As Time Goes By

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Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. Well, here we are, quickly approaching the end of October and we have spent the entire month wrestling. With the key of A major, we've explored the key of A major both harmonically and melodically. Our harmonic workout, as it always does, explored four different approaches to voicing the chords found in the key of A major, plus various rhythmic comping patterns. Now our melodic workout, as it always does methodically tackled the scales, the modes, the arpeggios for each chord found in the key of A major, plus various linear lines to help us develop our improvisational vocabulary. Now, those of you who are faithfully doing the workouts know firsthand, I say it every month firsthand that the workouts require a ton of work. But as is always the case, when you practice correctly, the proper skills, the proper approaches, the payoff is always huge. And how do we, and how have we, throughout the entire year, tested our skills after each harmonic and melodic workout

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playing a tune. And there's no better way right? There's no better way to test our improvement than by tackling a tune. That is precisely what we are going to do today. So today, you are going to discover a classic jazz standard from the classic movie Casablanca. As time goes by, and you're going to learn the chord changes, harmonic function, and musical form of as time goes by, and you're going to play various voicings and various courts get relationships, for as times time goes by, which will then be cultivated into a jazz solo. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are, in your jazz journey, a beginner an intermediate player, an advanced player, even if you consider yourself a seasoned and experienced professional, there's no doubt you will find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson exploring the great jazz standard as time goes by, to be very beneficial. But before we jump into studying as time goes by, I want to as I always do at the beginning of every podcast episode, I want to take a moment and welcome all first-time listeners and if you are indeed new to jazz piano skills. If you are listening to this podcast episode for the first time, I want to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. Now all you have to do visit jazz piano skills.com. Check out all of the educational resources, the materials and the services that are available for you, waiting for you to help you. Discover, learn and play jazz piano. Now, for example, as a jazz piano skills member, you have access to all of the educational podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, and the play alongs. These are educational tools that I develop my produce and publish for each weekly podcast episode. And you're going to want to have these materials in your hands as you listen to each episode. And you certainly want to have this the materials sitting on your piano as you practice. Now you also as a jazz piano skills member have access to the online sequential jazz piano curriculum, which is loaded with comprehensive courses all of them use a self-paced format their educational talks for you to enjoy. There's interactive media to help test your conceptual understanding of the jazz panel skills being taught. There are video demonstrations of each piano skill in all 12 keys, play alongs and much more. You also as a jazz piano skills member, as I like to say have a reserved seat in the weekly online master classes which are in essence a one-hour lesson with me you each and every week. You also, as a jazz piano skills member have access to the online interactive Fakebook, which grants you access to jazz standards. From the Great American Songbook, you'll be able to enjoy. lead sheets up outlining the chord changes, lead sheets outlining the harmonic function of each tune, chord scale relationships play along files, historical insights, inspirational recordings, and much much more. The interactive Fakebook is an ever-growing collection of tunes that you should absolutely discover, learn and play who also, as a jazz piano skills member, have access to the online jazz piano skills community community now this. This is a private community that hosts a variety of engaging forums, there are podcast-specific forums, core-specific forums. And, of course, there are just general jazz piano forms for you to enjoy. I encourage you to get involved because I like to say I want you to engage, share and grow. And last but certainly not least, as a jazz piano skills member, you have unlimited, private, personal, and professional educational support provided by me whenever and as often as you need it. So when you have a moment, please take a second and visit jazz piano skills.com To learn more about all of the educational opportunities that await you and how to easily activate your membership. Once you get there, if you look around if you have any questions, please let me know I am always happy to help help you in any way that I can. Right now there are several membership plans to choose from, but I am quite certain there is one that is perfect for you. But again, if you have any questions, just reach out. Happy to help you. Okay, and let's discover learn to play jazz piano let's discover learn and play the great jazz standard from Casablanca as time goes by. Okay, as I mentioned earlier, the last two weeks have been pretty intense with our key of A major harmonic workout, our key of A major melodic workout. Our harmonic workout extensively explores for very specific approaches to playing sound harmonically, in other words, playing chords. And our exploration was not simply about playing the seven chords found in the key of A major it was about how to approach voicing the chords so that you are playing stylistically correct sounds in other words, your chords need to sound like jazz. So as we have done since the beginning of the year with every harmonic workout, we looked at four basic approaches to voicings basic block shapes and root position, and inversions. Traditional left-hand three-note shell voicings, contemporary three-note chord voicings, and two-handed five-note two-handed shapes. Now all of them need to be in your arsenal. Now, on the other hand, our melodic workout, as it always is,

