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
Angel Eyes, 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 "Angel Eyes." In this Jazz Piano Lesson, you will:
Discover
The classic jazz standard, “Angel Eyes”
Learn
Melody, Guide Tones, Fingerings, Phrases, and Target Notes for “Angel Eyes”
Play
“Angel Eyes” 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 Angel Eyes.
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!
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 this past week, exploring the harmonic structure of the hauntingly beautiful standard Angel Eyes as always, right? We tackled many essential jazz piano skills. We looked at the form of Angel Eyes, the standard chord changes of Angel Eyes, the harmonic function of the Angel Eyes, common harmonic movement found within Angel Eyes. And of course, we looked at my suggested voicings for Angel Eyes, both the left hand shell voicings and the two handed structures right without question. This is a ton of information, but hopefully, hopefully, this process, each and every month, continues to get a little easier, right? This whole harmonic study, it's the same every month, different tune, same process. So hopefully it's getting easier. Since the start of the year, right? We have truly solidified a three tier approach to the study of of tunes, step one the harmonic study that we did last week, form changes, function, harmonic movement, voicings, right? This week, we take step two of that process, which is a thorough study of the melody. And next week, of course, we take step three, which is our improvisation exploration, so harmony, Melody, improvisation, to me, it's a logical and sequential order that allows us to successfully discover, learn and play any tune successfully. You know, I mentioned last week that if you've been a faithful jazz piano skill listener for the the past four plus years, you've become, you've truly become intimately familiar with the jazz piano skills needed to begin tune study. And I also mentioned that if you haven't been grinding along with us over the past four years, it's no big deal. No worries. This is a great time to jump on board and begin, begin developing, begin enhancing your jazz piano skills. And the tune study that we are going to do every month that we've done started since January, will actually help you sift through and prioritize the last four years of podcast episodes so that you can begin maximizing your jazz piano skills right now, immediately or or your jazz skills, right? You know, I got to be careful, because we have guitarists listening to jazz piano skills. We have violinists listening to jazz panel skills. We have cellists listening to jazz piano skills. We have we have saxophone players and flute players and trumpet players. So I always mention jazz piano because the podcast is called Jazz panel skills. But I realize there are jazz musicians in general listening, so this three tier approach, believe it or not, regardless of the instrument, is beneficial to all of us regardless of our instrument, right? So even if you're a jazz panel skills vet or your jazz panel skills rookie, regardless of the instrument, you were in the right place at the right time to begin a jazz piano journey, or jazz instrument journey, that will have a profound impact on your understanding of music and your understanding of jazz period. So today, you're going to discover a melodic analysis of the jazz standard, Angel Eyes. You're going to learn the melody. We're going to look at guide tones, fingerings, phrases, target notes, all found within Angel Eyes. And we're going to play three different melodic treatment of Angel Eyes, our treatments that we always explore, ballad treatment, followed by a bossa nova treatment, followed by a swing treatment. 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 consider yourself a seasoned and experienced pro, you know you're gonna find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring Angel Eyes to be very beneficial. But before we jump in, before we get started, I want to, as I always do, I want to welcome first time listeners to jazz piano skills. And if you are a new listener to the jazz panel skills podcast, 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 for this podcast episode and for every weekly podcast episode, the premium content will help you thoroughly and correctly discover, learn and play the jazz standard that 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. Now these are the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs or backing tracks that I design and develop for every weekly podcast episode to help you get the most out of every weekly podcast episode. Now you also have access to a self paced and sequential jazz panel curriculum, which is loaded with comprehensive courses, all of the courses containing educational talks, interactive learning media to help you digest the concepts. Conceptually, there are video demonstrations of the skills and all 12 keys and so much more. You also, as a jazz panel skills member, have a reserved seat in my online weekly master class, which is held every Thursday evening, and if you can't attend, if Thursday evening is bad time, well, it's no 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, as a jazz panel skills member, to an online interactive fake book which contains must know jazz