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
Fly Me to the Moon, Improvisation
Podcast Packets
Illustrations
Lead Sheets
Play Alongs
Jazz Piano Skills Community
Keywords
jazz piano, improvisation, transposition, music theory, jazz skills, Fly Me to the Moon, rhythmic challenges, melodic analysis, harmonic analysis, music education, jazz, improvisation, musical silence, tension notes, eighth notes, jazz piano, musical phrasing, lead sheets
Summary
In this episode of Jazz Piano Skills, Dr. Bob Lawrence guides listeners through the intricacies of jazz improvisation, focusing on the tune 'Fly Me to the Moon.' The conversation covers essential jazz piano skills, including harmonic and melodic analysis, improvisation development, and practical tips for transposition. Dr. Lawrence emphasizes the importance of a structured approach to learning jazz, highlighting the seven musical facts that underpin all musical endeavors. The episode also introduces rhythm challenges and encourages listeners to engage in paper practice to enhance their skills. In this episode, Dr. Bob Lawrence delves into the intricacies of jazz improvisation, focusing on the importance of silence, the realism of musical phrasing, and the challenges of playing eighth notes. He emphasizes the role of tension notes in camouflaging arpeggios and discusses the seven musical facts that underpin effective jazz performance. Through practical examples and lead sheets, listeners gain insights into developing their improvisational skills and understanding the nuances of jazz language.
Takeaways
Week three is dedicated to improving jazz improvisation skills.
The study of each tune involves harmonic and melodic analysis.
Improvisation skills challenge our ability to create melodic lines.
The seven musical facts are essential for understanding music.
Paper practice is crucial for developing transposition skills.
Transposing melodic ideas requires understanding sound and function.
Listening to various artists is key to learning a tune.
Self-imposed constraints help assess harmonic vision.
Quarter and eighth note strings are foundational for improvisation.
Everything we do in music should be approached musically. Silence is an integral part of musical expression.
Mathematical silence can enhance the realism of music.
Eighth notes present a new level of challenge in improvisation.
Random silence helps disguise bar lines in music.
Tension notes are essential for camouflaging arpeggios.
Practicing stationary strings is crucial for mastering rhythm.
The half step creates tension in musical phrases.
Understanding harmony melodically is key to improvisation.
The evolution of jazz language is vital for effective performance.
Engagement with the community enhances learning and growth in jazz skills.
Titles
Mastering Jazz Piano: A Journey Through Improvisation
Unlocking Jazz Improvisation Skills
The Art of Transposition in Jazz Piano
Exploring 'Fly Me to the Moon' in Jazz
Jazz Piano Skills: A Comprehensive Guide
Improvisation Techniques for Jazz Pianists
Sound Bites
"We work on developing our improvisation chops."
"Music is the production of sound."
"We do not need to do the entire 32 measures."
"Everything we do should be musical."
"You should be feeling the silence."
"It starts to sound more real."
"It starts to sound like musical phrases."
"It starts to look like legitima
Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.642)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Here we are, week three of January, January 2025. And of course, week three of every month is the week we dedicate ourselves to improving our jazz improvisation skills. Week one always begins with a harmonic analysis of a tune, followed up in week
two with a melodic analysis, and of course week three, this week we work on developing our improvisation chops. Our harmonic analysis of Fly Me to the Moon, as we do with every tune, explored form, changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, and of course voicings, left hand shell voicings, as well as two-handed structures. Our essential melodic skills study
always looks at the lyrics, melody, fingerings, phrases, and of course, various melodic treatments. And today, our improvisation skills will challenge our ability to create melodic lines using quarter, eighth, sound, and silence relationships decorated with, of course, tension.
