Christmas Time is Here, Harmonic Analysis

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Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:33.027)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. So here we are again. The start of a new month. And as all of you regular jazz piano skills listeners know, the start of a new month means we begin studying a new tune. And not only is a new month, it's the month of December, which means

Christmas time is here. And that is the tune we will tackle this month. The overwhelmingly loved Christmas classic composed by the great jazz pianist and composer Vince Guraldi, which premiered in the 1965 CBS television special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Of course, I'm speaking of the tune, Christmas time is here.

a new tune, but the same familiar and comfortable approach. An approach that's thorough, it's organized, structured, logical, and as always, skill-centric. All of which are needed for studying and learning a tune correctly. Being skill-centric is without question the key. The key.

learning how to play the piano. Why? Because that is precisely what tunes expect us to be. No command of essential piano skills means no possibility, listen carefully, no possibility of playing tunes. No command of essential piano skills means no possibility of playing tunes. And honestly, this is true for any genre of music.

If you want to play classical piano and you do not have a functional command of essential piano skills, you will be an awful classical pianist. If you want to play pop piano and you do not have a functional command of essential piano skills, you will be a horrible pop pianist.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:53.951)
And if you want to play country piano, and you do not have a functional command of essential piano skills, you're going to be a dreadful country pianist. And if you want to play jazz piano, and you do not have a functional command of essential piano skills,

you will be a hideous jazz pianist. This is why it wasn't very hard for me to come up with a name for this podcast and my website. It was pretty easy. Jazz Piano Skills. So now that we have established the importance of skills, the logical question surfaces quickly. What are the essential skills needed to play jazz piano?

play tunes. It's question that we all should be able to answer and hopefully by now you can. You should have no problem, especially if you have been a faithful Jazz Piano Skills listener, you should have no problem answering the question as we answer it every month during our three-week tune study. And not only do we answer this all-important question, but we organize our answer into three

camps. What are those camps? Camp one harmony, camp two melody, camp three improvisation. Camp one harmony. Well, it's our ability to determine form harmonic function, common harmonic movement. And of course, our ability to play the sounds of music using various voicing approaches. Then we focus on our block shapes and inversions.

our traditional and contemporary left hand shells, as well as our two handed structures. Now the melody camp, right, test our ability to hear, determine and properly articulate melodies and phrases using various treatments. And we tend to stick with the standard jazz treatments, right, the ballad, a bossa swing, all of which require some mature technique.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:07.999)
And then finally, Camp 3, Improvisation, tests our ability to formulate and explore rhythmic and melodic patterns in time, right, based on proper chord scale relationships. The brutal fact is this, it makes no difference what tune you want to play. If you're incapable of executing the essential jazz piano skills found within each of these categories, these cams,

you have a very difficult time playing tunes. You for sure will not be able to play them in a way that is enjoyable for you or your listeners. That is why at Jazz Piano Skills, we use tunes to illuminate and validate the essential skills needed to play jazz piano. And then we attack those skills every week, every month with every new tune.

We start with a new tune every month simply to gain a new perspective on the essential jazz piano skills. Different tune, same skills, new perspective. And these distinct camps allow us to organize and methodically practice essential jazz skills. And that is the key. Once we know

and have organized the essential jazz skills, we need to know how to properly practice the skills. Proper practice is impossible to achieve without a proper conceptual understanding of how music works. And there is no way you can have a proper understanding of how music works if you are incapable of

verbally articulating what music is the study of. And this is precisely why I stress over and over and over again, the seven facts of music. The seven facts of music give us a very concise, a very solid understanding, a crystal clear picture of what music is. So what are the seven facts of music?

Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:30.493)
I know you regular listeners can recite this with me. So here we go. Fact number one, music is the production of sound and silence. Of course, our primary sounds being major, dominant, minor, half diminished and diminished. Fact number two, sound is produced harmonically and melodically. Fact number three, harmonic shapes when we produce sound harmonically, we're playing chords, voicings.

