Wave, Harmonic Analysis

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Lead Sheets
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Jazz Piano Skills Community

Keywords
Jazz Piano, Essential Skills, Harmonic Analysis, Melodic Skills, Improvisation, Rhythm, Music Education, Jazz Standards, Wave, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Jazz, Piano, Wave, Chord Changes, Harmonic Analysis, Voicing Techniques, Music Education, Jazz Standards, Improvisation, Music Practice

Summary
In this episode of Jazz Piano Skills, Dr. Bob Lawrence introduces the essential skills needed for jazz piano, emphasizing a structured approach to learning tunes. He discusses the importance of harmonic, melodic, improvisational, and rhythmic skills, framed by the seven facts of music. The episode also explores the classic tune 'Wave' by Antonio Carlos Jobim, detailing the harmonic analysis and voicings used in the piece. Additionally, Dr. Lawrence addresses a listener's question about dominant voicings and highlights the benefits of membership in the Jazz Piano Skills community. In this episode, Dr. Bob Lawrence delves into the complexities of the jazz standard 'Wave' by Antonio Carlos Jobim. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the unique chord changes, harmonic functions, and voicing techniques necessary for mastering this challenging piece. The discussion includes practical tips for creating practice templates and the significance of analyzing harmonic progressions. Listeners are encouraged to engage with the educational content provided in the Jazz Piano Skills community and prepare for an in-depth exploration of the tune in upcoming sessions.

Takeaways

• A skill-centric approach is crucial for learning jazz tunes.
• Essential jazz piano skills include harmonic, melodic, improvisation, and rhythm skills.
• The seven facts of music provide a framework for understanding musical concepts.
• Transcribing melodies by ear is preferred over reading from sheet music.
• Membership in Jazz Piano Skills offers ad-free content and educational resources.
• Understanding voicings is key to playing jazz effectively.
• Listening to various artists enhances musical understanding.
• Harmonic analysis is the first step in learning a new tune.
• Improvisation development follows harmonic and melodic analysis.
• Engagement in the community fosters learning and support. The tune 'Wave' has a unique structure with extended A sections.
• Understanding unique chord changes is crucial for jazz improvisation.
• Creating a practice template helps focus on specific sounds.
• Harmonic analysis is essential for grasping the complexities of jazz standards.
• Voicing techniques vary and can include traditional and contemporary styles.
• The key of D major presents unique challenges in 'Wave'.
• Practicing ear training is important for recognizing harmonic movements.
• Jazz often substitutes chords for creative expression.
• The tune 'Wave' is considered one of the more challenging pieces.
• Engagement with the community enhances the learning experience.

Titles

• Unlocking Jazz Piano Skills
• Mastering the Essentials of Jazz Piano
• The Seven Facts of Music Explained
• Dive into 'Wave' by Jobim
• Benefits of Joining Jazz Piano Skills
• Understanding Dominant Voicings in Jazz

Sound Bites

• "It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano."
• "Music is the production of sound and silence

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 8:14 Discover, Learn, Play
• 9:40 Invite to Join Jazz Piano Skills
• 13:30 Question of the Week
• 22:54 Lesson Rationale
• 27:18 Today's Educational Agenda
• 31:36 Premium Content Message

Transcript

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.673)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Here we are, starting a new month, April 1st, April Fool's Day. And you know, start of a new month of Jazz Piano Skills means that we're studying a new tune. A new tune, but the same thorough, organized, structured, logical, skill-centric approach to studying.

and learning a tune. And why is it so important? Why is it so important to have a skill centric approach to learning a tune? Well, because tunes will demand that you have a command of essential jazz piano skills, right? The skills that are needed to successfully play tunes. You know, there is

There are simply skills that if you do not have a command of, you're not going to play any songs. It's just that simple. And the essential jazz piano skills that we take a look at each and every month with a new tune are exactly that. They are essential jazz piano skills needed in order to play a tune. Skills that you need to be comfy with conceptually and, of course,

physically. What are these skills? Well, there are harmonic skills, right? Harmony, your ability to play the sounds of music using various voicings, approaches like blocks and shells and two-handed structures, and your ability to recognize and understand harmonic function. Crucial. There are melodic skills that you need to have a command of, your ability to hear, determine.

and properly articulate melodies and phrases, which of course requires some mature technique, which of course requires good fingerings. And then there are the improvisation skills, your ability to correctly determine chord scale relationships so that you can play the sounds of music using the correct arpeggios and scales with, of course, ascending and descending motion. And then

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:55.073)
Finally, there are rhythm skills, your ability to play authentic jazz rhythms, which of course is dependent upon your command, the most important skill of all, the skill of time. So check it out, we have harmonic skills, melodic skills, improvisation skills, rhythmic skills, all placed in the context of time. Guess what we do every month here? We do exactly that.