Our three-week study of every tune that we dive into is pretty thorough and pretty impressive. and on top of all that, we've initiated a weekly rhythm challenge, a challenge that has us doing some transcribing, some transposing, and some transforming of our approach to melodic playing. Of course, the study and practicing of all these essential jazz piano skills
must be governed by a crystal clear thought process that simplifies music conceptually, so that we have a legitimate chance of developing it physically, right in our hands. Now we achieve this crystal clear thought process by making sure all that we do musically, conceptually, physically, plugs into
Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:57.142)
and adheres to the seven musical facts. And what are the seven musical facts? I'm glad you asked. Fact number one, music is the production of sound. Major, dominant, minor, half diminished and diminished sound. And sound is produced harmonically, melodically. I like to call
I like to call harmonic and melodic sound shapes, right? Three, fact three, when produced harmonically, we are playing chords, voicings. Fact number four, when produced melodically, we are playing scales and arpeggios. Fact number five, when playing scales and arpeggios, we are moving in one of two directions, up or down. Fact number six, we camouflage scales and arpeggios.
with tension. In other words, notes outside of the key center. And finally, number seven, to make musical facts one through six interesting, we add rhythm. Those are the musical facts. Those are it. Number one, music is a production of sound. Number two, sound is produced harmonically, melodically. Number three, when produced harmonically, we are playing chords. Fact four, when produced melodically, we are playing scales and arpeggios.
Fact five, when playing scales and arpeggios, we are moving in one of two directions, up or down. Fact six, we camouflage scales and arpeggios with tension, notes outside the harmony, notes outside the key center. And seven, to make musical facts one through six interesting, we add rhythm. That's it. And everything that we do, musically, conceptually, physically, must plug into, must adhere to those seven musical facts. In other words, we must
see what we are doing in relationship to those seven facts. If we reduce those seven facts down to key words, here they are sound, harmony, melody, chords, scales, arpeggios, up, down, tension, rhythm. Let me say that again. Sound, harmony, melody, chords, scales, arpeggios, up, down, tension, rhythm.
Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:23.31)
And this is precisely why we approach our tune study centering around the seven facts of music and using three very distinct tuned learning, what I call phases. Phase one harmonic analysis, phase two melodic analysis, phase three improvisation development. And then of course this year we are adding an emphasis to each of these three phases, which focuses specifically on fact number seven, rhythm.
How cool is all of this? It's awesome. and our rhythm each week. I have a rhythm challenge that is posted in our private jazz piano skills community. The harmonic rhythm challenge week one involves some kind of rhythmic transcribing and comping skills. The melodic rhythm challenge last week that we dove into involves transposing.
a motif to various key centers and the improvisation rhythm challenge that we will be doing today. It forces us to develop vocabulary, jazz vocabulary using quarter eighth note relationships that will literally transform our soloing because of our vocabulary development. Now this is why.
More than ever, I'm excited about this entire year 2025. We have an amazing, educationally sound three tier, three phase approach that is formulated from a very clear understanding of the seven facts of music. Seven facts needed to illuminate essential jazz piano skills needed to discover, learn and play tunes to play jazz. what a year this is going to be.
2025 is going to be a great year at Jazz Piano Skills. So today we tackle improvisation development. Today we continue to discover Fly Me to the Moon. We're going to learn how to build quarter and eighth melodic ideas using the changes from Fly Me to the Moon. And we're going to play quarter and eighth lines.
Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:45.638)
or the changes of Fly Me to the Moon using sound, silence, and tension. And of course, you will be given a rhythm challenge to develop your improvisation skills. 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're going to find this Jazz Piano Skills podcast lesson, exploring Fly Me to the Moon, improvisation development to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to, as I always do, welcome first time listeners to Jazz Piano Skills. If you're new to Jazz Piano Skills, you're new to the Jazz Piano Skills podcast, listening for the very first time, welcome. I want to invite you to become a Jazz Piano Skills member.
your membership will grant you many perks. For example, premium podcast content. You'll get to listen to the entire episode, right? The first half of every Jazz Panel Skills podcast episode is free for everyone, right? We deal with the question of the week. We lay out the educational agenda, the lesson rationale. And the second half of the podcast episode for members only, presents the lesson content, the video of the demonstrations.
