50 "Must Know" Rhythms!

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.92)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Well, we've done it again. We've completed our three-week study of a timeless jazz standard. This month, we've been focusing on Misty. We've analyzed it harmonically, melodically, and improvisationally, just like we do with every tune every month, right? We tackle it three ways.

harmonically, melodically, and improvisationally. Our harmonic analysis takes a tune and determines its form, chord changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, and of course the voicings, the left-handed shell voicings, traditional and contemporary, as well as the two-handed structures. Our melodic analysis has us transcribing the melody, learning it by ear, right?

And we established the fingerings of that melody. We identify the melodic phrases and the target notes within those phrases, as well as exploring the melody using three standard jazz treatments, a ballad, bossa, and swing groove. Our improvisation study this month had us composing a melodic line comprising of quarter notes, ascending or descending, using the target notes, right, the target notes of the phrases found within misty.

then altered that composed melodic line, we altered it rhythmically to discover jazz vocabulary. It's very cool. Very eye opening, right? Regarding the development of melodic vocabulary and its dependency on rhythmic vocabulary. Right? So as I like to say, with our eyes wide open and with our ears wide open, we discovered that without a good rhythmic idea, a melody

and harmony fall flat. And we realize this every single month when we do our improvisation development. We realize that melody and harmony need rhythm. And this revelation is incredibly important. know, very few actually come to understand this musical truth, this musical fact, right? Fact number seven on our seven facts of musical list. And as a result,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:59.157)
All of their attention, day in and day out, is given to melody and harmony. In fact, most teachers, right, now I've been guilty of this, neglect or give very little time and attention to rhythm, study and development. Melody and harmony, for some reason, get all of the attention. But rhythm, which is the engine that drives music, gets neglected. All three, don't get me wrong, all three are very important, and all three should be

part of your daily and weekly practice routine. And that's why my daily YouTube challenges now rotate between harmony challenges, melody challenges, and rhythm challenges. But with that being said, it's also important to stress that if you neglect rhythm, it won't matter how much you feel you know about harmony and melody.

because you're going to remain musically frustrated for the rest of your life. True statement. And this is precisely why I have been obsessing over rhythm over the past several months. And you know what? I'm going to continue my obsession today with this podcast episode. So today we are going to discover, check this out, we're going to discover

50, that's right, I said 50, five five zero, I guess, technically, 50 must know rhythms. And we're going to learn essential rhythms that serve as springboards for producing jazz melodic vocabulary. And we're going to play essential jazz rhythms using primary note values, whole notes, half notes.

quarter notes, eighth notes. So today's going to be a fun day, a day of very significant growth, both conceptually and physically for all of us. So as I 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 and crusty old professional,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:22.388)
You're going to find this Jazz Panel Skills Podcast lesson exploring 50, that's right, five, zero, 50 must know rhythms to be very beneficial. But before we get started, before we jump in, I want to, as I always do, welcome first time listeners to the Jazz Panel Skills Podcast. And if you are indeed a new listener, if you're new to Jazz Panel Skills, I want to

welcome you and invite you to become a Jazz Panel Skills member. Your membership keeps Jazz Panel Skills, the podcast, 100 % ad free, which has been my goal from day one. 100 % educational content, no ads. And additionally, your membership comes with many perks that I think you will find to be enormously beneficial.

Number one, as a member, you get to enjoy premium podcast content, which basically means you get to listen to the entire episode. The first half of every podcast is free for everyone to enjoy. Typically deal with the question of the week, lay out the educational agenda and lesson rationale. The second half for members only lesson content, demonstrations, exploration of the podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs.

that are absolutely invaluable for your jazz development. Now the podcast packets, as I just mentioned, are designed and developed for every weekly podcast episode. The illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs. And I encourage everyone to have these in your hands when listening to the podcast to get the most out of each episode. And then of course to have them sitting on your piano or music stand when practicing as well.

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Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:43.467)
whenever convenient and as often as you wish. As a Jazz Panel Skills member, you also have access to the online private Jazz Skills Panel Skills community, which hosts a variety of educational forums, episode specific forums, as well as general jazz forums. It's a great place to meet new folks, receive some member feedback and assistance and also make yourself available to provide some member feedback and assistance as well.

