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
Georgia on My Mind, Harmonic Analysis
Podcast Packets
Illustrations
Lead Sheets
Play Alongs
Jazz Piano Skills Community
In this insightful episode of Jazz Piano Skills, Dr. Bob Lawrence takes a deep dive into the timeless jazz standard “Georgia on My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael. Join Dr. Lawrence as he unpacks the tune’s elegant form and explores its rich harmonic landscape through a detailed analysis of chord changes and harmonic functions. Discover common harmonic movements that make the song so enduring and musically satisfying, and learn how to apply a variety of jazz voicings—from traditional and contemporary shells to block chords and sophisticated two-handed structures.
Through thoughtful demonstrations and practical examples, Dr. Lawrence shares powerful strategies for practicing and internalizing these voicings, empowering you to bring greater depth and color to your playing. Whether you're a student of jazz piano or a seasoned player looking to refine your skills, this episode offers valuable tools to elevate your understanding and performance of this beloved classic.
Ready to unlock the harmonic secrets of “Georgia on My Mind”? Let’s dig in!
Keywords
Jazz Piano, Essential Skills, Rhythm, Harmony, Melody, Improvisation, Georgia on My Mind, Jazz Standards, Music Education, Piano Techniques
Summary
In this episode of Jazz Piano Skills, Dr. Bob Lawrence introduces the new monthly tune, 'Georgia on My Mind,' emphasizing the importance of a skill-centric approach to learning jazz piano. He discusses the four essential pillars of jazz piano: harmony, melody, improvisation, and rhythm, highlighting how each contributes to a musician's overall proficiency. The episode also addresses common challenges faced by pianists, particularly in rhythm, and offers practical strategies for improvement. The conversation culminates in a detailed harmonic analysis of 'Georgia on My Mind,' providing listeners with insights into the tune's structure and essential skills for performance.
Takeaways
The start of a new month means a new tune.
Being skill-centric is crucial for learning tunes.
Essential jazz skills are organized into four pillars: harmony, melody, improvisation, and rhythm.
Rhythm is often the biggest challenge for musicians.
Daily rhythm challenges can help improve rhythmic skills.
Understanding the seven facts of music is essential for development.
Melodies should be played with elasticity, not rigidity.
Practice harmonic and melodic analysis for better understanding.
Use lead sheets to practice chord changes and harmonic functions.
Engage with the Jazz Piano Skills community for support and resources.
Titles
Mastering Jazz Piano: The Essential Skills
Unlocking the Secrets of Jazz Harmony
Rhythm: The Heartbeat of Jazz Piano
Overcoming Stiffness in Piano Playing
A Deep Dive into Georgia on My Mind
The Four Pillars of Jazz Piano Skills
Sound Bites
"It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano."
"Tunes illuminate our weaknesses very quickly."
"Rhythm is the number one reason people struggle."
"Melodies are meant to be played, not mathematically correct."
"You can gain a rhythmic command of time."
"Georgia on my mind is textbook."
"Practice reciting lead sheet three and lead sheet four."
"Nothing wrong with block voicings."
"Bathe in these shapes, get them in your ears."
"Have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano."
Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.717)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Well, here we are. May 6, 2025. Wow. It's the start of a new month. And as all of you regular listeners know, the start of a new month at Jazz Piano Skills means we begin studying a new tune. A new tune, but...
the same thorough, organized, structured, logical, skill centric approach to studying and learning a tune. How comforting. It's so important. Wow, it is so important to be skill centric because that is exactly what tunes expect us to be. In fact, it doesn't take long when trying to learn a tune to discover the importance of having a command of skills.
Tunes have a funny way. They have a funny way of illuminating our weaknesses very quickly. You know, once we realize the importance of having a physical command of essential jazz piano skills, we quickly want to know, what are the essential skills? Well, to help us catalog essential jazz skills, we...
Here at Jazz Piano Skills, we like to organize them into four, you know, four pillars of music. Number one, harmony, which is our ability to play the sounds of music using various voicing approaches, blocks, shells, two-handed structures, and our ability to recognize and understand harmonic function. Another pillar, melody.
our ability to hear, determine, and properly articulate melodies and phrases, which of course requires mature technique, which of course requires good fingerings. We lump all of that under our study of melody. Another pillar, improvisation. Our ability to correctly determine chord scale relationships so that we can play the sounds of music using the correct shapes.
Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:57.869)
for each chord, shapes being arpeggios and scales, ascending and descending. And our fourth pillar, rhythm, our ability to play authentic jazz rhythms, which of course is dependent upon our command of the most important skill of all, time. Yep, makes no difference what tune you want to play.