And of course, the rhythm challenge is included in that as well. So as a member, get premium podcast content. You also have access to the weekly podcast packets that you can download and print and use when practicing. These are materials that are designed and developed for every weekly podcast episode, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs, or the backing tracks. As a member, you also have access to the online sequential
courses that are very comprehensive, interactive, self paced, sequential, tons of interactive learning media and of course video demonstrations of the Jazz Panel Skills in all 12 keys. Also, you have access as a Jazz Panel Skills member. You have a reserved seat in the weekly master classes, which are held every Thursday evening, 8 p.m. Central Standard Time. Of course, I know
Dr. Bob Lawrence (10:10.456)
That's not a great time for everyone around the world, but if you cannot attend the class, no big deal. The classes are recorded and you can check out and listen to the audio recordings as often as you wish, whenever you wish. So you also, as a Jazz Piano Skills member, have access to the online private Jazz Piano Skills community, which hosts a variety of episode specific forums, as well as general jazz forums.
tons of great member feedback and assistance as well within those forums. Great fun. And finally, as a Jazz Panel Skills member, you have unlimited educational support, private, personal, and professional, whenever and as often as you need it. You can reach out to me through SpeakPipe. There's a web form. My office number at the Dallas School Music, of course, is a convenient way to reach me, and as well, my email address. So
Anyway, as a member, premium podcast content, podcast packets, courses, master classes, private jazz piano community, and unlimited professional support. So all of these amazing privileges, these perks are waiting to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazzpianoscales.com. And of course, become a member to enjoy all of these perks that are waiting to help you.
Of course, if you have any questions, once you get to the website, poking around a little bit, please contact me. I'm happy to spend some time with you, answer any of your questions and help you in any way that I can. Okay, so on to our question of the week. And this week's question comes from Shannon Mason, Shannon Mason living in Henderson, Nevada. And Shannon writes,
I love the rhythm challenge each week and I too find it to be harder than anticipated. I had difficulty transposing last week's melodic idea to all 12 keys. I got it done and even recorded some of my playing but did not post the video in the forums. I am a scaredy cat. That's hilarious, right? Listen.
Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:30.956)
That's right. I told you last week, no scaredy cats at Jazz Panel Skills. You can post away. No, it's no scaredy cats. Okay, you're to get tons of support. So Shannon post away. Shannon goes on the right. What tips can you give to help me process, transpose melodic ideas to different keys, different chords so that I don't have to spend time working it out?
Thanks for jazz piano skills. have improved tenfold since joining last year. Wow. Shannon, great question. And I'm super proud of you. You know, the fact that you took I'm not proud of you for being a scaredy cat. All right, we'll work through that together. But anyway, I am super proud of you for the fact that you took time, time to working it out, as you put it. All right, which which means that
you actually experienced a ton of musical growth. Now I say this because the development of any jazz piano skill requires us to go through a working it out phase before it can become an instinctual muscle memory type of endeavor, right? So there's always a working it out phase. So all that to say that
you have taken the necessary first steps towards transposition being an actual oral experience as opposed to a mathematical working it out process. Okay, so congrats. Now, with that being said, here are some practical tips that I would offer to help you with your development of transposition skills. Number one,
you ready? Number one, paper practice. Huge. I've said it many times on many podcast episodes, that the practice that you do away from your instrument will be without questions, some of the best practicing you will ever do. And I call that paper practice. That's part of that working out process that you mentioned, right? So I would say to you,
Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:59.59)
when you do your paper practice, you know, sitting on your sofa, sitting at the kitchen table, sitting on the back porch, whatever, right, wherever you are. I would say, ask yourself, can I spell all 12 major scales? Can I spell them? Can I spell those major scales as easily as I spell my name? Right. So that would be the first step in paper practice, spelling of your major scales with
ease with ease. Those are your keys, right? So when I talk about scales, I talk about keys, those are synonymous terms. So knowing your keys is going to be a huge part of you being able to easily transpose. Okay. The same goes with spelling arpeggios, right? Harmonic structures that are found within those scales, right? The chord scale relationships, in other words. Do you know what the
one chord, the two chord, the three chord, four, five, six, and seven chords are of each major scale. Can you spell those chords with ease? Right? So that kind of paper practice that kind of time invested and spent studying away from the instrument is time very well spent. In fact, it's absolutely essential if you try to bypass that process.
