Lady Be Good, Melodic Analysis

Illustrations
Lead Sheets
Play Alongs

Jazz Piano Skills Community

Keywords
Jazz Piano, Melodic Analysis, Practice Plan, Seven Facts of Music, Lady Be Good, Jazz Education, Improvisation, Music Theory, Jazz Skills, Music Practice

Summary
In this episode of Jazz Piano Skills, Dr. Bob Lawrence delves into the melodic analysis of the classic jazz standard 'Lady Be Good.' The discussion emphasizes the importance of a structured practice plan, the seven facts of music, and the essential skills needed for jazz musicians. The episode also addresses a listener's question about the order of learning jazz and provides insights into transcribing melodies and exploring different treatments of the tune. Listeners are encouraged to engage with the community and utilize the resources available to enhance their jazz piano skills.

Takeaways
Melodic analysis follows harmonic analysis in jazz education.
A structured practice plan is crucial for progress.
The seven facts of music serve as a compass for learning.
Sound awareness is essential for effective practice.
Transcribing melodies by ear is a key skill.
Different treatments of a tune can enhance understanding.
Engagement in a community fosters learning and support.
Foundational skills must be prioritized in learning jazz.
Jazz education requires both conceptual and physical mastery.
Enjoyment in learning is vital for musical growth.

Titles
Unlocking Jazz Piano Skills: A Melodic Journey
Mastering Melodies: The Art of Jazz Piano

Sound bites
"The seven facts of music are essential."
"Play the five primary sounds of music."
"Transcribe the melody by ear."

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 8:43 Discover, Learn, Play
• 9:34 Invite to Join Jazz Piano Skills
• 13:50 Question of the Week
• 27:47 Lesson Rationale
• 30:17 Today's Educational Agenda
• 34:17 Premium Content Message

Transcript

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.781)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Well, here we are again, week two of the month, which means, as week two always means, it's a melodic analysis week. Last week, we took our tune of the month, the classic standard Lady B Good, and we did our standard harmonic analysis examining the form.

traditional changes of the tune, the harmonic function, common harmonic movement found within the tune, and of course we looked at the voicings, block voicings, traditional shells, contemporary shells, and of course the two-handed structures. We always follow our harmonic analysis with a melodic analysis to help us discover, learn, and play the melody, fingerings, phrases.

target notes within the phrases. And of course, various standard treatments, the classic jazz treatments, right? Ballad, bossa, and swing. We do this every month, right? We take a tune, we do a thorough harmonic analysis, follow it with a thorough melodic analysis. And that's what we're going to do today. And next week, we'll do an improvisation study, right? So three areas of study that we always

address each and every month areas of study that every aspiring jazz musician, not just pianist, but every aspiring jazz musician must gain a functional command of both conceptually and physically. How do we do this? Well, it begins with establishing a well thought out and constructed practice strategy, a practice agenda. And that's also what we do here at Jazz Piano Skills.

I remind people every day, students every day, that people don't plan to fail. They just fail to plan. And again, I see it over and over again when a new student, especially an adult student, begins private study here at the Dallas School Music. They've invested years of practice with very little to show for it. It's a shame. They've purchased every book ever published on the topic of playing jazz.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:59.691)
establishing some of the greatest libraries of jazz material to ever exist in the world. And yet, they still struggle. Why? Well, because they have all the information, but no plan. And in fact, they're often more confused after they get the books than they are before they got the books.

It's always a confusion as to where to begin. And we're going to find this that we have a great question of the week this week that's going to be addressing this very issue, right? That, you know, all the information in the world, but yet no understanding of where to begin or how to begin. What's that old expression, right? Paralysis by analysis, right? It's a

psychological phenomenon where overthinking a problem or decision leads to an inability to make any choice or take action at all. Well, it's pretty typical, unfortunately, in the jazz education world. Well, this is exactly why I started Jazz Panel Skills. This is exactly why we do what we do here at Jazz Panel Skills. We have a plan. We execute the plan.

every week, every month. We have a harmonic plan, we have a melodic plan, we have an improvisation plan, we execute the plan, and on top of that we have a compass that keeps us on track, that prevents us from straying off course and wandering into the jazz abyss. The abyss that many, the majority of folks fall into and unfortunately never find their way out.

