Four Pillars of Jazz Piano

Keywords
Jazz Piano, Growth, Harmony, Improvisation, Melodic Design, Solo Piano, Music Education, Jazz Community, 2026 Vision

Summary
In this final episode of 2025, Dr. Bob Lawrence reflects on a year of growth within the Jazz Piano Skills community, emphasizing the importance of harmony, melody, and improvisation. He introduces the Four Pillars of Jazz Piano, which will guide the learning process in 2026, focusing on harmonic architecture, melodic design, improvisation development, and solo piano interpretation. The episode concludes with gratitude for the community's commitment and a vision for the upcoming year.

Takeaways
The final podcast of the year is a time for reflection.
2025 was marked by growth in musical and educational aspects.
Jazz Piano Skills emphasizes understanding over shortcuts.
Harmony is essential for creating strong melodies.
Improvisation is structured composition in real time.
Emotional playing stems from harmonic awareness.
Harmony serves as the musical map for melody.
The Four Pillars of Jazz Piano will guide future studies.
Each pillar supports the others in learning jazz piano.
Community commitment is vital for musical growth.

Titles
Reflecting on a Year of Growth in Jazz Piano
The Importance of Harmony in Jazz Music

Sound bites
"This podcast is a special one for me."
"Emotion comes from harmonic awareness."
"Thank you for trusting the process."

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:00 Growth in 2025
• 5:46 Reflections on Harmony
• 14:42 Four Pillars of Jazz Piano 2026
• 28:22 Final Thoughts of 2025
• 32:05 Thank You for a Fantastic Year!

Transcript

TRANSCRIPT PRODUCED BY AI. ERRORS GAURANTEED!

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.814)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. Well, well, well, here we are. The final Jazz Piano Skills podcast episode of 2025. And I have to tell you, this podcast is a special one for me. They all are. The last one of every year is special because today is it

isn't about a tune study. It's not about voicings. It's not about harmonic analysis or improvisation development. Today is about reflection, gratitude, and vision. It's all about looking back at an incredible year of growth inside our Jazz Panel Skills community and looking forward to everything that lies ahead in 2026.

So settle in, sit back, get your favorite beverage, an eggnog, or beer, or glass of wine, or an iced tea, whatever you choose. Cup of coffee. That sounds great. Always sounds great for a cup of coffee. So settle in, get back, relaxed, and let's take a few moments together to close one chapter and open another.

back on 2025. The word that keeps coming to mind is growth. Growth musically, growth educationally, and most of all, I think growth as a community. This this past year, we explored new harmonic concepts. We did

deeper dives into improvisational strategies. We examined fresh ways to approach standards and more importantly, thoughtful, very thoughtful practice methods. But beyond the lessons, beyond the lessons, what stood out to me was your commitment, the commitment of Jazz Piano Skills members. Week after week,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:59.885)
month after month. You all continue to show up. You practiced. You wrestled with some difficult concepts. You asked great questions in the in the master classes and the weekly weekly questions that are spotlighted in each podcast episode. And you know what you trusted the process, even when it felt on

And even when it was uncomfortable, y'all continued to share your progress. And that, my friends, that is how real musical growth happens. Now, with all that being said, there's one thing I want you to hear clearly today. I think you already know this, but I want to point it out.

I want to a spotlight on it. And that is this jazz piano skills is not about shortcuts. It's not. And I guess that's why it's not for everyone. I actually think it's refreshing because we live in a day and time where shortcuts shortcuts seems to be the objective. But not a jazz piano skills.

And for you Jazz Piano Skills members, you know it's not about shortcuts because every month, every week, we deal with, as I mentioned earlier, some very challenging jazz concepts. Jazz Piano Skills is about understanding harmony, developing a strong musical foundation, learning how to think. Wow, learning how to think about music, not just

play it. And it's about building confidence at the keyboard. And in 2025, I saw so many of you begin to trust your ears, trust your instincts, and trust your musical voice. And that is incredibly rewarding as an educator. And I think we've all come to realize this past year that whether you're just starting your jazz journey or you've

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:25.602)
been playing for decades. You know what, you're exactly where you need to be. And you are moving forward. And moving forward is exactly what we're going to do as we approach this new year with 2026 quickly, and I mean quickly arriving. But before we talk more about 2026, I want to reflect on just a couple things. So important.

that I hope are big takeaways for you with our studies this past year. As you know, every episode of 2025, I made it a point to recite the seven facts of music, the seven musical facts. And we all know the list by now, right? That music is the production of sound and silence.