We study harmonic skills, melodic skills, improv skills, rhythm, time, all in relationship to a tune. Wow. And it makes no difference what tune, right? It makes no difference. If we are incapable of executing the essential jazz piano skills that I just mentioned with proficiency, then honestly, you don't have to worry about playing tunes because you can't.

It's just that simple. You know, and that is why at Jazz Piano Skills we use tunes to illuminate the skills, right, especially what I call the grunt work skills that are needed to play jazz piano. And then we attack those skills. We start with a new tune every month in order to gain a new perspective of the essential jazz piano skills. A different tune, same skills, but a new perspective.

And wow, we're going to get a new perspective today with the tune that we are tackling this month. So we get a new perspective of the essential jazz piano skills through our harmonic analysis. We're going to get a new perspective of the essential jazz piano skills through our melodic analysis. We're going to get a new perspective of essential jazz panel skills through our improvisation development and, of course, our rhythm challenge every week.

our harmonic skills, melodic and improvisation perspectives, our rhythm challenge, that will present some new perspectives as well. You know what? Most importantly, most importantly, we need to see and understand the essential jazz panel skills in relationship to, here it comes, you know it's coming because we've been talking about it since the beginning of the year every episode, the seven facts of music.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:16.781)
I'm going to go through them again because they're that important. Fact number one, music is the production of sound. Sound and silence. Sound being major, dominant, minor, half diminished and diminished. Fact number two, sound is produced harmonically and sound can be produced melodically. Right? We have harmonic shapes. We have melodic shapes. Number three, when produced harmonically, what are we playing? We're playing chords. We're playing voicings.

Fact number four, when produced melodically, we're playing scales, we're playing arpeggios, which are melodies. That's what melodies are made up of, arpeggios and scales. In fact, number five, when playing arpeggios and scales, we are moving in one of two directions, up or down. And fact number six, we camouflage or we

embellish or decorate our arpeggios and scales with tension. These are the notes that are outside the key, often referred to as chromaticism. And then fact number seven, to make all of this interesting, facts one through six, to make all of it interesting, we add rhythm. Right? So everything that we do musically,

everything that we do should be framed by the seven facts of music. I stress it every week, every month, that if you are unable to see the essential jazz piano skills framed by the seven facts of music, then there is a high, a very high probability that you're running in place. In other words, you are not, you're just simply not accomplishing.

what you think you're accomplishing when you are practicing. Here at Jazz Panel Skills, we prevent that from happening. We take an essential skill and examine it harmonically and melodically. We use it to develop our improvisation and rhythm. And we see it and practice it governed by the seven facts of music. And in doing so,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:41.153)
We avoid falling into the trap of running in place, of being one dimensional with our understanding and application of any skill. So with all that being said, we continue our study of harmony, our study of melody, our study of improvisation and rhythm, using another classic jazz standard. And as always, our very first step is

always a harmonic analysis. So today, today you're going to discover a fantastic stand.

one of my favorites. It's one of my favorites. The classic Antonio Carlos Yobeam standard wave. You're going to learn the form, the chord changes, and the harmonic function for wave. And you are going to play wave using my suggested voicings, my left hand shell voicings, my

two-handed structures. And we're going to do that and look at the common harmonic progressions within WAVE. We're going to use those common harmonic progressions for ear training development. And of course, of course, you will be given a rhythm challenge to develop your transcribing and comping skills. Wow.