If you are incapable of executing the essential jazz piano skills I just mentioned with proficiency, you don't have to worry about playing tunes because you can't. Brutal fact, right? But very true. And that is why at Jazz Piano Skills we use tones to illuminate the skills, right? Especially what I like to call the grunt work skills needed to play jazz piano.
And then we attack those skills. We start with a new tune every month in order to gain new perspectives on the essential jazz piano skills. Different tune, right? Same skills, but a new perspective. A new perspective of essential jazz piano skills through a harmonic analysis. A new perspective of essential jazz panel skills through a melodic analysis.
a new perspective of essential jazz panel skills through improvisation development and the inclusion of a rhythm challenge within each of these new harmonic, melodic and improvisation perspectives. Speaking of rhythm challenges, I am super pumped and super thrilled to announce that I just released a new jazz panel skills program called
rhythmic challenge, rhythm challenge. Of course, I'm kind of getting my feet wet and learning as I go here, but I'm really excited about this because the number one reason people have difficulty playing music, playing melodies, improvising is because how shall I say it? They are rhythmically challenged. Or I could be more direct. I could.
Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:16.276)
I could be more direct and to the point and say that they suck at playing rhythm. But you know what? I'm not going there. I'm not going to say that. I'm going to remain politically correct and say rhythmically challenged. So the game plan is to release a new rhythm every day, a new rhythm every day to challenge yourself with your rhythmic skills, right? One sound.
one chord, one measure, one rhythm every day. That's it, right? Nothing more. I love it. One, one, one, one. One sound, one chord, one measure, one rhythm. Every day. As pianists, we can practice playing the rhythm, right? Harmonically, comping, and we can practice it melodically, improvisation. And the rules of the daily rhythmic challenge are actually pretty simple.
number one, you have to play the rhythm in time. So you have to use a backing track or drum machine or a metronome, but it must be played in time. Now I'm publishing the rhythm. In addition to YouTube, I'm publishing it at Jazz at the Jazz Panel Skills website as well, along with the backing track that I'm using in the video published on YouTube.
So you can use your own backing track if you want, but if you don't have access to a backing track, I would just encourage you to go to Jazz Piano Skills website and on the home page, you'll see the button in the link that takes you to the rhythm challenge of the rhythm challenge page that has that will keep track of all the daily rhythm challenges as well as the backing track for each rhythm challenge. The second rule when playing the rhythm melodically, you
must use all four notes of the chord, the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. And this is for a couple reasons. Number one, it will force you to move the hand. And number two, it will help you to begin to see the chord, the harmony, right, the chord, help you see it melodically. That's huge. You need to be able to see harmony melodically. So I want you using all four notes
Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:42.151)
of the chord when playing the rhythm improvisationally. Now you can shuffle the notes of the chord, the root, third, fifth, and seventh. You can shuffle it any way you want. That's the whole point. Be creative with it as you play the rhythmic that you're, the rhythm that you're confronted with. So I would say that if you're not a subscriber to my YouTube channel, which is really kind of funny, right? My son
said to me, today dad, you won't believe what happened to me. I said, what happened to you? And he said, I guess a kid at school approached him and had one of my YouTube videos up on his phone and said, is this your dad?
And of course, he denied that it was but, but nevertheless, it was kind of interesting. No, I actually think he did admit that I was his father. So that was that's nice to know. But anyway, I that was hilarious. But anyway, I would say to you, go to my YouTube channel, subscribe when you have a moment. And that way you will be notified whenever I drop a new rhythm challenge, right every day. So
I cannot begin to encourage you enough, right? I can't encourage you enough to begin thinking about practicing rhythm seriously on a daily basis. It is by far, and I mean by far, the number one reason why people never develop the musicianship that they are hoping to develop. All right, so back to how we attack
developing the essential jazz skills by studying a tune harmonically, melodically, and improvisationally. These distinct musical camps, as I like to say, allow us to conceptually organize and methodically practice essential jazz skills. But that is the key. How do we practice these essential jazz skills? It's a very important question. And
Dr. Bob Lawrence (10:02.48)
As you know, especially if you have been listening to jazz piano skills for some time, that everything, and I mean everything we do in music must begin with the right mindset because it is our conceptual understanding that drives our physical development and ultimately determines how we approach our instrument and the music we play.
And this is precisely why I stress over and over and over again that we must absolutely must see and understand essential jazz skills in relationship to you got it the seven facts of music. And what are the seven facts? I've been pounding them and pounding them since the start of the year, right?