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was a thorough investigation of ascending and descending scale and arpeggio motion through each of the seven chords found in the key of A major. Now our primary focus was to begin developing what I like to call root independence by shifting the entry points of our scales and arpeggios from the root of the sound to the third, fifth, and the seventh of the sound. Last week's workout, melodic workout was probably very challenging. If you have never intentionally played scales and arpeggios varying, varying your entry and destination points. Okay, something that you should absolutely get used to doing. So the whole point of our workouts have our key of A major harmonic workout and our key of A major melodic workout. The whole point is to prep us for applying our skills to tunes. So we will today take the practice approaches we have explored over the past two weeks and apply them to as time goes by. And not only are we going to put our harmonic and melodic jazz piano skills to work with in a jazz standard, we will also use our jazz piano skills to construct and play a jazz piano solo over the chord changes of as time goes by, right So we have a ton to do today. So the educational agenda for today is as follows number one, we are going to explore the jazz standard as time goes by, we're going to look at the chord changes and the harmonic function. Number two, we will discover, learn and play various voicings for as time goes by, our blocks, traditional shells, contemporary shells, two-handed shapes. Number three, we are going to discover, learn and play the chord scale relationships for as time goes by, in other words, the appropriate ascending and descending scale and arpeggio motion. Number four, we are going to discover learning play a jazz piano solo for as time goes by using 100% diatonic scale and arpeggio motion, focusing on various essential rhythms, especially the dotted eighth 16th Note rhythm that we have been studying this month. And number five, we will be playing all the exercises today. Although the voicings and the solo for as time goes by using the very relaxed swing, kind of a ballad swing groove of 80. So if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take a few minutes right now I want you to hit the pause button. Take a few minutes to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, and the lead sheets. And again, you have access to all of the podcast packets for every weekly podcast episode. And again, you should be using them when listening to this episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you should be using them when practicing as well. And if you're listening to this podcast episode on any of the popular podcast directories such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, the list goes on. Then be sure to go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com To download your podcast packets, and