standards, all of them with excellent chord changes. The chord scale relationships are mapped out. Harmonic function analysis is done. There are listening suggestions and, of course, historical insights for each tune, as well as a jazz panel skills member, you can hang out with old jazz friends and make some new jazz friends in the online private jazz piano 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 of these amazing 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 jazz piano skills member to begin enjoying the premium podcast content, plus all of the other privileges that I just mentioned. Of course, if you get to the website and you have some questions after you poke around a little bit, do not hesitate to contact me. Reach out to me. I'm I'm happy to spend some time with you and answer any questions that you have and help you in any way that I possibly can. Okay, so let's go on to the question of the week. And this week's question comes from Cliff Poole, living in Baltimore, Maryland. Now Cliff writes My ears are terrible. In fact, I think I may be tone deaf. As hard as I try, I have difficulty identifying various intervals, Major, second, minor, third, perfect, fourth, etc. I use a variety of ear training apps, but to no prevail. If anything, the apps make me feel terrible because I miss so many of the intervals. Am I a lost cause? Or do you have any advice or tips that can help me truly develop my ears so that I can identify what I am musically hearing? Wow. Okay, Cliff, first thing I want you to step away from the ledge. Okay, step away. It's going to be okay. I promise proper ear training is going to be much less painful than the jump. So please, slowly step off the ledge. Let's talk let's talk this through. Okay, my first bit of advice cliff, my very first bit of advice I want to give you is that you are not tone deaf, right? I hear this all the time from students, okay, you are not tone deaf. Here's a little test to prove that you are not. Number one answer yes or no to these following questions. Number one, can you identify a police car siren? Yes or no. Number two, can you identify the sound of a helicopter? Yes or no. Okay, now here's a couple tough ones. Here are the tough questions of the quiz. Number one, can you identify a big dog barking, a big dog barking? Number two, can you identify a little dog barking? Me, right. So cliff, if you answered yes to these four questions, that you are capable of hearing a police car siren just by hearing it. You don't have to see it. You just hear it. You're capable of identifying the sound of a helicopter whether you see it or not. You're capable of differentiating between a big dog barking and a little dog barking. If you've answered yes to those four questions and Cliff, I got great news for you, bud.
You're not tone deaf. Wow, imagine that, right. So look, that's the first bit of advice. Now the second bit of advice that I want to give you regarding ear training is stop approaching it academically. Put down your phone and stop using the apps. Now I'm not saying that the apps are off or that that they do not have some type of value, right? Okay, but if you want to develop your ears, then I would just suggest doing so, using your instrument and not some electronic device feeding you an electronic pitch instead. Let's deal with the real thing, right? Let's deal with the instrument. Let's use music to develop our ears instead of a phone or a tablet. And this is precisely why we learn melodies at jazz piano skills, right? We learn melodies of tunes using our ears while, while sitting at the piano, right? We sit at the piano and we start poking out a melody. And I literally mean poking out a melody, right? So listen to this very carefully, listen to this very carefully cliff. You ready. It is not the finding of the correct note that develops your ear. It is the poking around that develops your ear. So let me say that again, it is not the finding of the correct note that develops your ear. It is the poking around that develops your ear, right? So, in other words, in other words, if you, if it takes you 10 tries to find the correct note, it is not the 10th time that produces the ear training growth. It is actually tries one through nine where the magic happens. It is tries one through nine where the ear is growing, processing and developing its ability to hear distance, to hear relationships. You know, so often we have it backwards. We think the number of failed attempts when poking around to find a note somehow indicates a flawed ear, which actually could not be further from the truth, those failed attempts is where the ear is working. The ear is exercising. The ear is growing. So I tell students all the time, hey, celebrate your failed attempts, because one day, one day they they will be a thing of the past. So enjoy them while you can right. Well, at least most of time right. That is because the truth of the matter is, our ears are in a constant state of development, and sometimes we hear something incorrectly. I speak from experience, and as I like to say, Hey, babe, Ruth didn't hit a home run every time he stepped to the plate, right? So with that being said, Cliff, I would encourage you to start slow. To start slow. Pick some folk tunes or nursery rhymes to begin poking out the melody. You know something like Yankee Doodle or three blind mice or happy