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 are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this Jazz Piano Skills podcast lesson exploring the great bossa nova wave to be very beneficial. But before we get started, before we jump in, I want to, as I always do, welcome

Dr. Bob Lawrence (09:46.719)
all of you first time listeners to Jazz Piano Skills. And if you are a new listener to Jazz Piano Skills podcast, you're new to Jazz Piano Skills, I want to personally invite you to consider becoming a Jazz Piano Skills member. And your membership grants you tons of perks. First and foremost, your membership helps keep Jazz Piano Skills 100 %

ad free, which has been my goal from day one, no ads, no ads, I want all education. So keep that in mind. But the perks for you. Number one, as a member, you have access to premium podcast content, which basically means you get to listen to the entire podcast episode. Now the first half of every podcast is free for everyone to enjoy. We

always deal with the question of the week, we lay out the educational agenda and the lesson rationale. The second half of the podcast for members only deals with the lesson content, the demonstrations and of course, the weekly assignments. You also as a Jazz Panel Skills member have access to the weekly podcast packets. Now these are designed and developed for every podcast episode. These are

the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs, or the backing tracks that are developed and produced for every weekly podcast episode to help you get the most out of each episode and to help you maximize your results in improving your jazz piano skills. You also as a Jazz Piano Skills member have access to the online courses. These are

comprehensive sound based self paced and sequential courses focusing on harmony, melody and improvisation development. Imagine that. You also as a Jazz Piano Skills member have a reserved seat in the weekly master classes that I hold every Thursday evening. That's 8pm Central Time. Now I know that's not a great time for everyone, but you know what?

Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:09.621)
master classes are recorded, video recorded, audio recordings that you can listen to and re-listen to as often as you wish. You also as a Jazz Piano Skills member of access to the private online jazz piano community, which hosts a variety of forums. There are episode specific forums, general jazz forums, and it's a great place to give and receive

feedback and assistance. You also, as a Jazz Panel Skills member, have unlimited educational support, private, personal and professional support. Wow, so a lot of great perks, right? Premium podcast content, podcast packets, courses, master classes, private Jazz Panel Skills community, and of course, unlimited educational support. All of these amazing privileges.

These perks are waiting to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano. So check it all out at JazzPianoSkills.com and of course become a member. Once you get to the site though, if you have any questions after you poke around a little bit, by all means feel free to reach out to me. I'm happy to answer all of your questions and help you in any way that I can. Alrighty, so speaking of questions, let's...

move on to the question of the week. This week's question comes from Morgan Williamson living in Moorhead, Minnesota. Morgan Williamson and Morgan writes, I have been a Jazz Panel Skills listener and member for several years now and have benefited greatly from your quality education and guidance. Well, thanks, Morgan. My question is about voicings and specifically dominant voicings. You teach two

primary dominant voicings and one of them involves the third and seventh in your left hand while playing the third, the sixth and ninth in your right hand. Everything I have seen and read from other sources have you playing the second, fifth and root in your right hand, not the third, sixth and ninth. Why do you prefer the voicing you teach?

Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:31.223)
Thanks for your help and answering this question that I have wondered about for some time. Thanks again for your commitment to providing outstanding jazz education. Wow, Morgan, great observation and great question. Believe it or not, I have been asked this question multiple times. So, but let me begin by saying that both voicings that you mentioned, right?

Both voicings are excellent. And I actually use both of them. you are correct. You're 100 % correct. I prefer, and I teach, to play the third and the seventh in the left hand, while playing the third, sixth, or the 13th, and the ninth in my right hand. And there are a couple of reasons for this. But let's, for the sake of everyone listening,

play both of these voicings. Okay, so let's start with the one you mentioned as being referenced all over, you know, the web, books, blogs, website, and so on. It is you are correct, it is a five note voicing consisting of two notes in the left hand, and three notes in the right hand, the left hand plays the third and the seventh. So if we're talking about a C dominant,

We're going to be playing the third, the E, and the seventh, which is B flat, in the left hand. While the right hand plays the second, the fifth, and the root up on top. So you get this for C dominant. Great voicing. No doubt about it. Again, I use it, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with this shape or sound.

It's a classic dominant voicing, which you should be familiar with and use when playing. Now, the voicing I use as one of my preferred dominant voicings is a five note voicing as well with the two notes, two notes in the left hand and three notes again in the right hand. And like the voicing that you

Dr. Bob Lawrence (16:52.363)
mentioned Morgan, my left hand is going to play the third and the seventh. again, for C dominant, I'm going to play the E and the B flat in my left hand. And I am going to in the right hand, I'm going to play the third, the E, the A, right, the sixth, or the 13th, and then the D or the ninth. So when I put it all together, it sounds like this.

great voicing, great sound as well. And this is voicing I prefer for a couple of reasons. Number one, I'm exchanging, think of it this way, I'm exchanging the fifth and the 13th of the original voicing, right? The fifth and the, you know, in the right hand you had the ninth or the second with the fifth and the 13th.