primary sounds being major dominant minor half diminished and diminished. You know, when we're producing sound, sound is produced either harmonically or melodically. It can either travel one of two directions up or down, right? So we all know the list, because we've gone through it every single podcast episode. But I want to lock in today in my reflection on 2025. I want to lock in today with the importance of harmony. And I have stressed this many times throughout the year. In fact, I think I've stressed it every single episode as well. And that, you know, in harmony, that's why we start with every tune study, we start with our harmonic analysis. So I want to take just a few minutes and talk about harmony a little bit. And, you know, when I think about harmony,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:23.158)
I don't think about chord symbols on a page. I think that's a lot of times what people think, you know, that's harmony, it's chord, chord symbol on a page. But you know, when I think about harmony, I actually think about gravity. Literally gravity keeps you grounded, right? Harmony is the force that gives music direction. It is a force, there's no question about it. It tells a melody where it can go.

You know, it tells it what it can lean on the melody, what what what it can resist and, and what it finally can resolve into. Right. So without this harmonic gravity, notes are just notes. But with harmony, notes become meaning. Right. A single pitch can feel stable.

or can feel tense, can be bright or dark, playful, heartbreaking, right? Depending entirely on the harmony underneath it. And that's why harmony isn't an add on skill. just not an add on skill. It's, it's not a chapter somewhere in the middle of the book. In fact, harmony is the spine of the book. Harmony is the spine of the entire musical story. So

strong harmony, as you've heard me mentioned throughout 2025, right? Strong harmony creates strong melody. And here's the truth that I've learned again and again and again, a strong melody is not random. It is harmonically inevitable.

that makes sense. Great melodies, in other words, great melodies don't just float above the chords. They actually reveal the chords. And that is why when you truly understand the harmony of a tune, melody becomes clearer. You stop guessing which notes might work, and you start hearing which notes are supposed to happen. The notes that sound like they belong.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (09:46.989)
In other words, melody isn't just a string of pitches. Melody is harmony spoken in single notes. Of course, the segues perfectly into the understanding that strong harmony creates strong improvisation.

So in other words, improvisation is not a magic trick, which I think some people think. Improvisation is composition happening in real time. In composition, real composition requires structure.

Right? if we, you know, jazz musicians, we love to say that improvisation is composition happening in real time. Well, you know, composition requires structure. So then improvisation must be structured. And harmony is that structure. If you don't understand the harmony, then improvisation turns into one of two things. Number one, it turns into running

patterns that you've memorized, know, running scales or arpeggios up and down the piano. Or number two, improvisation turns into hoping you don't land on a wrong note.

But when you understand harmony, improvisation becomes an entirely different experience. Now you're not playing over the changes. You're actually shaping the changes. There's a huge difference. You're targeting thirds and sevenths. You're hearing cadences before they arrive. You're hearing tension.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (11:42.189)
like a storyteller uses suspense. And you're reading lines with intention, not luck. Strong harmony turns improvisation from survival. We've all been there, right? So strong harmony turns improvisation from survival into conversation.

and we all know good conversation.

contains emotion. So when students always ask me, How do I play with more emotion? The answer isn't louder dynamics, softer dynamics, or Hey, you know what, a little more pedal, or less pedal, or you know what, how about some more notes? Nope. The answer is, emotion comes from harmonic awareness, harmony. Because harmony is what

creates longing. Harmony creates relief. Harmony creates surprise. Right? Think about it. A major chord can sound joyful, nostalgic, naive, triumphant, depending on what comes before what comes after it. A dominant chord can sound exciting, dangerous, deeply painful.

So when you want your plane to carry emotional weight, you don't start with your fingers. Right? It never starts with your fingers. You start with your understanding of harmony, your understanding of harmonic motion, harmonic movement. So a big takeaway for 2025 is an understanding that harmony is the musical map. Melody.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (13:39.948)
is the journey. Now I know this is a simple analogy, but you know what? It's true. It's very true. Harmony is the map. Melody is the journey. And if you don't know the map, if you don't know harmony, you might still travel. There's no doubt about that, but you'll travel in circles. Or as an old jazzer said to me one time, as I was stepping off the bandstand, He whispered in my ear, sooner or later, you have to say something.

right? I was traveling, but I was traveling in circles. You'll end up repeating ideas. You'll avoid risk, of course, you'll stay in familiar neighborhoods, right? But if you know harmony, if you know the harmonic map,

If you understand harmonic function and movement that you know, we talk about every single month with every single standard that we look at. If you understand this harmonic function and harmonic movement, then you can travel anywhere and feel like you belong. You can take some pretty nice scenic routes because you're never afraid of getting lost. So as we look ahead to

