Sweet Lorraine, Solo Piano

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Summary
This episode explores the art of solo jazz piano, focusing on harmonic and melodic analysis, improvisation, and practical approaches to playing solo. Dr. Bob Lawrence shares structured methods to develop mastery, emphasizing understanding music fundamentals and applying them creatively.

Keywords
Jazz Piano, Solo Piano, Harmonic Analysis, Improvisation, Music Education, Jazz Techniques, Practice Strategies

Key Topics
Structured educational process in jazz piano
Harmonic and melodic analysis
Improvisation development and motifs
Solo piano approaches and harmonic motion

Takeaways
Mastery is built on structure, not just information.
Focus on understanding music fundamentals deeply.
Use harmonic neighbors and half-step approaches for motion.
Practice with intention and clarity, not complexity.

Titles
Mastering Solo Jazz Piano: 4 Essential Approaches
The Art of Solo Jazz Piano with Dr. Bob Lawrence

Sound Bites
"Information alone is not mastery."
"Master less, do better."
"Practice with intention, not complexity."

Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Week four is here. In week four, well, since the start of 2026, week four is the week we focus on solo piano approaches. So important, right? Because all of us, the reality is all of us spend more time playing solo piano than we do in a group or ensemble setting. However, the ensemble experience is, as I like to say, the gateway to learning how to play solo piano. It's the gateway because what we experience in the ensemble is what we try to emulate or recreate when playing solo piano. That is why practicing with backing tracks, using the technology of today, right? Those backing tracks become very important. It's an amazing and incredibly convenient way to simulate an ensemble experience. Bottom line, take advantage of the technology. It's there, we should be using it. Anyway, today is all about deepening our understanding of solo jazz piano playing. We start the month with a harmonic analysis, we follow it with a melodic analysis, then improvisation study, and then we cap it all off with solo piano approaches. It's nice. It's nice because jazz piano skills, jazz piano skills is an education. Truly. Real education. It's refreshing. Especially in this day and age where the learning trend, especially online, is about the delivery of standalone data chunks masquerading as education. What I mean by that is it's a lot of here's a voicing trick. Here's a cool scale you can use. Here's a hip lick to learn, or how about this? Here's a really cool chord. Personally, I find that to be uh incredibly shallow. And honestly, for most people, very confusing. It is so important to know, and I think if you are a regular jazz piano skills listener, then you do know that information alone is not a system. It is not an educational process. Bottom line, information without a process, a sequence, uh does not produce mastery. Jazz piano skills is built on a structured educational process that repeats every single month. It's not random, it's intentional. Week one, our harmonic analysis. We study the form, the changes, harmonic function, voicings. You know why? Because if you don't understand the architecture of a tune, everything else is guesswork. Harmony is without question the foundation. Week two, our melodic analysis, right? We move to the melody, not casually, not just to play the head, right? No, we we transcribe it, we check out fingerings, we look at the phrases, target notes within those phrases, and explore various melodic treatments. Very structured. You know why? Because melody is the blueprint for improvisation. If you don't know the melody deeply, your solo, well, your solo will definitely reflect that. Now, week three, improvisation development. Now and only now do we improvise, meaning after we know the melody, after we know the harmony. And even here it's structured. We we like to dive into melodic pathway composition, uh, motif development, of course, chord scale relationships. Bottom line is improvisation is not a guessing game. It's informed movement. It's again, it's intentional design. And then week four today, solo piano approaches, we expand. We explore, golly, we're gonna be exploring this year everything from stride to shared hands to harmonic subs and additions, um, various ways, robato approaches, arrangement uh concepts and orchestration. Um, but now, but now we're building on something stable, right? We're not decorating confusion. We're able to focus on solo piano with clarity because we've done our harmonic analysis, melodic analysis, improvisation development. And here's the real key. We repeat this exact same process every month. New tune, but we retain the same educational framework. This is huge. Because mastery, again, is not built on novelty, it is built on structure. Right? Other other sites provide information, no doubt about it. There's a lot of information out there. But jazz piano skills presents a method. A method you can follow, a method you can trust, and a method that actually builds musicians. And that's why students don't just learn tunes here. Right? We develop the essential jazz skills. Of course, all of this sounds good, which it is, but even with solid educational process, which we have in place, the