I'm sorry, the fifth and the root. And I'm exchanging the fifth for the 13th and the root for the ninth. So instead of playing G, and instead of playing C, I'm playing A, the 13th and the ninth. Now, I got to be honest, that's a trade that I will make every day. I will cash in the fifth and the root for the for the 13th and the ninth every day.

all day. just think it is a prettier and hipper sound. Here it is again. Okay. Number two, and maybe even more importantly, this voicing allows me to easily slide my right hand down. I like sliding down, right? Does anybody ever slide up? You don't go up a slide, you slide down.

So I like sliding my right hand down to create a fully altered dominant sound. So if I take this, I slide my right hand down, I get this.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (19:05.645)
Okay, when I lower the third down to E flat, I gain a sharp nine. Lowering the fifth down a half step gives me a sharp five. And lowering the ninth down a half step gives me a flat nine. So I went from a pure altered sound, slide my right hand down a half step to a fully altered sound.

Now, I also like this moving down one half step to create the altered dominant sound because it mirrors the exact same movement when I used my other preferred dominant voicing, which is it has the seventh and the third in my left hand. So I have my B flat on the bottom with my E on top. And then in my right hand, have the

A or the 6th or the 13th, then the 2nd or the 9th, and then the 5th, the G on top. So I get this voicing. Very good. And if I slide my right hand down again by half steps, I get a fully altered sound. So my 13th, when I lower it a half step,

I have a flat 13 or a sharp five, right? I lower my nine down a half step, I get a flat nine. I lower my fifth, my G that's on top, down a half step. I get a flat five. So I have it altered in both those voicings. can easily create an altered dominant sound by simply moving my right hand down a half step. So the first voicing with my

Dr. Bob Lawrence (21:03.718)
three, six, and nine in my right hand, slide it down a half step, fully altered. My second preferred dominant voicing, the seventh and the third in the left hand with the six or 13th, nine, and five in the right hand, move it down a half step.

fully altered sound. So both of those voicings mirror one another in that by just sliding the hat the right hand down a half step, I go from a pure dominant sound to a fully altered dominant sound. So Morgan, would suggest keeping both the 3-7, 2-5-1 dominant voicing that you see

post it all over the place. That's a great, great voicing. Again, I use it, but I would also make sure that you become very familiar with that dominant with the third, sixth and nine in the right hand as well. You want both of these voicing types to be in your arsenal when playing. You can't go wrong with either voicing, but I think the one I teach as the

preferred voicing offers some additional perks worth considering for sure. Okay. So Morgan, that's great observation. It is a great question. And as always, further clarification is needed, or you just simply want to dive into more voicings, do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm always happy to talk voicings anytime.

Alright, so let's discover, learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover, learn and play Antonio Carlos Jobim's wave. When studying, when learning any tune, as you all know, because I go through this little outline every week, I approach it the same way. And when I learn a tune, regardless of the genre, it right, I approach it the same way. It makes no difference. I don't care whether I'm trying to learn a jazz tune or rock tune.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (23:24.23)
country, pop, folk, R &B, I don't care. I approach it the same way. And here's how I do it. Number one, always on top of the list, always listen and listen to as many artists as you possibly can from as many genres as you possibly can. I typically turn my attention first to vocalist, then instrumentalist, and then of course pianist. After I listen, I tend to, I don't know, maybe it's because of the instrument, the piano.

I tend to turn my attention to harmony first, as we're going to do today. So I always do a harmonic analysis. I'm always checking out the form of a new tune, what are the chord changes, what common movement function and common movement is found within the tune, what types of voicings will work great in playing these chord changes. And then of course, you know, I pay attention to rhythm as well.

always, I'm always paying attention to rhythm, whether it's harmonic, melodic or improvisation. that's kind of a given. Then after I do my harmonic analysis, I turn to a melodic analysis of the tune. I'll transcribe the melody, of course, by ear. I prefer that as opposed to reading it from a lead sheet. know, reading music is great. That's a great skill set. But

mathematical representation of melody typically is pretty dry. And it's typically not what you hear musicians performing and playing, whether they're singing the melody or playing the melody on an instrument. The melodies are not played mathematically. And when you read a melodic line in a fake book, or off a piece of sheet music, just keep in mind that it's a mathematical representation of the melody.