Fact number four, when producing sound melodically, melodic shapes, we're playing arpeggios and scales, melodies. Fact number five, when playing scales and arpeggios, we are moving in one of two directions, up or down, that's it. No other way to travel. In fact, number six, we like to camouflage the fact that we're playing scales and arpeggios. We like to decorate the scales and arpeggios with tension or notes that fall outside of the key.

affectionately known as chromaticism. And then finally, fact number seven, to make all of this interesting, facts one through six, to make those facts interesting, we add rhythm. These are the facts. These are seven facts of music. These facts are so important. These facts allow us to practice properly, practice efficiently.

practice productively. Everything we do when practicing should be able to easily be plugged in to one of the seven facts of music. And if you are practicing something, whatever it is that you're practicing, and you are incapable of seeing it somewhere within the seven facts of music, then you are wasting your time. I say this with great confidence because it tells me

you have a skewed perspective of music. And if you have a skewed perspective of music, then your practice is skewed. And if your practice is skewed, then I got some bad news for you. You are not accomplishing what you think you're accomplishing when you are practicing. Now, here at Jazz Piano Skills, we prevent that from happening. We take an essential skill, we examine it harmonically, melodically, and then use it to develop

Dr. Bob Lawrence (09:56.623)
our improvisational abilities through the study of ascending and descending arpeggio and scale movement with rhythmic enhancement. Wow. That's pretty good. Did you catch what I just did there? I just, I restated the seven facts of music using a single sentence. Let me try that again. Okay. We take an essential skill, we examine it,

harmonically and melodically, and then use it to develop our improvisation abilities through the study of ascending and descending arpeggio and scale movement with rhythmic enhancement. Wow, that's pretty good.

So we begin this process today as we continue our study of essential jazz scales organized into three cams, harmony, melody, improvisation. We begin this process today using yet another tune, another standard. In fact, a Christmas standard, a Christmas classic. And as always, we will begin with a harmonic analysis.

So today you're going to discover the 1965 Christmas standard by Vince Guraldi. Christmas time is here. You're going to learn for chord changes and harmonic function for Christmas time is here. And you are going to play Christmas time is here using my suggested voicings. Plus, common harmonic progressions are going to be illuminated.

for your training development. So as I like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner and intermediate player and advanced player, or even if you are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this jazz piano skills podcast lesson exploring Christmas time is here to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want

Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:07.079)
to as I always do welcome all of you first time listeners to the Jazz Piano Skills podcast. If you're new to the podcast, if you're new to Jazz Piano Skills, welcome, I want to invite you to become a Jazz Piano Skills member. Now your membership grants you many perks. Number one, you receive premium podcast content, which means you get to listen to the entire podcast episode. The first half of

Every Jazz Panel Skills podcast episode is free for everyone to enjoy. I deal with the question of the week, I lay out the educational agenda and the lesson rationale. The second half of the podcast episode for members only, lesson content, demonstrations, and the presentation of the podcast packets. These are the materials, downloadable materials that are designed and developed for every weekly podcast episode.

illustrations, lead sheets and play alongs. This material you want to have in your hands when listening to the episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you want this material sitting on your piano or your music stand at home during the week when practicing these essential skills. As a Jazz Piano Skills member, you also have access to the online Jazz Piano Skills courses. These are comprehensive sound based self paced and sequential courses.

focusing on our harmonic and melodic and improvisation development. As a Jazz Panel Skills member, you have a reserved seat in the online weekly masterclass that I hold every Thursday evening, 8pm Central Time. And I know, I know I've heard from many of you that it's not the best time for everyone around the world, but the masterclasses are recorded so members can watch.

and rewatch the master classes at their convenience as often as they wish. And as a Jazz Panel Skills member, you also have access to the private online Jazz Panel Skills community, which hosts a variety of forums, education specific forums, episode specific forums, as well as just general jazz forums. Also, we have a killer listening list that is put together every single week.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:27.49)
to go along with each podcast episode. And then also, it's a great place just to receive, to interact with other folks, receive member feedback and assistance and, to help other folks with their jazz journey as well. And then finally, as a Jazz Piano Skills member, you have access to educational support, private, personal and professional support whenever you need it. So all of these amazing privileges, all of these amazing perks are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano.