Number one, music is the production of sound and silence. Sound being major, dominant, minor, half diminished, diminished. Number two, sound is produced harmonically and sound is produced melodically. Shapes, right? There are harmonic shapes, melodic shapes. Number three, when produced harmonically, right, we are playing chords or voicings. Number four, when produced melodically, we are playing
arpeggios and scales, melodies. Number five, when playing our arpeggios and scales, we are moving in one of two directions. There's only two ways we can go. We are either going up or we're coming down. And number six, we decorate or we camouflage our arpeggios and scales with tension, meaning chromaticism, notes outside the key. And finally, number seven,
make all of this interesting. Musical facts one through six, we add rhythm. And this is why rhythm is so important to practice. This is what makes music interesting. It's the rhythms, right? Rhythm. So everything we do should be framed. We should be seen everything, right? Framed by the seven facts of music.
Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:29.342)
And again, I have stressed this in every episode since the beginning of the year, that if you are unable to see the essential jazz piano skills framed by these seven facts of music, then there is a very high probability that you're just running in place. You're busy, but you're not going anywhere. You have a skewed perspective. In other words,
you are not accomplishing what you think you're accomplishing when you're practicing. But here at Jazz Piano Skills, we prevent that from happening, right? We take an essential skill and examine it harmonically and melodically, right? 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,
we avoid falling into the trap of running in place, right? Of being one dimensional with our understanding and application of any skill, of any skill. With all that being said, we continue our study of harmony, melody, improvisation, and rhythm this month using another classic jazz standard. As we always do, we're going to begin today with
harmonic analysis. So today, you're going to discover a fantastic standard. One of my favorites. They're all my favorites, right? Everyone. But this one is one of my favorites. I love this tune, Georgia on my mind. We are going to learn the form, the chord changes, harmonic function for Georgia on my mind. And we are going to play Georgia on my mind using my suggested
voicings. Plus, we'll take a look at some common harmonic movement progressions within Georgia On My Mind for ear training development. Of course, you will be given a rhythm challenge to develop your comping 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 are a seasoned
Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:51.804)
an experienced professional, you're going to find this Jazz Panel Skills podcast lesson, Exploring Georgia on My Mind, to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to, as I always do, welcome all of you first-time listeners to Jazz Panel Skills. If you are listening to the podcast for the very first time or you're just new to Jazz Panel Skills in general, I want to welcome you. I want to personally invite you to become a Jazz Panel Skills
member. And your membership in addition to keeping Jazz Piano Skills podcast 100 % ad free, which I am very proud of, it also provides you many, many perks. Number one, you have access to premium podcast content, which basically means you get to listen to the entire podcast episode. The first half of every podcast,
is free for everyone to enjoy. We deal with the question of the week, we lay out the educational agenda, we examine the lesson rationale. And then the second half of each podcast episode for members only, we dive into the lesson content, the demonstrations are presented, the rhythmic weekly assignment is given as well. You also as a Jazz Panel Skills member,
have access to all of the podcast packets that come along with each weekly podcast episode. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs that I design and develop for each podcast episode to help you get the most out of each episode. I always encourage you to have these packets in your hands when listening to the episode. And of course, have them sitting on your piano when practicing during the week. You also as a member have access to the courses. These are comprehensive.
sound based, self paced and sequential courses that are available online that focus on harmonic, melodic and improvisation development. And then you also as a member have a reserved seat in the in my Thursday evening master classes, which I host weekly. That's Thursday evening at 8pm Central Time. And I know that's not the best time for everyone listening. But if if you are able to attend the master classes, they are
Dr. Bob Lawrence (17:15.146)
recorded and you can watch and rewatch the video of the weekly masterclass whenever and as often as you wish. As a Jazz Panel Skills member, you also have access to the private online Jazz Panel Skills community, which hosts a variety of educational forums, episode specific forums, as well as just general jazz forums as well. It's a great place to mingle.
to meet some new folks to offer some feedback and assistance to other members and also to receive some positive feedback and assistance as well. And finally, as a Jazz Piano Skills member, you have unlimited educational support, private, personal, professional support whenever and as often as you need it. So check out all of these perks at Jazz Piano Skills. And if you have any questions whatsoever, please reach out to me. Do not hesitate.