study and practice of all these organized, structured, essential jazz piano skills will not have a profound impact on one's development if they are not governed by, guided by a crystal clear conceptual understanding of how music works. And guess what? We have that. We have that here at Jazz Piano Skills. We have a crystal clear understanding of how music works, and we confirm our crystal clear understanding of how music works every week through the profession of our seven facts of music. So with that being said, it's time. It's time to do it again. It's time to declare the seven facts of music. What are they? Fact number one, music is the production of sound and silence. Sound, of course, being major, dominant, minor, half diminished, and diminished. Fact number two, sound is produced harmonically and melodically. That's it. Fact number three, when sound is produced harmonically, we're playing chords, or what we re often refer to the chords as voicings. Fact number four, when sound is produced melodically, we are playing scales in arpeggios. Fact number five, when playing scales and arpeggios, we are moving in one of two directions. We're either going up or we're coming down. Again, that's it. And fact number six, we have to camouflage and decorate the scales in arpeggios so everyone knows that we're playing something more than scales in arpeggios. We decorate our scales and arpeggios with tension, or what is often referred to as chromaticism, notes that fall outside of the harmony. And finally, fact number seven, to make facts one through six interesting, we add rhythm. This understanding of music allows us to easily validate what we study, why we study it, and how we study it. And if we do not understand the what, why, and how of what we are doing with our instrument, we are running in place at best. So today we certainly are not gonna run in place. We are gonna make some serious uh advancement in our musicianship and our ability to play the essential jazz piano skills. We are going to explore solo piano approaches. So today we are gonna continue our exploration of Sweet Lorraine. We're gonna discover Sweet Lorraine, though, from a solo piano perspective, and we are going to learn how to begin creating harmonic motion and movement, using, of course, the chord progression of Sweet Lorraine. And we are going to play the most iconic progression in jazz, and we are going to harmonically decorate it. So, as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you consider yourself a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this Jazz Piano Skills Podcast lesson exploring sweet Lorraine, solo piano approaches 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 piano skills. If you're new to the podcast, if you're new to jazz piano skills in general, welcome. We're glad you are here, and I want to personally invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. And your membership comes with many very cool perks. Number one, as a jazz pianel skills member, you have access to premium podcast content, which means that you get to listen to the entire podcast episode. The first half of every Jazz Panel Skills podcast 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 every podcast, for members only, we deal with the lesson content, the demonstrations, and of course, we explore the podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play-alongs. These are educational materials that I design and develop for every weekly podcast episode. And I encourage you to have these in your hands when listening to the episode to get the most out of it. As a jazz panel skills member, you also have access to the online courses. These are comprehensive, sound-based, self-paced, and sequential courses focusing on harmonic, melodic, and improvisation development. You also, as a Jazz Panel Skills member, have a reserved seat in the weekly masterclass that I host every Thursday evening, 8 p.m. Central Standard Time. And I know it's not the best time for everyone, but these masterclasses are recorded, and you can watch the class at your convenience, and you can watch it as often as you wish. As a Jazz Panel Skills member, you also have access to the online private jazz panel skills community, which hosts a variety of educational forums. There are episode-specific forums as well as general jazz forums. It's a great place to meet folks, get some member, get some uh assistance and feedback from members, and also provide some uh feedback and assistance as well. We also have a weekly forum that uh houses our weekly listening list that is put together for every weekly podcast episode, which is a killer. And um it's uh available to all the members as well. And then as a jazz piano skills member, you have access to uh educational support, private, personal, professional support whenever you need it. So all of these amazing privileges, these perks are waiting to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazzpianelskills.com and of course become a member. But if you get to the site and you have some questions, uh do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to spend some time with you and answer any questions that you may have and help you in any way that I can. Finally, if you are not receiving the Jazz Panel Skills blog every weekend, uh please take the time to join the Jazz Panel