And finally, as a Jazz Piano Skills member, you have unlimited educational support, private, personal, and professional support whenever and as often as you need it. All of these amazing perks, these privileges are waiting to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazzpanelskills.com when you have a couple minutes and of course become a member. If you have any questions, once you arrive at the site, by all means.

please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have and help you in any way that I possibly can. I also want to take just a few minutes to plug my new YouTube channel. I'm producing educational content videos daily, and I think you'll find them to be beneficial for your jazz growth. And I currently have several playlists that you can check out, the daily challenges, which test your skills and harmony and

melody and rhythm. Jazz talks are available. I have one minute lessons and also all the podcast episodes along with podcast guest episodes are posted at YouTube now as well. And again, I'm populating these playlists with new videos every week. So be sure to subscribe so you are notified whenever a new Jazz Panel Skills video is published. Needless to say, I'm

pretty pumped up about this new dimension to jazz piano skills. And I'm looking forward to getting better at it and growing the YouTube channel to help us all discover, learn and play jazz, right? Whether it's piano or any instrument. All right. So typically at this time, I turn my attention to the question of the week. But I got to be honest today, this is going to be a pack

Dr. Bob Lawrence (10:06.699)
podcast episode, right? Just the title alone, right? 50 must-know rhythms. So I'm going to skip the question of the week this week. It will return, of course, next week as usual as we usher in a new month and usher in a new tune to study as well. Okay, so let's just take a few minutes and talk about rhythm.

And I addressed some of these points last month, but they're worth revisiting, right? They're worth giving some more thought to. So, know, last month I asked, you know, why do we neglect talking about rhythm? Why does it just get shunned, Neglected by teachers, neglected by students, know, melody, improvisation, harmony, chords and voicings, you know, they get all the attention.

Well, rhythm typically gets crickets, right? So, you know, I think the deal here is that teachers always want to assume that students understand rhythm. We assume that students can play a whole note in time or two half notes in time or four quarter notes in time. teachers, we've, you know, we're guilty of being concerned about boring students.

by discussing such fundamentals, which I don't even like calling them fundamentals anymore because I call them foundational. In other words, without them, you're going nowhere, right? you know, being able to play rhythms using primary note values like whole notes and quarter notes, half notes and eighth notes. I mean, that's not fundamental. mean, that's foundational. So instead of boring students, I guess what

teachers do is, as a result ends, end up frustrating them. And they frustrate him frustrate them in that, you know, musical struggles often if not always are traced back to a lack of the of an ability to command foundational skills. And being capable of playing whole notes and half notes and quarter notes and eighth notes in time.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:26.247)
Again, like I just mentioned, they're foundational as you're to find out today. Absolutely 100 % necessary. Now teachers don't get all the blame here. Students do too, right? I can't tell you how many times here in my office at the Dallas School Music with new students, you know, you should see their face as soon as I tell them, hey, let's let's practice playing some whole notes. They look at me like I'm absolutely lost my mind. Like are you kidding me?

I go, OK, well, if that's too easy, let's let's do some half notes. Same look. All right, well, if that's too easy, let's do some quarter notes. Same look. OK, what about some eighth notes? Now they. Now they start to plug in a little bit. So students that you know the student mindset is please don't insult me right? That's whole notes, half notes, quarter notes. That's like music 101.

I've been studying music for 30 years. I don't need to waste time practicing such rudimentary skills. Come to find out, they find out very quickly that's typically not the case. There's always some polishing that needs to be done. So see, I guess that rhythm, as I mentioned last month, it becomes a touchy subject. It's touchy because I said it was personal.