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you will find the active download links within the show notes. All right, one final but very critical message if you are listening, right now. And if you are thinking that as time goes by, and the various skills that we are about to discover, learn and play. If you're thinking it's over your head, all over your head, then I would say to you just sit back, relax. Breathe in, breathe out. Continue to listen. Alright, continue to grow your jazz piano skills intellectually by just simply listening to this podcast episode, even if you don't understand everything that I'm talking about right when first introduced all skills or overheads, which is precisely why our first step to improving our musicianship is always listening. So do not shy away from conversations discussing foreign topics or using unfamiliar terms. Right, it's by stepping outside of our musical comfort zone that we actually spawn our musical growth. Now as you've heard me say a million times all musical growth begins upstairs mentally conceptually, before it can come out downstairs physically in our hands. So I just want you to sit back listen to this podcast lesson now to discover and learn the play as it always does will come in time. All right, you should now have your lead sheets packet in front of you, and there are 11 lead sheets included in this packet. You should have a lead sheet that has just the basic chord changes you should have a lead sheet number two that deals with harmonic function. Skill three or lead sheet three block chords. Scale for or lead sheet for traditional shells scale five lead sheet five contemporary shells are skill six. Our lead sheet six deals with our two-handed shapes. Skill seven outlines our chord scale relationships using ascending scale motion. Scale eight or lead sheet eight descending chord scale relationships for each chord found in and as time goes by, skill nine or lead sheet nine ascending arpeggio motion for each of the chord changes and skills scale 10 or lead sheet 10 descending arpeggio motion for each of the chords found and as time goes by the very last lead sheet that you have in your hands their skill set 11, or lead sheet 11 Is the solo that I will play today for as time goes by. All right, so that's the complete packet. So let's take a look at lead sheet one or skill one, our lead sheet with our basic chord changes, as time goes by, is a classic A B, a form, and again, do not let the rehearsal letters A, B, C, and D. Don't be confused. Those are just rehearsal letters, those are not indicating or signifying the form of the piece, okay. But what we mean by a B A, if you look at section A and Section B, you'll see that they are the same set of chord changes. So we have eight measures. In Section A, the same eight, eight measures are repeated in section B. Then in Section C, that's our bridge, or our B section, another eight measures. And then Section D is the last eight measures of the tune. And that's another exactly another a right like the same eight measures that you find in the first eight measures. So we have a classic A be a form. All right, simple lead sheet just laying out the chord changes. As you can see, there's no melody in this lead sheet, because you're going to learn the melody by ear, we're not going to read it off of a fake book or out of a fake book, we're going to learn that melody by ear. Now I want you to take a look at skill two or lead sheet number two, here we have the exact same layout except instead of the chord changes, we have our roman numeral representation of the chord changes, or like I like I like to say the harmonic function of the piece, this lead sheet, I cannot begin to stress enough to learn a tune in this manner to where you actually study the harmonic function, how the chords are moving, for instance, right there and measure one, the two minor going to the five, seven, right? Understanding to five relationships or how about measure three and four, the one chord go into the two chord go into the three chord going to the sixth chord, right, these Roman numerals illuminate relationships, harmonic relationships, the harmonic relationships, is what the ear locks onto, and begins to hear and begins to recognize in all songs that you play, just reading chord changes off of a lead sheet will not do that for you, your ears will continue to grow and mature as a jazz pianist when studying harmonic function and practicing from harmonic function lead sheets. So again, I cannot stress enough to you the importance of playing through as time goes by reading from this lead sheet. Okay, so skill one skill to skill, one basic lead sheet with the chord changes, lead sheet to or skill to lead sheet denoting the harmonic function of the tune as time goes by. Alright, so now let's take a look at lead sheet three or skill three. And you'll see it deals with our block voicings, our block chords. And what I have laid out for you here are the chord changes of as time goes by, and the block chords and their inversions that I would gravitate toward when playing as time goes by using these voicing types. So can you use other inverted shapes instead of the ones I'm using or, you know, alter this to your liking? Of course you can. Right so this again, this is just an example of how I would approach it. Now a couple things I want to point out to you. The reason I selected as time goes by for us to deal with this week in the key of A because the standard key for this tune is E flat. And we are doing it today in the key of A but the reason I did selected this tune is because it's going to force our hands to work very closely together. We're going to have to learn how to we play our four hands to play nicely with one another right. So you'll see here with some of these black voicings, you'll see that there's, there are only three notes in some of these voicings. And, in fact, if you look down at letter C, look at the D major, I'm only playing the root in the third. So some of my voice needs only have two notes, some have three notes, some have the entire four-note block. Right now, the reason some of these notes are missing is I'm making room for my right hand to be able to play the melody as I'm supporting it with harmony underneath it, right so the hands are getting used to play in nicely with one another. So what I want to do is I want to bring the ensemble in and I'm going to play through this lead sheet twice the first time I'm going to play the chord changes as written, I'm not going to be doing anything I'm not trying to do anything fancy or trying to impress you in any way here. I'm wanting you to hear these voicings as written on this lead sheet. I want them I want you to be able to digest them orally as you as you listen to this, the second time through, I'm going to place the melody on top of these chord changes. And again, I'm not trying to do anything fancy I'm wanting you to hear how the melody works and sounds with these voicing types. So let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check out as time goes by using traditional block voicings here

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we go check it out.

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Nice right, you know I've said this before in previous podcast episodes where we have studied tones and we go through all our voicing types, that if this is where you are with your voicings you you're playing Black voicings and their inversions. You know nothing about traditional shells, you know nothing about contemporary shells, you know nothing about two-handed shapes. I would say to you fantastic congratulations because this is where it begins. And these are legitimate voicings these are legitimate, legitimate way to approach playing these chords, I still use these voicings today when I play and you can make a lot of music, playing these block shapes in your left hand, melody in your right hand. Okay, so enjoy being at this stage and enjoy getting these voicing types under your hands. They will serve you well for many years. Now, let's take a look at lead sheet for now, we're getting into our traditional shells are three-note shapes. And our three-note shapes are always including the third and the seventh. And then one additional note, maybe the ninth, maybe the fifth. Okay. And again, you'll see that it's some of these shapes instead of three notes. There are two notes and again, the reason being is because I'm making room for my hands to work nicely with one another. Okay, so I want to bring the ensemble back in, and again, I'm going to play as time goes by twice, first time through them, and play the voicings as written on your lead sheet. Second time through I will drop the melody in on top of these voicings so you can hear how they sound together. All right, again, not trying to do anything fancy. I want to keep this very simple. So you can digest all of this material and information conceptually, visually, and orally. All right, so let's bring the ensemble and let's check out as time goes by using traditional shell voicings, here we go.