So check it all out at jazpanelskills.com and of course become a member to enjoy all of these privileges. Of course, if you get to the site, you have questions once you poke around a little bit, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'm happy to spend some time with you and answer any questions that you may have. I also want to encourage everyone to subscribe to the Jazz Piano Skills YouTube channel. I'm producing educational content videos.

that I think you will find to be very helpful for your jazz growth. Now I currently have several playlists that you can check out. There are weekly challenges videos, weekly quick tips that go out, as well as weekly recaps. And again, I'm populating these playlists with new videos every week. So be sure to subscribe so that you are notified when a new Jazz Panel Skills video is released. And finally, if you are not

receiving the Jazz Panel Skills blog post every Saturday morning. Please take the time to join the Jazz Panel Skills email list, which you can do very easily at the Jazz Panel Skills website. Every Saturday, I publish a blog that that summarizes the podcast episode and lesson for the week in writing. It's just a quick like four minute read. It's a great wrap up, definitely worth reading to help keep you on track.

both conceptually and physically. Okay, on to the question of the week. And this week's question comes from Ethan Bartlett. Ethan Bartlett living in Athens, Greece. And Ethan writes, Hi, Dr. Lawrence, I am new to jazz piano and have started learning chords, but I am finding it difficult. Some chords seem to come naturally, and I can easily remember them, while others I can never recall.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (16:52.642)
I'm hoping that it's not a me thing and that there are ways to overcome this challenge. Do you have any pointers that I can use to help me learn the chords once and for all? Loving the podcast and packets, YouTube videos and blog. I hope to attend a masterclass soon. Well, Ethan, I look forward to seeing you in a masterclass soon. You'll love it. It's a great group of folks gathering every Thursday evening.

And I know I speak on behalf of everyone that's part of the masterclass group that we would love to welcome you to the gang. yeah, I hope to meet you in a masterclass soon. But great question. And I can guarantee you it's not a me thing as you put it. In fact, you're normal. And in fact, if someone who is just starting as you

mentioned that you were just starting your jazz journey. If someone who was just starting and is new to learning chords has not experienced what you are experiencing, I would be suspicious that they are not truly practicing learning chords. You know, I've taught for a very long time. It's all I've ever done. And I can tell you, everyone and I mean, everyone

experiences this challenge when it comes to learning chords. So Ethan, I do have some pointers for you to begin using to help you jump this hurdle. Now some of these you may already be doing, so forgive me if I make suggestions that that you already know. Number one, you have to have a process or a routine in place that allows you to

As I like to say, cycle through the data quickly and consistently. In other words, you do not want to let grass grow under your feet. You do not want to become stagnant with your chord practice. Practice your C chords today. C major, C dominant, C minor, C half diminished, C diminished. And then move on to the F chords tomorrow.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (19:12.57)
then the B flat chords the day after tomorrow and so on. With this approach, you are covering all your chords in less than two weeks. Now if you if you're capable of practicing two chord families a day, then then you blow through all of your chords in one week. Then you would start the process over again with each new week. You're blowing and going. You're cycling through the data. You're not letting grass grow under your feet.

So that's number one, you have to have a process or a routine in place that allows you to cycle through the data, the chords quickly and consistently. Okay, so number one, number two, I would say, practice your chords by type, by type. In other words, group all of your chords together by quality or type, right? 12 major chords, 12 dominant chords, 12 minor, 12 half diminished, 12 diminished.