And indeed it is right? No, no one is embarrassed because they've never been introduced to various music theory concepts. No one. No one is ever embarrassed by that. But people do get embarrassed when you ask them to play whole notes and they stumble or they go to play half notes and they can't keep track of where count one is so they they get musical vertical and they don't know where they are.

that starts to get a little embarrassing, especially if they've had lessons in the past or have been studying music all their life and they think they're much further down the road than they actually are. see, rhythm is an internal skill that you either instinctually have or it needs to be practiced and developed. And for most people, guess what? It needs to be practiced and developed.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:51.691)
Heck, I practice it to this day. And I still feel that further development is needed. And I suspect I'm going to always feel that way for the rest of my life. when it comes to rhythm, teachers and students, ultimately, they become partners in crime, right? By silently agreeing to not discuss rhythm and instead focusing entirely on non-personal skills like melody, improvisation, and harmony.

chords. Oh, and one other very important point that I, again, I made it last month, but I want to make it again today that, you know, rhythm, time, the reality is, it can't be taught, right? A teacher cannot teach you time. And time, we, you know, we can talk about it, right? But we cannot teach it. Time is, time cannot be taught.

time rhythm can only be developed by experiencing it. And that is precisely why we, right, teachers need to talk about it and provide students way to practice it, to experience it so that they can successfully develop rhythmic skills. Rhythmic skills needed to play music, right? Bottom line, no rhythmic skills, no playing music. And this is precisely why

I've been obsessing over rhythm the last few months and honestly will continue to do so. So studying and practicing time rhythm, right, in bite-sized chunks like we're going to do today is fantastic and is the way that you actually should go about developing your rhythmic skills.

You know, as the old idiom goes, good things come in small packages. you know, practicing rhythms like I'm going to model today, demonstrate today, will, as you move forward through the rest of the week and start practicing them yourself, you'll find that it exposes huge weaknesses, huge weaknesses in your time and rhythmic plane. So secretly, my hope is that everyone

Dr. Bob Lawrence (17:15.377)
everyone today listening and everyone that's going to tackle these 50 must know rhythms experiences a personal revelation that illuminates the importance of practicing whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes in relationship in a musical context and a musical setting in time. And that is the key to developing melodic

vocabulary. So the educational agenda for today is as far as falls. And it's a pretty simple agenda. Number one, we are going to take a look at 50 foundational must know rhythms, right, that everyone needs to understand conceptually, physically and orally. No, no skirting around it. And number two,

I can't play all 50 today, but I'm going to play quite a few and I'm going to highlight. I'm going to select very specific patterns and model practicing them for you so that you can then utilize the same approach to practice all 50 on your way to really developing a strong sense of melodic vocabulary.

right? So this is this is going to be a ton of fun. So if you are a Jazz Panel Skills member, as always, I want you to take just a few minutes right now to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs, backing tracks. And again, your membership grants you access to this material.

So I want to make sure that you have them in your hands when listening to the rest of the podcast so you can follow along with these rhythms and in the listening demonstrations. And I want to make sure that you have them sitting on your piano and or music stand when practicing during the week as well so that you can begin securing your rhythmic vocabulary, which is the key to developing your melodic vocabulary. OK, so now that you have your podcast packets, I just want to

Dr. Bob Lawrence (19:36.693)
quickly talk through them before we dive into these 50 must-know rhythms. Okay, so the lead sheets. You should have one lead sheet. One lead sheet with all 50 rhythms presented and outlined into various groups based on similar rhythmic motifs.

Okay, so just one lead sheet, but it's a big one. The play alongs, the backing tracks, you will see that there are three backing tracks that use the three common jazz treatments, the ballad, bossa, and swing. And I will be using these tracks today to model various rhythms. The swing backing tracks are going be a tempo of 140, the bossa is going to be a tempo of 120, and the ballad will be nice and relaxed at 70.

And the illustrations, you'll find a beautiful template that you should use to notate rhythms, either the rhythms you are practicing today, from the today's 50 must know rhythms, or ones that you compose on your own using the primary note values that we are going to be spotlighting today with our 50 must know rhythms. All right, so it's pretty cool stuff that

when when used correctly this material and I know you will use it correctly but this material will have a profound impact on your musical development, your musicianship and your ability to play jazz. All right, so now let's get down to business. Grab that one and only lead sheet. Right, you're gonna see that everything's gonna be in the key of F major today. But let me explain how this lead sheet is structured. . .

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