that's exactly what a compass is for, right? To keep us on track, to keep us on the correct path. The compass I'm referring to, and you know, y'all know it, the faithful listeners all know it, right? The seven facts of music, because without these seven facts, right? Without these seven facts, we have no compass. And without a compass, we cannot formulate a coherent and strategic practice plan agenda.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:25.655)
produce the results that we are wanting to produce. So what are the seven facts? Quickly, number one, music is the production of sound, major, dominant, minor, half-diminished and diminished. And of course, it's also the production of silence, sound and silence. Number two, sound is produced harmonically and melodically. We have harmonic shapes, we have melodic shapes. Number three, when sound is produced harmonically,

We're playing chords, our voicings. Number four, when sound is produced melodically, we are playing scales and arpeggios. Number five, when playing scales and arpeggios, we are moving, of course, in one of two directions. We can only move up or down. Number six, we decorate, we embellish our scales and arpeggios with tension or chromaticism.

And finally, number seven, to make facts one through six interesting and pleasant to listen to, we add rhythm. That's it. Seven facts of music. And it's imperative that that we think about these seven facts a lot. In fact, all the time to the point that you actually see and hear the seven facts of music in the skills that you are practicing.

that you actually see and hear the seven facts of music in the songs that you play.

Right? And once this tipping point happens for you, when you can actually identify everything as a musical fact, one of the musical facts, then you can begin constructing practice plans that actually produce the results that you want. You have a path, you have a roadway to follow, right? A path, a roadway to success. And

Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:26.655)
Again, this is exactly why I launched Jazz Piano Skills to help everyone, as I like to say, swimming in a pool of autonomous musical concepts, ideas, licks, progressions, theories, an entirely new approach to studying and practicing the essential jazz piano skills. All right, an entirely new approach that's anchored by the seven facts of music. And this is precisely why we approach our tune study every week, every month, every year.

Send it around these seven facts.

using three distinct phases or studies, right? Study one, a harmonic analysis, study two, a melodic analysis, and study three, improvisation development. I'm thrilled, of course, because we have established an amazing, educationally sound three-tier or three-phase, three-study, whatever you want to call it, approach that is formulated and anchored to the what? To the seven facts of music, our compass.

The seven facts needed to illuminate the essential jazz piano skills needed to successfully discover, learn, play tunes. Wow. So all of this to say that today we're doing the melodic analysis. And today we are going to melodically discover Lady B-Good. We are going to learn the melody of Lady B-Good by ear. We're going to look at the phrases found within the melody, the target notes found within the phrases.

And we're going to play Lady Be Good using three standard jazz treatments. And of course, we're going to have a rhythm challenge that will be posted in our community for us to tackle this week as well. 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 pro,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (09:26.081)
you're going to find this Jazz Panel Skills Podcast lesson exploring Lady Be Good to be very beneficial. But before we jump in, I want to, as I always do, I want to welcome all the first-time listeners to the Jazz Panel Skills Podcast. If you're a new listener, if you're new to Jazz Panel Skills, I want to welcome you and I want to invite you to become a Jazz Panel Skills member. Your membership

will grant you many perks. Number one, your membership helps keep Jazz Panel Skills, the Jazz Panel Skills podcast 100 % ad free, which I absolutely love. I want all education, no ads. But beyond that, your membership grants you many perks. Number one, premium podcast content, which basically means you get to listen to the entire podcast episode.

The first half of every podcast episode is free for everyone to enjoy. We deal with the question of the week, we lay out the educational agenda and the lesson rationale. The second half of the podcast contains the lesson content as well as the demonstrations. Additionally, as a member, you have access to the podcast packets. These are the educational materials that I design and develop for every weekly podcast episode, the illustrations, or the worksheets, the lead sheets.

and then the play alongs or the backing tracks. Of course, I encourage you to have this material in your hands when listening to the podcast episode to get the most out of each episode, but also to have them sitting on your piano or on your music stand when practicing as well. As a member, you also have access to the online courses, which are comprehensive, interactive, self-paced, sequential. And then of course, the master classes that I host every week, every Thursday evening, you have a reserved seat.

Those master classes are held Thursday evenings at 8pm Central Time. And I know, again, I know that this is not the greatest time for everyone around the world. However, all the master classes are recorded so you can watch the video of the class whenever and as often as you wish. As a member, you also have access to the private online Jazz Panel Skills Community, which hosts a variety of educational forums there are education

Dr. Bob Lawrence (11:45.133)
podcast specific forums as well as just general jazz forums to participate in. It's a great place to meet new friends, to receive some member feedback and assistance and also to give some member feedback and assistance as well. And finally, as a Jazz Panel Skills member, you have professional educational support. All of these amazing privileges are waiting for you.

