you can turn to in order to play through a bunch of tunes for fun is a great idea. And truth be known. By thumbing through various books. I have introduced myself to tunes that I did not know I had no idea existed existed. When playing through tunes and various fake books, I felt like I always felt like I was on a treasure hunt and could find some gold at any moment. So Dolly, nothing wrong with wanting to have some good books by your side that you can turn to for some fun. So yes, I have some recommendations, fake book recommendations that I'm happy to share with you. Number one, I think any of the real books, you know, the the real books get bashed around a lot. I get it. I know. Right that there's inaccurate chord changes, wrong melody notes, typos. You know, I make typos all the time so I get it. So, but the real books now that are published by Hal Leonard, I think have been cleaned up quite a bit. And overall a pretty good collection of of tones and in Pretty accurate changes, basic chord changes and pretty accurate melody lines. So I think if you go to Amazon, you do a search for real books, jazz real books, I think, I don't know, there's several different ones out there now.
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I think any of those Dali that you that, you know you're attracted to that looks good. I think any of those will be will be great to have at your side. Okay, so the real books published by Hal Leonard, check them out Okay, number two, there's a series of fake books by Frank Mantooth. And I'm not sure if they're still in print or not they may be or you may be able to find them used books use collections of this of this series, but the Frank Mantooth series and I believe there are like 5456 books in the collection. But they all have a title like best chord changes for greatest standards, best chord changes for best standards, best chord changes for the best known standards. Best chord changes for the most requested standards, right. So it's, I think Frank was just running out of titles, but but that series is a really good series, Frank Mantooth was an awesome jazz pianist, and a North Texas Un t North Texas State guy. Great book, great books, great towns, great chord changes, great melody, and he has substitute changes notated in those books as well. So if you can find or get your hands on the Frank Mantooth series, like I said, it's there's like four or five, six books in that collection. Any of those books dolly would be fantastic to have on the shelf or have sitting on your piano that you can easily grab the play through some songs for fun. Likewise, there's a collection of of tunes. There's a book by Dick Hyman Dick Hyman one of my favorite pianist DICOM and Fakebook. I think it's called professional chord changes, professional chord changes and substitutions for 100 tunes, every musician should know. So these are like classic standards. Classic, you know, like from the Great American Songbook, Dick Hyman. And I'm not sure if that books in print either. But you should be able to possibly find a use book used book the common book out there somewhere on the internet. Again, it's Dick hymens professional chord changes and substitutions for 100 tunes every musician should know. And then for Finally, any of the Jamie aber saw play alongs collections. If you go to the Jamie aber saw website in and start looking through all his play alongs. They're just collections of standards, one book after another book after another book. And of course, with the Jamie aber saw books, the chord changes are going to be solid, the melodies are going to be accurate, going to be very, very good. So again, I think, you know, those four, great place to start the real books published by Hal Leonard, the Frank man tooth series. Again, I believe there's like four to five, six books in that series, the Dick Hyman fake book, professional chord changes and substitutions for 100 tunes that every musician should know. And then, of course, any other Jamie aimersoft books. So Dolly, I think that's a great place to start. You can't go wrong, these books will provide you with a solid set of chord changes and an accurate representation of a melody. In other words, you'll have fun quickly playing through tunes that you know, and many that you do do know, that you don't know I should say and that you will soon discover right just like I did, playing through books. So when you are not up to doing the grunt work needed to learn tunes by ear, which I strongly recommend. Right? These books are great Ries are great resources right. And there's nothing wrong with this approach at all dolly and certainly there's nothing sinful about it that, you know, without question, there's musical benefit, actually a great musical benefit to reading through the chord changes and the melodies, reading, reading through the changes in the melodies. Right. In fact, an interview that I did with Ken Ellingson just a few weeks ago, we talked about the importance of becoming a functional reader being able to successfully read lead sheets, right? It's a jazz piano skill that you should absolutely 100% The data. So all of this to say, go for it, Dolly, check out those books and have some fun reading. Great question. And as always, if you want some additional guidance regarding various fake books, do not hesitate to reach out. Contact me. I'm always happy to help you in any way that I can. Okay, let's discover learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover learning play. Have you met Miss Jones? Part two, a melodic analysis. All right, I have mentioned several times my outline for studying and learning anytime, anytime, from any genre, right? Regardless whether it's jazz, rock, folk, r&b Pop, country makes no difference. Number one, I listen. I do a lot of listening when learning learning attune various artists, vocalist, instrumentalist, and of course pianist. I always determine form right away I want to know the architectural structure of the tune is it an A B, A Form A B, A, B, a BAC? Right, every tune has a form, I want to determine that form as quickly as possible. Once I have form I pay attention then to the chords, the harmonic movement, the progressions, like 251145, the various cadences that exist within the tunes, right after I've learned the chords, the voicings, then I'll turn my attention to the melody, right like we're going to do today. And then after I do a Melodic Study of a tune, then I will turn my attention to improvisation, various treatments and improvisation. And that's it right. I listen to turn form learn chords, voicings, learn melody, explore treatments and improvisation. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Right. In the last week, we did our harmonic analysis. For Have you met Miss Jones. So we listened we determined the form we checked out the chord changes the harmonic function, and of course, the voicings. This week, we turn our attention to the melodic analysis of Have you met Miss Jones. And our goal, always whether it's harmonic analysis, melodic analysis, improvisation, our goal always is to keep things really structured, really organized, as I like to say, really clean and tidy. Right, and this goes for whether we're doing a skill study or tune study, right? It makes no difference, our conceptual understanding of all that we do musically, must be structured, it must be, it must be simple, so that we can replicate it right over and over again, process it and replicate it, y'all can attest to the fact that I say it over and over and over again. And I have done so for the past four plus years, that is your conceptual understanding of music of jazz, of musical skill, right? That's going to determine your, your physical development. And so if your understanding is not structured, it's not simple, then it must be unorganized and confusing. And if it's an organizing and confusing, conceptually upstairs, you have no shot of executing it in your hands on the piano downstairs. Right? Just a brutal fact. So it's so important