2026. Here's the thought that I want you to keep in mind. If you want stronger melody, strength and harmony. If you want stronger improvisation, strength and harmony. If you want stronger voicings, stronger comping, stronger time, better feel, more confidence, more freedom, strength and harmony. Because harmony isn't just one skill among many.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (15:40.153)
As I just mentioned earlier, harmony is the spine of the book. Harmony is the source code. And when your harmonic understanding improves, everything else begins to magically organize itself. Your ears improve, your hands relax, your lines make sense. And get this, your playing gets simpler.

but deeper, right? We, you know, the problem is oftentimes, we end up staying our musical sound is, is wide and shallow. But the study of harmony, right, gets simpler and deeper. And that's, that's the goal, not to play more. But

play with meaning. All right, so now let's, let's take a peek ahead. Let's look at 2026. You know, the title of this podcast episode, the Four Pillars of Jazz Piano. That's where we now we have arrived to the Four Pillars of Jazz Piano. And you know, as we look ahead to 2026, I want to share an important evolution and how

will be approaching our tune studies here at Jazz Panelist because we're going to continue our monthly tune study, right? It's at the heart of what we do. And that's not changing. We will continue to study great music. We will continue to develop harmonic understanding, of course. We will continue to strengthen melody and improvisation, of course. And

we will be bringing into 2026 with every tune study, we will be bringing a new edition. And that is why I'm calling it the four pillars of jazz piano. Now these pillars aren't new ideas. They're the ideas we've been working on all along. What's new is the language, because you know what language matters. So clear language leads to clear thinking.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (18:08.921)
heard me say that many times, clear thinking leads to better practice. You've me say that many times, and better practice leads to better music. It's pretty simple formula. So the four pillars of jazz piano gives us a clear, honest framework for understanding how jazz piano actually works. Not as isolated skills.

not as disconnected techniques, but as four interdependent ways of understanding the same piece of music. I'm to say that again, because it's so important. The four pillars of jazz are four interdependent ways of understanding the same piece of music. So I want to take just a minute or two to go through each of these pillars. So pillar one, guess what it is.

easy guess, right? Pillar one is harmonic architecture. Everything begins as you just heard me talk about everything begins with harmony. So harmony is the blueprint. It's the structure. It's the gravitational force that gives music direction. And our harmonic architecture study will continue to explore harmonic function and chord movement.

And of course, voicings, we will continue to study our block voicings with, you know, root position, first, second, third inversion, traditional shells, left hand shells, contemporary left hand shells, two handed structures. So we will continue with that format, week one of every tune study. So pillar one harmonic architecture will be our harmonic analysis. And in this pillar answers the question

Dr. Bob Lawrence (20:14.489)
where are we? And where are we going? Right? Again, we want to make sure that we can travel successfully. So having a strong harmonic understanding of a tune, understanding the harmonic architecture of the tune, without without the pillar one, we don't even have to worry about pillar two, three or four. Okay, so harmonic analysis will remain the same.

Now, pillar two, melodic design, what I call melodic design. Once the harmony is understood, melody becomes clear, right? Again, melody is not random. It's not a scale choice. Melody is harmony spoken in single notes. So in our melodic analysis, in our melodic

A pillar to melodic design or melodic analysis, we will continue to focus on the melody, learning the melody of the tune. We will continue to look at fingerings. We will continue to look at phrases and target notes within those phrases. And of course, we will continue to explore various treatments. Right? So this pillar, this melodic design pillar answers the question

How does the harmony sing? How does the harmony sing? So after we have addressed pillar one, harmonic architecture with our harmonic analysis, and after we've looked at pillar two, melodic design, our melodic analysis, we will, as always, address pillar three, improvisation development.

Now, improvisation, as we all know, is not musical chaos. It can sound like that at times, but it is not musical chaos. Improvisation, as I mentioned earlier, is real-time composition. And strong improvisation is built on strong harmonic understanding, harmonic and melodic understanding. In our improvisation development studies,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (22:32.889)
We will continue to focus on various ways of connecting harmony to melody. We will continue developing ideas instead of just running patterns. We will continue to study how to create tension and release. And we will dive even deeper into how to build solos that tell a story. So the pillar answers this pillar.

pillar three improvisational development answers this question. How do I create in the moment with intention? How do I create in the moment with intention? So week one, pillar one harmonic architecture will be our harmonic analysis. Everything again begins with harmony.