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, you're poking around, you have some questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me to contact me. I'm always happy to spend some time with you, help you in any way that I can, and answer your questions. So again, check it all out at JazzPianoSkills.com. And I look forward to...

getting to know you and I look forward to you joining and becoming part of the Jazz Piano Skills community. I also want to take just a few minutes to encourage you to, if you are not already, subscribe to the new Jazz Piano Skills YouTube channel, please do so. I currently have several playlists to check out. The Daily Challenges, of course, that are published daily, hence the name Daily Challenges.

So the challenges cover rhythm, harmony, melody. I also have jazz talks. These are educational talks that are posted on a weekly basis. All the podcast episodes are posted at YouTube as well as in addition to the podcast episodes with guests. So check out the YouTube channel. I'm starting to populate these playlists with new videos again every week. So be sure to subscribe.

you're notified when a new Jazz Piano Skills video is released. So needless to say, I'm excited about this new dimension to Jazz Piano Skills and looking forward to growing the YouTube channel to help us all discover, learn, and play Jazz Piano or whatever instrument that you are currently studying. Okay, let's get on to the question of the week. This week's question comes from Arnie Baker. Arnie living...

Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:00.331)
in the heartland of America living in Springfield, Missouri. And Arnie writes, I'm a newbie jazz pianist and have been watching every YouTube video I can find to help me.

I know you have issued many warnings about the dangers of surfing YouTube. Yes, I have. But I can't help myself. And besides, that's how I found you on YouTube. That's funny. So I'm writing in hopes that you can confirm my hunch that there must be an order to what I should be practicing, a point A to point B, and so on.

If not, I'm thinking learning how to play jazz is next to impossible. This can't be the case, right? Thanks for your help. And yes, I love your YouTube videos. That's hilarious. Arnie, that's way too funny. OK, but listen, great question. And you are hitting on a topic that has some folks

falling on one side of the fence while others choose in the opposite side of the fence. other words, it's a topic that has been debated for some time. Some people think there is a specific order, a specific sequence to learning how to play jazz, while others think there is

no one way to approach learning the art form. And, and you know what, there's still others that believe that you can't learn it at all. You that you're either you either have it or you don't. Right. So we basically have we basically have three schools of thought. School one, you can't learn it. You're either born with it or with

Dr. Bob Lawrence (16:05.993)
out the you're either born with or without the ability to develop into a jazz player. You can't learn it. School number two. The good news is you can learn it, but good luck. There's a lot you need to learn. The bad news, of course, there's not an owner's manual manual that that you can purchase or that you can read and follow to obtain your goals. But you know, the good news is, yeah, you can learn it.

But bad news, no honors manual. School three, the good news is yes, you can learn it. There is indeed a lot to learn, no question about that. But however, if you address certain skills first, you establish foundation that allows you to continually develop and refine your ability to play as you desire.

So what school do you think I belong to?

Dr. Bob Lawrence (17:12.461)
School 1?

Dr. Bob Lawrence (17:17.479)
can't learn it. School 2, you can learn it, but there's no owner's manual. School 3...

You can learn it, but you need a foundation.

What do y'all think?

It's school free. Yes, it's school free. Of course it is. You can learn it. And yes, there is a lot to learn. And yes, you better take care of first things first, or you will never achieve your musical goals. So Arnie, what are the first things first skills that you need to discover, learn, and play? That's

question you need to be asking. What are the first things, first skills that I need to discover, learn and play? Well, I'm going to make your life easy today, Arnie. Here they are. Number one, make sure you spend time thinking about the seven facts of music that I just outlined earlier in this episode, that I have been relentlessly outlining every single podcast episode since the beginning of the year.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (18:35.791)
And why? Because those seven facts, that list, it reveals the first things, first skills that you are spending sleepless nights scouring the internet, YouTube looking for, which you no longer need to do because they are now right beneath your nose. So step one, step one.

Realize that music is the production of sound. This is so important. Always be consciously aware of the sound or sounds that you are practicing. Major, dominant, minor, half diminished, diminished. Your ears must be engaged and engagement begins with sound awareness.

want to say that again because it's so important. Your ears must be engaged and engagement begins with sound awareness. Okay, so step one, realize that music is a production of sound and always be consciously aware of the sounds that you are practicing. Step two, study harmony, melody, and rhythm in that order.

study harmony, melody, rhythm in that order. Melody flows from harmony. So make sure you know the harmonic shapes of sound. In other words, know your chords. Step three. Once you know your chords, focus on translating the sounds of your harmonic shapes, chords.

into linear shapes, arpeggios, and scales. So let me say that again. Once you know your chords, focus on translating the sounds of your harmonic shapes, chords, into linear shapes, arpeggios, and scales. Step four.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (20:53.231)
Once you are capable of playing the sounds of music using harmonic and linear shapes, you turn your attention to rhythmically manipulating them. Okay, I want to say that again.