So I always prefer transcribing the melody to get a feel for how musicians are treating that melodic idea. I'll check out the phrases, various treatments, know, ballads, bossa, swing. I love melodic analysis. We'll be taking a look at that next week with wave as well. So...

Dr. Bob Lawrence (25:41.764)
And then after I've done my harmonic analysis and melodic analysis, of course, I'll turn to improvisation. I kind of just naturally go that route where I start looking at the chord scale relationships. I study arpeggio and scale movement through the sounds, incorporating tension in my improvisation melodic ideas as well. That just seems kind of be like the kind of the natural next step, right, after you do a harmonic analysis, melodic analysis.

You can't help but to tinker around with the tune. Right? After you learn it, you can't help but to tinker around with it. That's the great thing about jazz. So it's a pretty thorough, it's a pretty complete approach that I implement every time. Listening, harmonic analysis, melodic analysis, improvisation development. And we're going to do all that this month with this classic bossa nova wave. And today we start with our

harmonic analysis. So guess what we're going to do today? We're going to listen. We're going to check out the form. Look at that. We're going to look at the unique chord changes found within the tune. We're going to study the harmonic function of wave. And of course, we're going to look at the voicings that I recommend. Traditional shell voicings or block voicings in the left hand, and then the two-handed voicings as well. So we got to

a busy month ahead, and we certainly have a busy day today with our harmonic analysis. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, of course, we are going to listen to some definitive recordings of wave. Number two, we will discuss the form of wave. Number three, we will discover, learn and play the chord changes for wave.

Number four, we will discover, learn and play the harmonic function of wave. And number five, we will discover, learn and play my suggested voicings for wave, the left hand shell voicings and the two handed structures. Now, if you are a Jazz Panel Skills member, I want you to take just a few minutes right now, hit the pause button and I want you to download and print the podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs. Again, your membership

Dr. Bob Lawrence (28:07.342)
right grants you access to these educational tools. And you should absolutely be using them, especially having them in your hands when listening to the podcast episode. And of course, sitting on your panel when practicing this week as well. Okay, they will help you maximize your growth with the skills that we are about to study through using wave. Okay.

All right, so now that you have your podcast packets, I want you to grab, I want you to grab your lead sheets. We'll start with the lead sheets. And you should have, you should have seven lead sheets in your packet. I just want to go through them quickly to make sure you have the complete set. Lead Sheet 1, Scale 1, diagrams the form.

Lead Sheet 2 identifies the unique chord changes for wave. Lead Sheet 3 gives you a nice clean lead sheet chord changes for the tune. Number 4, Scale 4, Lead Sheet 4 provides harmonic function of wave. And then Lead Sheet 5 or Scale 5 highlights the common progressions, the common progressions, of course, that we will use for ear training.

take a look at those as well. And then when we get to lead sheet six and lead sheet seven, they're all about voicings. Lead sheet six is documentation there of my left hand voicings that I use when playing wave. And then lead sheet seven outlines my two handed structures that I use when playing wave. So you should have seven lead sheets in your packet. We're going to go through each one of these today so you can after

finished listening to this episode, you can get busy. You can get down to work and start learning wave. Now, typically at this time, I would play a definitive recording of the tune, but as you know, this year I've changed it up. I've decided to place my listening suggestions in the Jazz Panel Skills Community Forums, and there are a couple reasons for this. Number one, I want to suggest more than one tune, right?

Dr. Bob Lawrence (30:32.774)
there's so many great recordings out there of this classic standard. And number two, I want to preserve as much time as possible for educational content. All right, educational content. So what I want you to do right now is I want you to head over to the online Jazz Panel Skills community and spend some time listening to the recordings that I have provided links

links for so that you can easily access them and check them out. A huge, a huge, huge thank you to Lisa who has shared with me this week. Lisa is an outstanding Jazz Piano Skills member and has shared with me some incredible renditions, some gems that she has discovered on this great tune. So you're going to find those in the community. So check, check, check it all out. And then once you've done your listening,

then come on back to the podcast and we'll get after these lead sheets. 

REMAINING PREMIUM CONTENT FOR MEMBERS ONLY.