practice the major chords today, the dominant chords tomorrow, the minor chords the day after tomorrow, and so on. Again, this approach, right, prevents you from letting grass grow under your feet, you're constantly on the move. Number three, I would say another approach is to practice the chords grouped by key, right? So each key produces seven chords, right? So

the key or the scale of C major produces seven chords. So practice the chords found in that key. C major seven, D minor seven, E minor seven, F major seven, G dominant seven, A minor seven, B half diminished seven. Tomorrow, practice the chords found in the key of F. The day after tomorrow, the chords found in the key of B flat and so on. And again, right, this approach, you're not letting grass grow under your feet. You are

cycling through the data quickly and consistently. Another approach I recommend is to practice progressions. Of course, the most common jazz progression is the two five one progression. But you can use others right like one six two five one three six two five one two flat two one couple other ones that I like one flat three diminished two five one or one sharp one diminished two five one.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (21:38.136)
there are many right or you can just simply start reading the chord changes of tunes out of a fake book. You know, I used to use a fake books. I used to pretend that every chord in the fake book is a major chord. And then I would spend the entire practice session playing major chords. Every chord was a major chord. The next day, all the chords in the same fake book were now magically dominant chords. And

I would practice every chord as a dominant chord. And then I would do the next day, everything, all those chords would turn into minor chords and so on. Right? Again, it's just another creative way to have chords, chords, like flashcards, right? Like somebody presenting flashcards to you. It's random order. In other words, it's the random order of chords that you have to put your hands on. And then finally, I think I would, and most importantly,

Right? Finally, and most importantly, I would recommend what I call paper practice. The best practicing you will ever do, listen to this very carefully. This goes for everyone. The best practicing that you will ever do is the practicing that you do away from the instrument.

so important because that practice away from the instrument actually paves the way for you to maximize your growth when you are at the instrument. So paper practice. Spend time spelling the chords. You should be able to spell each chord as easily as you spell your name.

I've told this story before. had a teacher that used to greet me literally on the front steps of his porch. I'm walking up the sidewalk and he would yell, a half the menace. And I'd go, a, he goes, you don't know it. B flat minor seven. I'd go, B flat. You don't know it. C dominant. C you don't know it. And I would always go, Hey,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (23:57.378)
Can you give me a second? And he'd say, spell Bob.

I was wise enough to know that. Okay, I see what he's doing. So I'd go, I went B, P, and he goes, boy. He goes, we have a bigger problem. So but his point was very well taken, you need to be able to spell the chords as easily as you spell your name. And when doing paper practice, I would add another dimension to this. When doing paper practice,

pay attention to the imagery. Begin seeing chords as combination of black and white notes. So for example, like a D flat major D flat F, A flat C, I started seeing it as a kind of like a black, white, black, white shape. D major D, F sharp, A, sharp, I saw it as a white, black, white, black shape, and so on. So every chord, I started paying attention to the imagery of that chord.

So knowing how to spell each chord and being aware of the chords imagery is huge when it comes to gaining a functional command of these chords physically. All right. So Ethan, I hope that these are these are just a few quick ideas off the top of my head, but I hope that you find these to be helpful. If if you need more, let me know and we can jump on a FaceTime or a Zoom call to dig a little deeper together. But

It's a great question. It's definitely not a me thing. And keep after it. I promise that if you begin using the approaches that I just presented, a tipping point will occur for you. And then snap. One day, the chords, all 60 will fall under your fingers naturally. And here's the key, instinctually.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (25:56.436)
All right, great question, Ethan. Thank you so much. And now it's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. It's time to discover, learn and play Vince Guraldi's Christmas classic, Christmas time is here. Okay, so when learning a tune, we have a process that we have established here at Jazz Piano Skills, and we approach it the same way with every tune.