Skills email list, which you can easily do at the Jazz Panel Skills website. Every weekend I publish a blog that uh summarizes the podcast episode in writing. Uh it's about always about about a four-minute or five-minute read. Definitely worth checking out to help keep you on track both conceptually and physically. So, again, if you're not receiving the podcast blog, uh weekly blog from Jazz Panel Skills, head over to Jazz Panel Skills, join the email list, and you will begin to enjoy and benefit from the weekly blog. All right, so let's get on with the question of the week. And this week's question comes from Kevin Miller in Columbus, Ohio. And Kevin writes, Hi, Dr. Lawrence, I've been working on trying to play tunes solo at the piano, but I get confused about what my left hand should actually be doing. Sometimes I try bass lines, sometimes chords, sometimes both, and it ends up feeling cluttered or inconsistent, at least in my opinion. Is there a right way to approach the left hand when playing solo piano? Timely question, because that's what we're going to be dealing with today, Kevin. It's a fantastic question because you know what? This is exactly well, this is exactly why we have this week this year, solo piano approaches, because this is where most students, young jazz pianists, begin to feel overwhelmed when they are confronted with playing solo piano. Okay, so let me give you the short answer first. Your left hand, uh, the job that your left hand has in playing solo piano is honestly, it's simple. It's your left hand's job is to support the music, not compete with it. Okay. And I think that's where I think that's where we most of us get in trouble. All right. Most students think solo piano means um I have to do everything all at once. Bass lines, chords, rhythms, fill space. And you know what? When we start thinking like that, um, it typically leads to clutter, it leads to tension, both musically and physically, which leads to confusion, which then uh impacts time in a negative way, which, of course, all of that adds up to equal, not a good solo piano playing experience. So, Kevin, listen to this very carefully. There is no single, as you said, correct thing or cor correct way that your left hand uh should be doing, right? A correct thing that your left hand should be doing. There there are actually multiple approaches, and your job uh uh uh and this is very careful listen to this very carefully. Your job is not to try to use all of them all at the same time. It is to choose the right one for the moment and for the tune that you are playing and the treatment that you are uh going after when playing the tune. Alright. So let's simplify this, alright? So uh your left hand your left hand the the left hand begins with simple um I say simple, but okay, let's leave the word simple out for a second. Voicings, alright? Your left hand begins with voicings, and at jazz piano skills, I like to talk about voicings uh categorically, right? I like to put voicings in the categories. So we have two note voicings, we have three note voicings, four note voicings, and five note voicings. So two-note voicings would be something like the root and the third, or the root and the fifth, the root and the seventh, or the third and the seventh, or the seventh and the third, right? Very common to use two-note shapes, two note voicings when playing solo piano. Three note voicings are our traditional shells that we address every single, every single uh month when we do our harmonic analysis, our traditional shells, 379 and 735 structures, and then our contemporary shells, which are three-note shells as well, but they're built uh using primarily the interval of a fourth. And then we have our four-note voicings, which are our block voicings, root position, first, second, third, inversion, inversions, right? And then we have five-note structures, which uh five-note voicings, which are my two-handed structures that I teach, two in the left, three in the right. So I want you to think of this: that voicings is number one job of the left hand, and we have four categories of voicings: two notes, three notes, four notes, and five notes. Now, ideally, you want to have all those in your arsenal when playing, but all of those are not necessary to play solo piano. Okay, but that's it. I said simple earlier, not simple in terms of getting them muscle memory. Obviously, it takes a lot of practice, but the way that I break them into categories and organize and structure these voicings, hopefully that simplifies the thought process that helps you to be able to get these shapes uh under your hands and in your ears uh as quickly as possible. All right. All right, so now keep this in mind. You you do not need more voicings, honestly. So two, three, four, five note structures. There isn't much more. And honestly, even if you find more, which I I know you will as you surf the internet and YouTube, there's no no doubt about that. The return on your investment with trying trying to learn more than what I just outlined for you is very questionable. The bottom line is this, Kevin, you need mastery of less. Mastery of less. Now, once you're comfortable with these shapes, with these voicings, we can begin adding movement, but not random movement. As you'll see today with our study of Sweet Lorraine, it's not random at all. It's