which many people do, you find yourself running in place and never ever, ever getting better. Right? So you're kidding yourself if you think you can just bypass paper practice and just go to the instrument and sit at the instrument and make headway. Right? I've said this as well. It is very difficult to ascertain knowledge, process knowledge.
and apply knowledge simultaneously. Right? Think about that ascertain knowledge, process that knowledge, right and apply that knowledge simultaneously. And that's what most people do when they sit at the piano bench. They're trying to do all three of those things at the exact same time. Good luck. Good luck, right? So spend time away from the instrument where you can ascertain and process knowledge comfortably.
Dr. Bob Lawrence (17:23.668)
right? Then when you go to the keys, you're going to find that the application of that knowledge will be much quicker and much more efficient. So after you've done your paper practice, you get to the keys, I like to do an exercise I call I call it moving motifs, moving motifs, right? So you have a melodic idea like the one I presented last week for you to move around. And I would say before
before diving in and trying to move the motif, ask yourself a few questions. Number one, have what I call sound awareness. know, is this motif a major motif, minor, dominant, half diminished, diminished, right? That motif has a sound. What is it? Right? Be consciously aware of the sound of the motif. Likewise, be aware of the function.
right? For instance, like last week, that motif that I presented last week in the rhythm challenge, right? That was a minor motif, but it was Aeolian mode, right? It could have been Dorian, could have been Phrygian, right? But it was specifically Aeolian mode. So it's important to know where that sound is coming from, the function of that sound, that motif. doesn't exist. It doesn't enjoy autonomy.
right? It's coming from somewhere from some key from some scale. That's why the paper practice is so important. I would also then be aware of the motif, the entry point awareness, right? Knowing where is that within that sound? Where is that motif starting? So starting on the root, the third, fifth, the seventh, the ninth, the 11th, the 13th. Where does that motif sound begin within that sound?
Right. And likewise, then, what about the destination point of that motif? And where does it end? So, you know, this is all kind of part of the, you know, working out that you that you mentioned. But it's the type of working out that quickly. You process this, you get to a point where you're processing everything I'm talking about very, very quickly. And
Dr. Bob Lawrence (19:50.018)
much more so orally, as time goes on, there's a tipping point where it moves from a intellectual exercise to an oral exercise, right? It turns from being mechanical to artistic, but that takes time. And I would say to you, the paper practice that you spend, and then the intentionally moving motifs, you can take any little melodic idea from any tune,
and use that as the motif and then move that motif around being aware of the sound, being aware of function, being aware of the entry point and the destination point of that motif. If you do that kind of study, if you do that kind of practicing, you will find transposition becoming easier and easier and easier. So Shannon, great, great
question. And as always, right, if more clarification is needed, if you want to dive into this topic a little bit further, by all means, contact me. Do not hesitate to reach out. As always, I'm happy to spend some time with you and help you in any way that I can. But you are on the right track. Working it out is not a bad thing. It is a great thing. And I congratulate you on that. All right, so let's discover
Learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover, learn and play. Fly me to the moon. Let's do a little improvisation development. Okay, as always, when studying, when learning any tune, I approach it the same way. And again, genre makes no difference. Jazz, rock, folk, R &B, country, pop, makes no difference. I go about learning a tune the same way. First, most important, listen.
I like to listen to various artists. I always think of my listening list in three camps, vocalist, instrumentalist, and of course pianist. And within those camps, know, musicians from various genres as well, not just jazz musicians. So if somebody's playing Fly Me to the Moon, I want to hear it. I don't care what genre they consider themselves to be part of. Makes no difference. So I do a lot of listening.