And again, genre makes no difference to us. We don't care whether we're studying a jazz tune, a rock tune, pop tune, country tune, folk tune, R &B makes no difference. Right? We go about it the same way. Number one, most importantly, we listen. And that is why we always have a killer listening list put together for every weekly podcast episode. We listen to various artists, vocalists, instrumentalists, pianists, professional musicians, amateur musicians.

makes no difference, right? If we want to learn a tune, we want to consume as much of that tune as possible. Listen to any version of the tune we possibly can. It has a profound impact on our musical development. It has a profound impact on the way we will approach playing that song. After listening, we turn our attention to a harmonic analysis. We look at the form of the piece.

changes, the harmonic function, common harmonic movement, and then of course the voicings. We then, after our harmonic analysis, follow that with a melodic analysis. We'll learn the melody to the best of our ability by transcribing it, not reading it from a lead sheet or a fake book or a piece of sheet music. We want to learn as much of it as we possibly can by poking it out or transcribing it. We look at the phrases found within the melodies.

and target notes within those phrases. And then we explore playing that melody using various jazz treatments, typically the ballad groove, a bossa, or and a swing groove. And then finally, we wrap up our study with improvisation development. We look at chord scale relationships, study arpeggio and scale movement through the various sounds, tension, rhythm, and so on. So it's a it's a

Dr. Bob Lawrence (28:12.571)
very thorough. It's a very complete approach, listening, harmonic analysis, melodic analysis, improvisation development. So this week, of course, it's a new tune, start of the month. So we're going to do a harmonic analysis, which will have us listening, determining form, learning chord changes, harmonic function, and voicings for Christmas time is here. Next week, we'll focus on a melodic analysis, and in two weeks, we'll dive into improvisation. So

the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we are going to listen to definitive recordings of Christmas time is here. Number two, we will discuss the form of Christmas time is here. Number three, we will discover, learn and play the chord changes for Christmas time is here. Number four, we will discover, learn and play the harmonic function of those chord changes found within Christmas time is here.

Number five, we will discover, learn and play my suggested voicings for Christmas time is here. We'll take a look at block voicings. We'll take a look at shell voicings. And of course, we will take a look at two handed voicings or two handed structures. So if you are a Jazz Panel Skills member, I want you to take just a few minutes, hit the pause button. I'm not going anywhere. So just hit the pause button.

download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs and again, your membership right grants you access to this, this material. So take advantage of that. Let's hit the pause button, print it out. Let's get it in our hands before going any further. So we maximize our our growth for the rest of this podcast lesson.

Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets in front of you, I want you to grab your lead sheets. We start with those every week. I'll talk a little bit about the illustrations and backing tracks at the end of the episode. But let's grab those lead sheets. And we should have eight lead sheets in our packet. Let me just kind of talk you through them quickly. Lead sheet one diagrams the form of Christmas time is here. Lead sheet two identifies unique chord changes found within the tune.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (30:22.911)
Lead Sheet 3 gives us the core changes. A nice clean lead sheet for Christmas time is here. Lead Sheet 4, harmonic function. This is a fabulous lead sheet. It documents the harmonic function for us for Christmas time is here. And then Lead Sheet 5 highlights, you can see there highlights the common progressions that we're going to use for ear training purposes. Now, Lead Sheets 6, 7, and 8 all deal with voicings.

Lead Sheet 6 are the block voicings laid out for you. Lead Sheet 7, I give you the left hand shell voicings, going to be a combination of blocks and traditional and contemporary shells that I'm using for Christmas time is here. And then Lead Sheet 8, I give you the two handed voicings that I use when playing Christmas time is here, either in an ensemble type setting or in a solo setting as well. So

As always, right, we have a ton to dissect today, so we need to get after it. All right, so before going any further, I've already mentioned that we have a killer listening list that is put together for every podcast episode. I want to encourage all of you Jazz Panel Skills members to spend some time and join the listening list that has been assembled and posted in the Jazz Panel Skills Community Forums.

As always, right, it's it is an amazing collection of various artists performing the standard that we are studying. And of course, this month, Christmas time is here. And as always, Lisa does a fantastic job scrubbing the internet to find the best treatments over the next three weeks for us to listen to and take advantage of. So be sure to take the time to tap into this resource. Not only will you enjoy the recordings, obviously, but

as I mentioned earlier, will also have a profound, listening will have a profound impact on your musical development on your growth as well. Okay, so take some time to enjoy and to listen to the listening list. Okay, so grab lead sheet one, let's take a look at the form of Christmas Time is Here.

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