again, it's very intentional. Um we create this movement with what I call um harmonic neighbors, you know, typically half-step approachments to your target chord. So maybe instead of just playing a two, five, one, maybe you're playing a two flat six to the five, right? So a half-step approachment into the five. So, but we'll talk about more of that when we get into uh sweet Lorraine today. So listen, music loves motion, and one of the strongest types of motion is that half-step resolution. So instead of just landing on a chord, we like to approach it, right? But you got to know your voicings in order to do this. And the best way to really learn this skill is not really through a tune, as it is with any skill. It's about extracting this skill and practicing it outside of the tune so that it can be natural to do and lean upon when playing a tune. And so you take these harmonic neighbors, uh, these uh half-step approaches, and you apply them to common progressions like 2-5-1, 1-6-2-5-1, 3-6-2-5-1. And again, we're going to be doing that today. So now your left hand begins to uh lean into chords, connect harmony, uh, and create this forward motion that I think that's your is what you're looking for in your solo piano playing, but but not like you said, not to uh create clutter. Of course, we want our left hand to sound intentional, sound connected, to sound like jazz, to feel alive because there's uh organized movement, movement that makes sense. Again, not cluttered. So the arsenal that I outlined for you just a few minutes ago, the two note, the three-note, the four note, the five-note voicing, I think mission number one if you're wanting to improve your solo piano playing. Now, trying to do with that being said, trying to do too much too soon, right? Um trying to add voicings that you're not ready to play too soon, or trying to uh add stride movement or bass lines or full chords, adding everything. At once before mastering the foundation, foundation being harmony, melody, and time. This is the biggest, this is the biggest mistake. This is what leads to the cluster that you were referencing in your question. This is the biggest mistake that I think everybody uh makes when trying to uh develop solo piano skills. All right. And I'll talk more about that uh a little later here in the podcast when we deal with sweet Lorraine. So um let me say something that's very important, Kevin. Your left hand um is not responsible for keeping time. You are, right? Time is eternal. And I mentioned this last week. Uh we talked about it in the podcast uh in the master class. Uh time is not in a chord, it's not in a melody, it's not in your left hand, it's not in your right hand, it's in you. And this is time is the key to playing solo piano. Uh time is internal. Your left hand will sound unstable. Well, everything will sound unstable if your time is not stable. Okay. So we want harmonics, we want to have command of voicings, and we want to have a command of time. The goal is not, again, the goal is not to do more with our left hand. The goal is to do actually, the goal is to do less better. Think of it that way. Do less better. All right. So, Kevin, I would I would say that uh here's the outline, here's the practice outline that that I would recommend for you and for everyone. Okay, here it is. Number one, start with one voicing type. They can be traditional shells, they can be blocks, contemporary shells. Makes honestly it makes no difference. But but start with one voicing type. Number two, lock in time. Practice playing those voicings through your tune, whatever tune it is that you're playing solo piano. Lock in time with those voicings. Number two, we want it relaxed, steady, no rushing. Number three, uh add harmonic uh neighbors to your progression. If we're needing to feel or you feel like you need to create harmonic movement, and the best way to do this is half-step approaches into your chords. And again, we're gonna be dealing with that today. Number four, add motion, add motion um gradually. Like, for example, when I talk about motion, like like stride motion, right? This be this is um inserted gradually and slowly. And number five, the last part of developing jazz piano, uh solo jazz piano skills, the spread voicings, fuller textures, that all comes last. A lot oftentimes everybody wants to try to put that number one, but that's actually step five in my process, not number one. So again, number one, you gotta have a command of one voicing type. You have to. Number two, your time has to be relaxed, steady, locked in, no rushing. Number three, the addition of harmonic, what I call harmonic neighbors, half-step approaches into your chords. Number four, adding motion like stride. And then five step five, spread voicings, fuller textures, uh, again, that comes last. So the big shift mentally for you, Kevin. I think for everyone listening that's wanting to develop solo piano skills, the big shift, uh, instead of asking what should my left hand be doing, I think the real question is, what can I do with my left hand right now? Because whatever that the answer to that is, you can play solo piano with that, whatever that is, right? So again, the big shift, the big mental shift, instead of asking what should my left hand be doing, you should be asking, what can I do with my left hand right now? So solo