Always happy to spend a little time with you answer any additional questions that you may have and help you get registered and help you become a member so you can begin to discover, learn and play jazz piano. OK, so now. On to the question of the week. This week's question comes from Chris Sullivan. Living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
All right. And Chris writes, okay, wait a minute, before I even deal with Chris's question, I want to state, Chris, that I pushed your question to the top of the list this week because it's perfect. I mean, perfect. Considering that I just launched my rhythm challenge this week, you got pushed to the top of the line, to the top of the
top the list. So, so, okay. So with that being said, here is Chris's question. I am a very stiff pianist and I'm not talking about my physical posture. It's my playing that is stiff. Everything I play sounds mechanical and as a result, I have a heavy touch to the point that my wife tells me always in a loving way.
Dr. Bob Lawrence (19:41.22)
that I sound like I'm forcing sound out of the piano? If it is okay, I would love to send you a recording of me playing Misty to get your insight and help. Thank you. Chris, what a great question. And of course you can send me a recording of you playing Misty. I would love that. In fact, it will be very helpful for me and even better yet, you know, instead of just a recording, if you could make it a video recording,
I will be able to actually see you sitting at the piano as well. But without even seeing a video or hearing you play, I can tell you with great certainty that your issue is a rhythmic issue. And this is why I've pushed your question to the top of the list. Okay, a stiff sound. And ironically, as it is with a limp sound, a sound that
would I mean a limb sound a sound that establishes no sense of time. In other words, it's all over the map. It could be called it could be called a musical slop. Right. So we have a stiff sound, we have a limb sound, and both both are caused by a poor rhythmic command of time. So let's deal with your issue of as you described it a stiff sound.
I bet you are approaching your interpretation of the melody of Misty very academically. And I bet you have meticulously counted out the entire melody. It's a tricky little melody actually, but I bet you have methodically counted out the entire melody of the tune based on the lead sheet that you are reading it from, an FYI.
if you're reading it from a lead sheet, the melody on that lead sheet is written out, it's already stiff. Right? It's already stiff. So if we take your stiffness and add it to the stiffness of the lead sheet, we come up with a simple math problem that is pretty easy to solve. Stiff plus more stiff equal very, very stiff. Okay?
Dr. Bob Lawrence (22:08.056)
So, okay, back to you counting out the entire melody of the tune. I bet you have done this and I bet you have been so meticulous that you have written in the counting below each note. I just bet that you've written in the counting below each note using a number two pencil, freshly sharpened number two pencil that you have sitting on your piano. I just bet. Now, your intentions
are very admirable because you are approaching this with the mindset of, I'm going to do this right. I'm going to learn Misty. I'm going to play it the correct way. I'm going to play it as written, to which I would say, this is why you are stiff, right? This is why you come off playing melodies.
in a stiff manner. Melodies are actually meant to be played, not mathematically correct, they're meant to be played with an elasticity that honors the boundaries established by time, but at the same time disguises the rigidity of time. Let me say that again. Melodies are meant to be played with an elasticity that
honors the boundaries established by time, but at the same time disguises the rigidity of time. In order for you to be able to do that, you must have what I call a rhythmic command of time. So with that being said, have some, I have some good news for you. And I have some bad news for you. Let's start with the bad news. Bad news. Without a rhythmic command of time, you're playing well, well,
either be stiff as in your case or limp as in the case of others. Either sound stiff or limp is not good. Now, the good news, you can learn, you can gain a rhythmic command of time. So your question should be how can I gain a rhythmic command of time? And the answer is begin practicing rhythms and time.
Dr. Bob Lawrence (24:34.414)
Next question, how do I practice rhythms in time? The answer, begin practicing my daily rhythm challenge. How cool is that? Every day, practice the rhythm both harmonically and melodically. I'm focusing on producing a relaxed jazz articulation elasticity. And you do this by not counting it when playing it.
say that again. You do this by not counting it when playing it. No number two pencil necessary. You can count it when analyzing it, but not when playing it. There's a difference. When playing, the goal is to feel it. Feel each pulse counts one, two, three, and four.
internally. Do not count it. If you do, your plane will forever remain stiff. Chris, I hope this helps for now, at least, right? Send me your video recording and I'll be able to offer some additional thoughts and ideas for you. But until then, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and begin receiving the daily rhythm challenge.