Once you are capable of playing the sounds of music, major, dominant, minor, half-diminished, and diminished, using harmonic and linear shapes, chords, scales, arpeggios, then turn your attention to rhythmically manipulating them. You know, I looked up the word manipulate because it is typically used in a negative context.

But the definition of manipulate is this, check this out, to handle or control a tool, mechanism, etc. in a skillful manner. To handle or control a tool, a mechanism, etc. etc. in a skillful manner. Wow. So therefore, we could say to handle or control the harmonic and linear shapes of music,

in a skillful manner. Rhythm. So what is the definition of rhythm? There we have it. The ability to handle the harmonic and linear shapes of music. Harmonic shapes, chords, linear shapes, arpeggios, and scales. The ability to handle the harmonic and linear shapes of music skillfully. That's what a rhythm is. Wow, I love that.

the ability to handle the harmonic chords and linear shapes, arpeggios and scales of music skillfully. Wow. So Arnie, check it out, man. Good news today. No need to look any further. For your music owner's manual. I just gave it to you. Don't focus on any additional skills, right? Any additional music skills.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (23:09.095)
especially those that you hear about in the million YouTube videos that you are watching until you can do this. Number one, play the five primary sounds of music using foundational harmonic shapes. These are your block chords, root, third, fifth, and seventh, right? Number one, play the five primary sounds of music using foundational harmonic shapes.

block chords, root, third, fifth, and seventh. Number two, play the five primary sounds of music using foundational linear shapes. These are arpeggios and scales from the root to the seventh. I call them linear shapes, arpeggios and scales. I'm trying to differentiate between arpeggios and scales that are played rhythmically and arpeggios and scales that are not played rhythmically.

right? So just calling them linear shapes. So play the five primary sounds of music using foundational linear shapes, arpeggios, and scales from the root to the seventh. They coincide with the chords, the harmonic shapes. And number three, play the five primary sounds of music harmonically and linearly, skillfully using foundational rhythms, whole, half, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, right?

I'm not saying notice what I'm not saying. I'm not saying, rudimentary shapes, elementary shapes, beginning shapes, basic shapes. No, these are foundational foundational harmonic shapes, foundational linear shapes, foundational rhythms, right? Without these foundational shapes.

harmonic and linear and these foundational rhythms. You're going nowhere Arnie. You can watch YouTube videos for the rest of your life. You can stay up every night all night long surfing the internet, watching YouTube videos with your popcorn and whatever you're drinking. And guess what? You're not going to learn how to play jazz. Sorry. So once you can do this Arnie, then and only then you can begin going back to surfing the YouTube.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (25:30.543)
YouTube. Until then, until then, watch only my videos, which of course, and why I listen, I know you're laughing, but check why I say this. If you watch my videos, you will, you will hear me continue to say the same things over and over and over again in slightly different ways, but you'll hear me say the same things over and over and over again.

And what are the same things that I'm going to say over and over again? I'm going to say this number one, play the five primary sounds of music using foundational harmonic shapes, block chords from the root, third, fifth and seventh. Play the five primary sounds of music using foundational linear shapes, the arpeggios and scales from the root to the seventh and play the five primary sounds of music harmonically and linearly skillfully using foundational rhythms, whole notes, half notes, quarters, eights and sixteenths.

that's what you're to hear me say in all my videos. So no harm done in staying up all night, Arnie watching my videos. Okay. So I hope this helps. I will be turning your question into a Saturday morning sunrise lesson this weekend, which of course will be a video, which of course I will post on YouTube next week. So

so that you can watch me stress yet again the importance of number one. Should I go through the list again? Number one, play the five primary sounds of music using foundational harmonic shapes, block chords, root, third, fifth, seventh. Number two, play the five primary sounds of music using foundational linear shapes, arpeggios and scales, root from the root to seventh. And three, play the five primary sounds of music harmonically and linearly, skillfully.