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Nice right? A little more transparent, a little bit more of an open sound than our traditional blocks, our blocks are much more have much more density, our traditional shells open up a little bit. Our contemporary shells when you look at skill five or lead sheet five, open up even more so. And the reason being is because these shapes now, instead of having an interval of a third involved, we are dealing with shapes that are primarily built off the interval of a fourth. But once again, if you're looking at the lead sheet, you'll see some of my three note shapes are missing a note, there are only two notes. And once again, it's because my hands have to learn how to play nicely with one another. This melody as time goes by, in the key of A gets down into left-hand territory. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in, and once again, I'm going to do use utilize the same format playing through it twice, first time through and playing the voicings as notated on your lead sheet in your lead sheet. Second time through I will bring the melody and place it on top of these voicings. So once again, you can hear how the chords the shapes, voicing shapes and the melody work together. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble back in. Let's check out as time goes by being played with contemporary shell voicings in my left hand here we go.

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I love it. I absolutely love it. Now, I mentioned this last month, and I want to mention it again today do not fall in the trap of somehow thinking that the contemporary voicings are superior to the traditional voicings and that the traditional voicings are in some way shape or form hipper than the block for no block chords and their inversions. This is a horrible trap to fall into your walk. You want all of these shapes and these types of voicings to be in your arsenal, and at the tips of your fingers. When playing, you will use all of them. Okay, just like you will use the two-handed shapes that we're going to look at right now. So look at lead shape six or skill number six. Here I have laid out for you the two-handed voicings and again, how I voiced two-handed voicings, I always use five-note shapes, I always use two in the left three in the right. And you can see that just looking at the lead sheet. So what I want to do is I'm going to play again, twice through as time goes by first time, I'm going to play these two-handed shapes as notated in the lead sheet, and then the second time through, I'm going to play the melody but I'm going to use a muted trumpet sound to play the melody as I comp using these two-handed voicings underneath the trumpet. Okay, I want you to hear how these voicings sound when accompanying an instrumentalist or vocalist. All right, so let's bring the ensemble in, and let's check out as time goes by being played with two-handed five-note voicings. And then I'll bring the melody in the second time with the muted trumpet. So you can hear that relationship as well. All right, here we go. Let's check it out. This should be fun

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All right now, I don't want you to think that these two-handed shapes are only used for ensemble-type playing because I utilize them when playing solo piano as well. And I utilize them. When playing in an ensemble playing solo, you'll hear me when I play the solo I mixed two-handed shapes in with my shells with my blocks with my contemporary chord voicings traditional shells. I use all of these voicing types when playing, okay. Alright, so now I want you to actually, before we jump to the soul, I just want to draw your attention to lead sheet 789 and 10. These lead sheets outline the chord scale relationships, the modes, if you will, for each of the chords found within as time goes by. I have ascending and descending scale motion laid out for you and ascending and descending arpeggio motion. Now I don't have time to play through all of the chord scale relationships today. But take a look at those I have everything illustrated from launching from the root. But you should also practice these chords got relationships launching from the third, the fifth, and the seventh of the sound, just as we did in our melodic workout last last week. Okay, so if you have any questions, let me know. So now let's jump to skill 11 or lead sheet 11, And this is the solo four as time goes by. Now, we have been focusing on this month primarily the the rhythm, the dotted eighth 16th Note rhythm. And as you can see in the solo, I focus on that rhythm as well. But I also bring in the various rhythmic motifs that we have studied throughout the year. Right, so we have our eighth note triplets in here we have a quarter note triplets, we have eighth notes that fall on the backside of, of our heartbeats, you know we have we have it Hall in here. So what I want to do is I'm going to play through as time goes by, and this one, we're going to play it three times. So I'm gonna state play the melody first to state the melody. Second time through I'm going to play the solo, and then the third time through, come back and play the melody again. Okay. So let's just listen to it. And then we can talk about a few things after I play it. So here we go. Check it out.