you want to gain a rhythmic command of time and the daily challenge, I promise will help you accomplish this goal. It's a great question, Chris and huge kudos by the way, to your lovely wife for being able to gently and in loving way, provide you a positive and constructive feedback man dude, you're a blessed man. All right, let's discover learn and play jazz piano let's
Discover, learn and play the great standard Georgia on my mind. Okay, as always when studying when learning any tune, as you all know, I approach it the same way. And again, again, genre makes no difference. It doesn't matter whether it's a jazz tune or some coming from some other genre. It makes no difference. I go about learning the tune the same way. Number one, listen and I listen a lot. I listen to various artists playing the tune from
Dr. Bob Lawrence (26:59.128)
different genres. And this tune, Georgia on my mind is a great example of that. Artists from every genre possible, I think, have has recorded this standard. I listen to vocalist, instrumentalist, and of course, I listen to pianist. Number two, I always dive into a tune harmonically first. I don't know. Maybe that's because I'm a pianist. And harmony is a big part of piano playing, right? Playing chords. So
I always dive in to study in the form, the changes, the function, common movement, voicings, the very things that we are going to study today is what I attack when learning a tune harmonically. Then once I have a command of the harmonic skills, I'll turn my attention to melodic skills. I'll do a melodic analysis where I transcribe the melody, not from the lead sheet, Chris, not reading it from a lead sheet. I transcribe it. I poke it out.
I highlight the phrases, I look at the various target notes within the phrases. I'll explore various treatments of the tunes, of the tune that I'm learning, typically the three standard treatments that you hear all the time, a ballad, bossa, swing. And then finally, once I have my harmonic analysis completed, my melodic analysis completed, I'll turn my attention to improvisation.
I'll look at chord scale relationships. I'll practice arpeggio and scale movement, the shapes of the found within those chord relationships through the various sounds. I'll explore tension as well. And of course, rhythm, of course, right? So it's pretty thorough. It's a pretty complete approach. That's one that I'm very comfortable with. And that's one that is the one that we implement every single month when we attack a new tune here at Jazz Piano Skills.
So this week we start with our harmonic analysis, which will have us listening, determining form, learning the chord changes, harmonic function, and the voicings for Georgia On My Mind. Next week we'll worry about the melodic analysis, and in two weeks we'll dive into the improvisation. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we're going to listen to
Dr. Bob Lawrence (29:21.995)
some definitive recordings of Georgia On My Mind. Number two, we're going to discuss the form of Georgia On My Mind. Number three, we will discover, learn, and play the chord changes for this great standard. Number four, we will discover, learn, play the harmonic function of Georgia On My Mind. Very important. Number five, we will discover, learn, and play my suggested voicings for Georgia On My Mind. We'll take a look at the block voicings today, which is new.
we'll take a look at the left hand shell voicings as well as the two handed structures. So if you are a Jazz Piano 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, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs. Again, your membership grants you access to premium content and the materials for every weekly podcast episode. So I want you to take advantage of that.
So download the podcast packets and have them in your hands as we go through the rest of this podcast episode and certainly have them on your piano when practicing as well. So, okay. So now that you have your podcast packets, I want you to grab your lead sheets and you actually should have eight lead sheets in your lead sheets packet. And let me just
Run through them real quick to make sure you have the complete set. sheet one, we dissect the form of Georgia On My Mind. Lead sheet two, we identify the unique chords that are found within Georgia On My Mind. Take a look at lead sheet three, we have a clean lead sheet with just the chord changes of the standard. Lead sheet four, we have a harmonic function lead sheet for Georgia On My Mind.
harmonic function. And number five highlights the common progressions that I recommend for ear training. We'll go over those. And then lead sheet six new I've included the block voicings. So if you are at the stage where you're learning blocks, this lead sheet will be invaluable for you. Lead sheet seven.
Dr. Bob Lawrence (31:44.019)
are my left hand shell voicings that I use when playing Georgia on my mind. And then lead sheet eight are my two handed voicings that I use when playing Georgia on my mind. So that's a very thorough lead sheet packet harmonic analysis that we're going to walk through today for this great standard. So we got a lot to do. So let's get busy.
Now, typically at this time in the past, I would play a definitive recording of the tune, Georgia, on my mind. But as you know, this year I've changed it up. I've decided to place our listening suggestion, my listening suggestions into the Jazz Panel Skills Online Community Forums. And again, there are just a couple of reasons for this. One is I want to be able to suggest more than one tune each week. I mean, one rendition to check out. And number two, I...
I want to preserve as much time every week in each podcast episode for educational content. Okay, so I would head over to the community right now, spend some time listening to the recordings that I provided links for, check them out. Of course, you know, there's going to be Ray Charles, that's the definitive recording of this tune that everybody knows, right? So that will be included, but some other goodies in there as well.
So once you have listened to my recommended recordings, let's grab those lead sheets, grab a lead sheet one, and let's take a look at the form of Georgia On My Mind, which is a standard form.
JOIN JAZZ PIANO SKILLS FOR PREMIUM PODCAST CONTENT