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that we keep our learning process our discovered learn and play process, very organized, very structured, very simplified, so that it can be replicated every single month as we have been doing since the start of the year with every single tune that we have studied that we have explored. So the educational agenda for today is as follows number one, we're going to begin part two a melodic analysis to discover learn in play Have you met Miss Jones? Number two, we are going to listen to a definitive recording of Have you met Miss Jones number three we will learn the melody of Have you met Miss Jones number four we will discuss the fingerings for Have you met Miss Jones number five we will discover learn and play the melodic phrases for Have you met Miss Jones. Number six we will discover learn and play them a lot of target notes of Have you met Miss Jones. Number seven we will play the melody with voicings for Have you met Miss Jones and finally number eight. We will discover learn and play three different treatments of Have you met Miss Jones so as always, right no surprise you We have a ton to get done. So if you are a jazz panel skills member, I want you to take a few minutes. Right now I hit the pause button, I want you to download and print your podcast packets. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets, and the play alongs. And again, your membership grants you access to the premium content for every weekly podcast episode, which of course includes all the educational podcast packets, and I mentioned it every week that you should have these podcast packets in your hands when listening to the episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you should have these podcast packets sitting on your piano when practicing as well. So if you're listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories such as Apple or Google, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Pandora, the list goes on, then I would suggest going directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com That's jazz piano 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 piano skills account. And from your Dashboard, navigate to this episode where you'll find you will find one convenient link to download all three podcast packets in one little nifty little bundle. Okay. All right. So now that you have your podcast packets in front of you, I want you to grab your lead sheets. That's going to be the focus of today. Of course the illustrations are some killer illustrations, worksheets to work through that will go along with the lead sheets. Those are going to be handy for you to utilize throughout the week. But today we're going to be focusing on the lead sheets. And you should have six lead sheets in your packet. lead sheet one provides you a fantastic template for learning the melody by ear. Right for Have you met Miss Jones, right with some help with some help from the lyrics. Okay. Number two, if you'll take a look at number two, it provides you with the melody with all the lyrics by the way notated in there as well. So you can see how that all syncs up. Number three, lead sheet three provides you with the fingerings that I recommend using for Have you met Miss Jones, and lead sheet for I highlight the various phrases that we're going to zero in on to help us quickly learn how to play Have you met Miss Jones, lead sheet five, I draw your attention to the target notes, the entry points and exit points of these phrases which are very helpful for not only just learning the melody, but very helpful when it comes to improvisation, which we will explore next week. And finally, lead sheet six combines the voicings that we took a look at the shell voicings that we took a look at last week with a harmonic analysis and actually combines it with the melody. So lychee six is nifty, right? You got the melody, and you got the voicings for the melody, as I'm planning. We'll be playing them in the demonstrations here and a little bit. Okay, so no question about it. Right, some invaluable tools, these lead sheets and valuable tools to help us discover learn and play. Have you met Miss Jones? So let's get busy. What is the first thing that we're going to do that we always do when studying and learning a tune? Correct. We listen, always listen to various renditions of the tune. Not only is it the first step, but I actually believe it's the most important step. Right? I can't imagine trying to learn to tune without spending time listening to various artists performing that tune. Right. And now as I mentioned, I typically listen to vocal renditions first. You know, last week we checked out Tony Bennett, singing Have you met Miss Jones? Then I followed up with instrumentalist, and then of course, pianist right now this week, we turn our attention to this is a great cut. This is a version of Have you met Miss Jones, performed by Herb Ellis, another North Texas guy. I love it herb Ellis and this was recorded in 1956 but the lineup of musicians on this recording is fabulous. Herb Ellis is a guitarist. We have Harry Sweets Edison on trumpet who is one of my all time favorite trumpet players. Jimmy Giuffre is woodwinds we got this guy named Oscar Peterson on piano and Ray Brown on bass and Alvin Stoller on drums. I love that trio. Anyway, we have horns we have a herb Alice playing guitar. And we have a killer rhythm section, piano bass and drums. So I want to listen to this before we go any further right? So as always, I want you grab your favorite beverage sit back. This is a little longer cut than normal, but I'm telling you, it's so worth it. It is so worth it. So grab your favorite beverage sit back and enjoy the very best of the best. This is Herb Ellis with a cast of all stars playing Have you met Miss Jones? Check this Out.
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Yes, indeed, does not get any better than that. And as always, I want to encourage you to listen, especially this tape, right? Listen to it over and over and over again. And every time you do I promise you're going to hear something new. You'll hear something that you didn't pick up on the last time and, and of course, in doing so it will profoundly impact the development of your own treatment of the tune. Alright, so now that we've listened to a killer rendition of Have you met Miss Jones, let's explore those lead sheets. So I want you to grab lead sheet one, let's discover how to properly begin learning the melody of Have you met Mrs. Jones? Thank you for listening to jazz camp 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.