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Nice, love this tune it is fantastic. So Okay, couple things about the soul that you've just listened to, I would encourage you to as we have done with all of our rhythmic work throughout the year, practice these rhythms, first and foremost by by tapping them or clapping them out. You can also approach them very academically if you want. By writing in a way to articulate each of the rhythms using either numbers or syllables, you can also isolate you do not need to play this solo from the upper left-hand corner to the bottom right-hand corner. I encourage you to practice maybe a couple measures at a time, maybe one section at a time, right? Really get used to playing these rhythmic ideas in time. And please understand that the entire solo again 100% diatonic motion 100%. In other words, I am not playing any notes that fall outside of the chord scale relationship relationships outlined in your lead sheets. I always stress to students that they shouldn't even begin to improvise. Before knowing the melody of a tune and I can take it a step further. You really shouldn't even begin to improvise until you can improvise using all diatonic notes. Before you try to include notes that fall outside of the key right before you start using upper and lower neighboring towns and closures and so on. So diatonic being able to solo using diatonic motion. Very important. This solo does exactly that. All right. And again, if you have any questions, please let me know be patient and have fun with as time goes by. It never fails, right? We always unpack a ton of information in every podcast episode today. I'm certainly no exception as we set out to discover, learn and play as time goes by, as I tried to do with every tune study, I want to model for you how to begin truly learning a tune, how to connect, the what, and the why and the how of your practicing to an actual piece of music. In other words, how do the jazz piano skills that we have been focusing on studying and practicing? How do the jazz piano skills translate to playing? Now I want you to think about this and I bring this up every month as well. If you are unable to apply your practice approach to the learning attune like we did today, I would say to you that you need to really sit down and examine how you practice. Another way saying this is that if you do not see the jazz piano skills you are practicing in the tunes that you are playing, then you have a disconnect between the two which is which is not good. You've heard me say this many times on many different occasions that harmony and melody are the same, as indeed they are. But I can go a step further I can say that jazz piano skills and tunes are the same as well. Another way saying this is if you do not practice jazz piano skills, you will not be able to successfully play tunes. Let's just a brutal fact. And hopefully, you're beginning to see that jazz panel skills are indeed tunes and tunes are indeed jazz piano skills. As I like to say only the only difference is one has a fancy fancy name like as time goes by, and one does not. If you are beginning to see jazz piano skills as tunes and tunes as jazz piano skills, then you are on the right track, you are on the correct path. Success is inevitable. I said this in previous podcast episodes since the start of the new year and I want to stress it again today. If you hang in there with me, and we're gonna have a couple of months left. If you hang in there with me through the end of the year. You will love where you are musically. I promise you. I want to encourage you right use these podcast packets that you have in your hands, the illustrations and the lead sheets to guide you to help you right. You've heard me say this over and over again as well conceptual understanding determines your physical development. So take the time to really invest in studying and mapping out these voicings these ascending descending scale and arpeggio motion from various entry points, right do do this intellectual study away from the instrument preparing for your time at the instrument. The return on your investment

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cannot be adequately expressed impossible. And most importantly, I mentioned this every every week as well just be patient. Developing mature professional jazz piano skills takes time. So begin structuring your practicing after the plane demonstrations that I modeled for you today and his podcast episode that are modeled for you last week in the melodic workout and the week before that in the harmonic workout. And you will begin to see you'll begin to feel and hear your progress. I guarantee it. Well I hope you have found this jazz piano skills podcast lesson exploring as time goes by to be insightful and of course to be beneficial. Don't forget if you're a jazz piano skills member I will see you online Thursday evening at the jazz piano skills masterclass at 8pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode lesson exploring as time goes by in greater detail, and to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general. Be sure to use the educational podcast packets right? Your illustrations lead sheets, play alongs. Also. Check out the jazz panel skills courses to maximize your musical growth. And also I want I want to make sure that you are an active participant in the jazz piano skills community. Get out there, get involved, contribute to the various forms, and most importantly, make some new jazz piano friends. It's always a great thing to do. You can reach me by phone my number here at the Dallas School of Music is 972-380-8050 by extension 211, or you can reach me by email if you prefer. That's Dr. Lawrence, drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or you can use that nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is nestled in in every page at the jazz piano skills website. All right. There is my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the classic jazz standard as time goes by, and most of all, have fun as you discover, learn, and play jazz piano