Dr. Bob Lawrence (22:09.838)
After I listen, I do harmonic analysis, just like we did two weeks ago, where I'm looking at form and changes and function, common movement, voicings of the tune. Then I'll turn my attention to a melodic analysis like we did last week. I'll transcribe the melody. I don't learn it from a lead sheet. No, I transcribe the melody, learn it by ear. I check out the phrases. I like to look at
target notes within the phrases, explore various treatments, traditional jazz treatments like the ballad, bossa nova, swing. And then of course, I always then follow that up with some improvisation exploration or improvisation development like we're going to do today, right, which could involve some chord scale relationships, arpeggio and scale movement through the various sounds, and of course, tension. So it's
pretty thorough, pretty complete approach. It's the same approach that I use all the time. Listen, harmonic analysis, melodic analysis, improvisation development. So you know, this week we turn our attention to our improvisation development of Fly Me to the Moon. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we're going to, of course, listen to some definitive recordings of Fly Me to the Moon.
Number two, we will construct stationary quarter and eighth note strings through the changes of Fly Me to the Moon. Then number three, will insert intentionally, insert what I call mathematical and random silence into our quarter and eighth note strings. And four, we will then incorporate tension into our quarter and eighth note swing.
strings. So when we're done, when we're all done today, we will have experience the evolution of developing jazz improvisation language necessary for improvising. Okay. And, and that's thrilling. Because once you understand how to begin developing vocabulary, the sky's the limit. Now,
Dr. Bob Lawrence (24:32.01)
If you are a Jazz Piano Skills member, I just want you to take a few minutes right now, which hit that pause button. And I want you to download and print the podcast packets for this episode. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets, and the play alongs. And now again, right, your membership grants you access to the premium content for every weekly podcast episode, which of course includes all of the educational podcast packets. And I mentioned it every week that you
should have these packets in your hands when listening to the episode to get the most out of it and to maximize your musical growth. And of course, you should have these materials sitting on your piano when practicing. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets, I want you to grab as always, we start with our lead sheets. And in your lead sheet packet, you should have nine, nine lead sheets. I just want to walk through those very quickly.
Lead Sheet 1 is where I present a stationary quarter note, a stationary quarter note string. Lead Sheet 2, a mobile quarter note string, motion, quarter note string in motion. Lead Sheet 3, you'll see this is where we start to insert mathematical silence into the string. Lead Sheet 4, random silence we insert.
And then lead sheet five, turn our attention, lead sheets five, six, seven, and eight, we turn our attention from our quarter note strings to eighth note. So starting with lead sheet five, we have an eighth note string. Lead sheet six, you'll see their motion or mobile eighth note string. Seven, lead sheet seven, mathematical silence is inserted. Lead sheet eight.
Random silence is inserted within our string. And then finally, lead sheet nine, we put it all together. We see it all kind of come together. The quarter, quarter, eighth note combination line with tension added as well. So we got quarter, eighth notes, sound, silence, tension, right? Wow. So we had a lot to dissect to get through these nine lead sheets. And plus I have demonstrations for each one of these lead sheets to go through as well. So
Dr. Bob Lawrence (26:51.384)
Wow, we got, we got a ton to get done. So, you know, at this time, I usually would play a definitive recording of our tune, but I've moved the listening from the podcast episode itself. have moved the listening to the Jazz Panel Skills forums, community forums, right? And again, there are a couple reasons for this one. I want to be able to suggest more than one tune. So I have several that will be listed there that you can check out.
And then, of course, I also want to preserve as much time as possible within the episode for educational content for teaching. So head on over to the community at this time and spend some time before we go any further, spend a little time listening to the recordings that I've provided links for to enjoy Fly Me to the Moon. And once you've listened to my recommended recordings, grab your lead sheets and let's grab lead sheet one. OK, so here we go.
Lead sheet one. Lead sheet one. Quarter note string through the changes of fly me to the moon. Okay, and before we go any further, you can see that I have a quarter note string in lead sheet one that first eight measures the tune. I cannot stress to you enough that when you work on improv development.