birthday or Jingle Bells, right? Something you're familiar with that you can you already know the melody. It's ingrained in you. You've heard it your whole life. You know it, right? Sit at the piano or with your instrument and begin right. Select a starting note. Makes no difference, just pick a note, select a starting note and begin the process of poking around and try to find the melody of Yankee Doodle or three blind mice or happy birthday or Jingle Bells. Right. Poke around. Out and do not, I repeat, do not count the number of attempts before you get it right. Who cares right? Who cares how many times it takes you to get it right? The more wrong guesses means, the more growth. So congratulations. It's fantastic. So cliff, this is, this is the absolute best advice I can give you regarding this, step away from the ledge, put down the apps, sit at the piano and begin poking out melodies. You will soon begin to hear and recognize distance and relationships instead of academic terms like major second, minor, third, and so on. So great question cliff. I know many other folks have the exact same question. I deal with it all the time, and I hope my answer provided you with some insight to how, at least, I believe, to properly approach melodic ear training. If additional insight is needed, as always, do not hesitate to contact me. I'm happy to discuss it further with you, and happy to help you in any way that I can. Okay, let's discover, learn and play jazz piano. Let's, let's discover, learn and play Angel Eyes, a melodic analysis. You know, every episode I take a second to present my outline for studying and learning a tune. I'm going to do it again today, right? Because it's that important, right? And genre again, makes no difference to me. When learning a tune, I don't care whether it's a jazz tune, a rock tune, pop, country, folk, R and B, it makes no difference. I approach it the same way always. Number one, I listen. I love listening to various artists from various genres. Whether it's vocalist, instruments, instrumentalist or or pianist. Makes no difference. I listen to as many artists as I possibly can, to absorb the tune as much as possible. And number two, when listening, doing all that listening, I like to determine the form of the tune. What is the form of this tune? Is it classic? A, a B, A? Is it a b, a b? Is it an A B, a C. I mean, every tune has a form, right? What's the form of the tune? After I have done my listening, I've determined form. I because I'm a pianist, I love to, I love to attack the harmonic structure of the tune. What are the chord changes? Right? What am I hearing? Two, five, ones, one, four, fives, 36251, what if common changes, common harmonic motion progressions that I'm hearing within the tune. After I have the harmonic structure of the tune, I then turn my my efforts to learning the melody, poking it out.
Just flip you get that. Poking it out. I'll poke out the melody right? And then finally, after I have the melody under my fingers, then I explore playing that melody a variety of ways, different treatments. In other words, I like to play melodies as a ballad. I like to play them as a bossa nova. I like to play them as a swing with a swing groove, so various treatments of the tune. So that's it, right? That's my outline. Nothing more, nothing less. I listen, determine form, learn the chord changes, voicings, poke out the melody, explore various treatments and then improvise. Right? Last week, we focused on harmonic familiarity and a command of Angel Eyes. And so we listened. We determined our form. We explored chord changes, harmonic function and voicings. Now this week, we turn our attention to the melodic analysis of Angel Eyes. Our goal, right? Whether it's the harmonic analysis or melodic analysis or improvisation, right? Our goal always is to keep things really clean and tidy with our approach. And again, it makes no difference whether it's a skill study or tune study. We want things to be clean and tidy. Our conceptual understanding of all that we do musically must be clean and tidy, must be structured, must be simple, so that it can be replicated over and over again, so we can develop it physically, right? If a concept or tune is confusing and foggy and unclear upstairs, I got, I promise you conceptually, if it's a mess, conceptually, you can sit at the piano all day, every day, and it's going to be messy there as well, right? So you all can attest to the fact that I say it many times over and over, that if your conceptual understanding of music or any musical scale is not structured or simple, then it's unorganized and confusing. And if it's unorganized and confusing, conceptually upstairs, you have zero shot of executing it in your hands downstairs on the piano, that's. Is just fact. It's fact. Therefore we must, must have a process of tune study or skill study that is structured, organized, simple and, of course, replicatable. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we begin part two, a melodic analysis to discover, learn and play Angel Eyes. Number two, we are going to listen, as always, to definitive recording of Angel Eyes. Number three, will we will learn the melody of Angel Eyes. We will poke it out. Number four, we will discuss the melodic fingerings for pianists, melodic fingerings for Angel Eyes. Number five, we will discover, learn and play the melodic phrases found within the melody of Angel Eyes. We will discover. Number six, we will discover, learn and play the melodic target notes within those phrases of Angel Eyes. Number seven, we will discover, learn and play the melody, the melody with the voice. Scenes that I presented last week with our harmonic analysis right our shell voicings. We're going to place those voicings underneath the melody, see how those two sound together. And then finally, number eight, we will discover, learn and play three different treatments of Angel Eyes, a ballad, a bossa and a swing treatment. Okay? So, as always, we have a ton to get through, a ton to get done. So if you are a jazz panel skills member, I want you to take a few minutes right now, hit the pause button, and I want you to download and print your podcast packets. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play logs again, right? Your membership grants you access to the premium content for this episode and for every weekly podcast episode, right? And I mention it every week that you should have these podcast packets, this material, in your hands when listening to the episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you need to be utilizing them when practicing as well. So if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories, and there are a gazillion of them, Apple, Google, Spotify, I Heart Radio, Amazon, Pandora and so on, then I would suggest going directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com 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 just log into your jazz piano 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, I want you to as always, I want you to grab your lead sheets. We're going to explore those today, and you should have six lead sheets. Six in your podcast packet. Lead sheet one provides you with a great template for learning the melody, for poking out the melody of Angel Eyes, using your ears, right? And it has some help on that lead sheet from the lyrics to help you as well. Lead sheet two provides you with the melody for Angel Eyes. Lead sheet three provides the fingerings that I use when playing the melody of Angel Eyes. Lead sheet four highlights various phrases that we will use for practicing the melody of Angel Eyes. Lead sheet five illuminates the the critical target notes used for melodic playing and improvisational development as well. And finally, lead sheet six combines the melody of Angel Eyes with our left hand shell, voicings that we explored last week. Okay, so six really essential lead sheets that are going to help us thoroughly digest the melody of this great standard, right? So no question about it, some invaluable tools right to discover, learn and play today, so let's get busy. So what is the very first thing we do? Very first thing that we do each and every week when studying and learning a tune. We did it last week. We did it last month. We did it the month before that, and so on and so on, what is it we listen, right? Because, not only is it the very first thing we do, I actually think it's the most important thing to do, right? We listen, as I've already, already mentioned. You know, I typically listen to vocal renditions, renditions of the tune first. Followed by instrumentalists, followed by pianist. Right bottom line, I listen, and I do a lot of it when I'm learning a tune, and that's what we're going to do right now, right before going any further now, last week was pretty cool because we checked out the composer of Angel Eyes mass Dennis performing this classic. We don't, we don't often get a chance to do that. That's really neat to listen to the actual composer perform the standard. And so last week, we checked out Matt Dennis performing playing and singing Angel Eyes. Now this week, we turn to an instrumental treatment, and I have selected a version performed what, what could easily be argued with no question about it could easily be argued the greatest jazz group of all time, and that I'm talking about the modern jazz quartet. Now, this is taken from an album called fontessa, recorded in 1956 1956 and it features Milt Jackson on the vibes. I love it. Vibes, beautiful. So as always, I want you to grab your your favorite beverage. I want you to sit back and I want you to enjoy this iconic group, the modern jazz quartet performing Angel Eyes. Check This out. You.
Wow. Pretty amazing. The modern jazz quartet, Milt Jackson on the vibes. We got John Lewis on piano, Piercy Heath on bass, Connie K on the drums. What a group, if you're not familiar with the modern jazz quartet, become familiar with them. Create a Spotify playlist. Whatever start listening it's they are. They were fantastic. And as with all recordings, right, the more you listen to it over and over again, every time, every time you do, you'll hear something new. And man, I'm telling you in that cut right there, you'll hear something new every time. And of course, it will have a profound impact on the development of your very own treatment of the two. So again, the modern jazz quartet, Angel Eyes, 1956 so now let's explore those lead sheets, right? So grab lead sheet one. Let's discover how to properly begin learning the melody of Angel Eyes using 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 jazzpanelskills.com to learn more about membership privileges and become a jazz piano skills member. Thank you.