piano, remember this solo piano is not about filling space, it's not about uh it's not about um how fancy I can I get with my left hand, how fancy can I get with my right hand? Um it it literally is about what can I do with my left hand right now, and can I do that in time? Bottom line, I guess what I'm trying to say is that your left hand doesn't need to do everything, it just needs to do one thing with clarity, with direction and intention. And if you have that one thing in time with clarity, direction, and intention, you'll have people sitting and listening to you play soul, jazz, piano all night long. Your question, Kevin, is awesome. I think everyone could ask the exact same question. It's a question that we're gonna be actually dealing with today with our study of sweet Lorraine. You know, we're gonna explore uh various voicing types, harmonic neighbors, controlled left-hand movement. We're gonna do all of that today with sweet Lorraine. And as we do this, um we're gonna lock in on number one clarity. Are the voicings simple and supportive? Number two, motion. How are the chords being approached? Right? Because solo piano, solo piano playing is not about doing more. It's about doing the things I can do right now and doing them well. Well, Kevin, I hope this uh answer uh provided some clarity. If not, if I've pro if I've created more confusion, uh by all means, please reach out to me, let me know. I'm happy to spend some time with you and and dive deeper into uh your question and help you in any way that I can. So, all right. It is time for us to discover, learn, and play sweet Lorraine, solo piano approaches. All right, so we go through this outline um every week because it's important. You know, our approach, uh, the rationale behind how we uh approach learning uh a tune. And we do it the same way. And again, genre, as I stress every every week, makes no difference. We would be doing this same process if we were studying a rock tune, a pop tune, country folk, RB, it doesn't matter. Of course, we're studying jazz here at Jazz Piano Skills, but this process remains the same regardless of the genre. Number one, and most important, uh listening. And we want to listen to, when learning any tune, we want to listen to various artists, professional musicians, amateur musicians, vocalists, instrumentalist, pianist, makes no difference. And this is why we have a listening list that goes along with every podcast episode so that we can spend time actively listening to various artists perform the tune that we are studying. It has a profound impact on our development. Number two, harmonic analysis, form, changes, function, common movement, voicings. Number three, melodic analysis, melody, phrases, targets, various treatments. Again, we do all of this every single month. And then improvisation development, we look at melodic pathways, motif development, core scale relationships, arpeggioscale movement, tension, uh, and of course, uh rhythm. So again, learning to tune, we go step by step through this process. It's thorough, it's complete, and it's effective. So already this month, obviously, we've already completed our harmonic analysis of sweet Lorraine, our melodic analysis of sweet Lorraine. Last week we looked at improvisation development using Sweet Lorraine. Now, today it's time for us to do some solo piano approaches. And with that being said, our educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we are going to listen to definitive recordings of Sweet Lorraine. Again, this list is found within our forums. Number two, we are going to isolate the most common jazz progression of all time and use it to develop solo piano skills. And number three, we are going to use, I mentioned it in uh the question of the week, harmonic neighbors and other harmonic devices to help us create motion, harmonic interest when playing. So if you are a jazz panel skills member, I want you to take just a few minutes right now, hit the pause button. I want you to access and download, print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets. There are no play-alongs uh this week because we're talking about solo piano playing. So your illustrations and your lead sheets. Uh again, your membership grants you access uh to this material, and you should have this material in your hands when listening to the episode if you can. And you certainly should have this material sitting on your piano or your music stand when practicing throughout the week. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets, we always start with our lead sheets. I'll talk about what we're going to be doing with the illustration uh uh toward the end of the podcast, but we're gonna start with your lead sheets, and uh you have two lead sheets. That's it. But again, remember this big things, big things come in small packages, and you will soon find out that that is indeed the case. So we have two lead sheets. But now, um before going any further, I want to kind of just talk you through both of these lead sheets. Uh, lead sheet number one, of course. Thank you for listening to Jazz Piano Skills. The remaining premium content of this episode is available to Jazz Piano Skills members at Jazz Pianoskills Podcast.com. Visit jazzpianoskills.com to learn more about membership privileges and become a Jazz Piano Skills member. Thank you.