using foundational rhythms, whole half quarters, eighth sixteenths. You're gonna get tired of hearing me say that Arnie, but watch my videos and there's your point A to point B to point C list that you were asking for in your question. It's a great question. I love it. All right. Wow. I'm tired now.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (27:52.409)
me a nap. All right, let's discover, learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover, learn and play Lady Be Good. All right, here's another outline that I say all the time. When studying, learning any tune, I approach it the same way. Again, genre makes no difference. I don't care whether it's a jazz tune, rock tune, country tune, pop tune, R &B tune, folk tune, reggae tune. I don't care. Number one, I listen. I listen to

any recording I can get my hands on. And actually, you know what, not just professional recordings either. I'll listen to anybody performing a tune that I'm wanting to learn how to play. But I will listen to vocalist, instrumentalist, pianist, professional, non-professional, doesn't matter. Number two, I always start, and I guess maybe it's because I'm a pianist, I always turn to harmony first, harmonic analysis.

You know what, I guess I just said in the question of the week from Arne, know, study harmony, melody, rhythm in that order. So I'm adhering, I guess, to my philosophy here. I start harmonically. So I always look at the form, the changes, function, common movement, voicings, the very thing that we did last week with our harmonic analysis. Then I turn my attention to a melodic analysis that we're going to do today. Melody, I always transcribe the melody. In other words, learn it by ear.

I'll outline the phrases, I'll notate the phrases, the target notes of the phrases, and then I'll explore that tune. Once I have the harmony, the chords, I have the melody, I've done my phrases, study of the phrases and the target notes in the phrases. Then I turn my attention to playing that tune utilizing various treatments, and we're going to do that today, ballad, bossa, swing. And then finally, I turn my attention to improvisation development, which we'll focus on next week.

where I will study rhythm, rhythmic ideas, chord scale relationships, arpeggio scale movement, right, through the sounds, and of course tension. It's pretty thorough, it's a pretty complete approach. It's the same old, same old approach that I use all the time and have done for years. It works, and it's what we do here month after month at Jazz Piano Skills with every standard that we tackle.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (30:17.197)
So the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we're going to listen to definitive recordings of Lady Be Good. Number two, we will learn the melody of Lady Be Good again by ear. Number three, we will look at my suggested fingerings for Lady Be Good. Number four, we will identify the melodic phrases as well as the target notes of those phrases. And then finally, number five, we will

apply the voicings that we studied last week with a harmonic analysis, we will apply those voicings to the melody of Lady B Good. And then finally, number six, we will look at Lady B Good performed using various standard jazz treatments, Ballad, Bassa, Swing. So if you are a Jazz Piano Skills member, I want you to take just a few minutes right now to

download and print podcast packets. So hit your pause button and download the illustrations, the lead sheets and the backing tracks or the play alongs. Again, right, your membership grants you access to the to this material. I want to make sure it's in your hands as you listen to the podcast episode. And of course, I want it sitting on your panel when practicing this week as well. All right, now that you have your podcast packets, I want you to grab

the lead sheets. And you should find seven lead sheets in your packet. I just want to walk through them real quick before we do a deep dive. So number one lead sheet one is what I like to call it fill in the blank template for Lady Be Good. That's what we're going to use to transcribe the melody to kind of hunt and peck and find those melodic those notes of the melody and notate them.

on lead sheet one. Lead sheet two is a clean melodic lead sheet of Lady B Good with the chord changes as well as the melody. So it's kind of like the answer key to lead sheet one. You can, after we've spent time transcribing the melody, we can use lead sheet two to kind of check our work. Lead sheet three, the fingerings that I recommend for playing the melody of Lady B Good, lead sheet four.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (32:42.58)
identifies the phrases found within Lady B Good. Lead Sheet 5 identifies the target notes of the phrases. And then finally, Lead Sheet 6 applies the left-hand block voicings from last week to the melody of Lady B Good. And Lead Sheet 7 applies the left-hand shell voicings from last week to the melody of Lady B Good. So as always, right, we have a ton to dissect today, so we need to get after this.

Just real quick, typically, again, at this time, we would start with our definitive listening list, our recordings, or I used to play a recording of the standard that we were studying. But this year, as you all know, we've decided to move that list into the forums, into the community, jazz community, so that we can do, number one, we can suggest more than just one tune.

And number two, we can preserve as much of the podcast episode time for education, right? So it's a good idea before we dive into the lead sheets to head over to the community to the forums and spend some time listening to the recordings that are provided. And again, Lisa has done a fabulous job and putting together another awesome list for us to check out. So be sure to do that before going any further. And once you have listened,

to the recommended recordings, grab the lead sheets. Let's grab lead sheet one. Okay, so let's take a look at how to transcribe the melody of Lady Be Good.

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