Week two, pillar two, melodic design or melodic analysis. Week three, pillar three, improvisation development. And then we get to week four. And this is where some new excitement happens. Week four, pillar four, solo piano interpretation. And this is the new edition that I've been speaking of. And of course, it's an important one.

Solo piano brings everything together. Harmony, melody, improvisation, rhythm, time, feel, texture, form. It's all of it. And that's why I've always said, know, solo piano playing is one of the hardest things you'll ever do. So when you play solo piano, here's the deal. And here's why it's one of the hardest things to do. There's

There's nowhere to hide. Nowhere. But there's also complete freedom.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (24:37.423)
How nice is that? So in our solo piano interpretation study that we will now include every month, we'll focus on integrating harmony and melody simultaneously, creating full musical treatments or statements at the piano of the tune, developing independence and confidence.

with our playing. And then finally, we will focus on making the piano sound complete and expressive. All so important, right? And this pillar, pillar four, solo piano interpretation, answers the question, how do I make the tune come alive on my own?

that's the key. How do I make the tune come alive on my own? So in 2026, we will every month study a new tune. We will address the four pillars of jazz piano using that tune as the focal point. Pillar one being our harmonic architecture, understanding the harmonic architecture of the tune, our harmonic analysis. Pillar two,

melodic design, that would be our melodic analysis, pillar three, improvisation development, and then pillar four, solo piano interpretation. So there are our four pillars of jazz piano that we will address every single month with every single tune that we study. Now why does this matter? Well, it matters because the four pillars of jazz piano

I believe gives us a gives us a true representation of how jazz piano should be studied. Not as a shortcut, as I mentioned earlier, not as a shortcut, not as tricks, not as isolated skills, but as a connected system. And that's what I've been trying to develop here a connected system. Each pillar supports the others.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (27:04.131)
When harmony improves, melody improves. When melody improves, improvisation improves. And when all three improve, solo piano becomes possible. And when solo piano improves, everything else improves. And you know what improves most of all? Your enjoyment.

So as we move into 2026, I want you to know that every tune study will be an invitation to slow down, to slow down, to understand more deeply, to play with more intention, and to experience jazz piano as a complete musical language. The four pillars of jazz piano aren't.

It's not a new direction. The four pillars are just simply a cleaner expression of what we've been building all along. And I can't wait to explore each of these pillars every month with you in the year ahead. OK, so no master class this week, of course. On Thursday, that is New Year's Day.

So I will be relaxing and chilling out and getting prepared for a crazy and fun year ahead. So no master class this Thursday evening. All jazz, piano, skill activities will resume starting on Monday, January 5th. Monday, January 5th.

and our new tune that we will be studying in the month of January, I will release that on Sunday, Sunday on the website, on the Jazz Panel Skills website, and we'll send out an email to all of you letting you know, to give you a little head start. If you want to get a head start on the new year, I'll be sending that out on Sunday.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (29:27.437)
with our very first tune for 2026. Okay, so as we come to the close of this year 2025, I want to take a moment to speak directly to you, Jazz Piano Skills members and Jazz Piano Skills listeners. Thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for practicing. Thank you for trusting the process. Even when

Even when the music felt challenging, confusing and uncomfortable. As you know, jazz piano is not something you master quickly. It's something you grow into. And this year I've seen growth everywhere in understanding and confidence.

And in a way, so many of you are beginning to think about and hear music differently. And that matters because real progress doesn't always sound flashy, as you know. And sometimes it sounds clearer and sometimes sounds muddy. Sometimes it's more intentional. Sometimes it's more grounded. But all of that

is where real musicianship lives. And as we look ahead to the new year, I couldn't be more excited about what's coming. Not because we're doing more, right, but because we're doing things more clearly. So in the year ahead, we'll continue building deep harmonic understanding, we'll strengthen melodic thinking and we'll develop improvisation that tells a story.

And you know what? We're going to bring everything together through solo piano in a way that feels musical, expressive, and most importantly, complete, no matter where you are in your jazz journey, complete. So most importantly, most importantly, we'll keep doing this together thoughtfully, patiently, and with purpose. So as you close out this year,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (31:48.121)
take a moment to acknowledge how far you've come. Celebrate the progress that you've made, so important. And honor the work that you've put in. And then be excited about the music that's still ahead of you. So from my heart to yours, thank you for being.

the best part of Jazz Piano Skills. I wish you a joyful, a healthy, and music-filled new year. And I can't wait to discover, learn, and play Jazz Piano with you in the year ahead. Well, there is my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, enjoy family, enjoy friends, and of course, enjoy playing.

Jazz Piano!