Dewey Square

Dr. Bob Lawrence  0:32  
Welcome to jazz piano skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. Well, first things first, Texas Rangers are in the world. So I can't believe it. It's the happiest day of my life, other than my wedding and the birth of my children, but the Texas Rangers being in the World Series, wow, I can't believe it. I hope. I hope we can get the job done this year, and actually win the World Series, it would be fantastic. So okay, now that I got that out of the way, let's get down to jazz piano skills. Well, look, you know, this month, we have been busy as we are every month right? We looked at five different jazz improvisation patterns for the primary sounds of music, the major dominant minor, half diminished and diminished sounds, plus the altered dominant sounds deriving from the harmonic and melodic minor scales. Those ultrasounds of course include the sharp 11, the flat 13, flat nine, flat 13. And the fully altered sound, which is the flat nine, sharp nine, flat five sharp five. We, we did all of that, all of that this month. From the root note of a, we apply these five jazz improvisation patterns to these iconic jazz sounds right. And we studied and applied proper fingerings to the patterns making it possible to play with an authentic jazz articulation. The goal of course, as always, to have fingerings that allow us to continuously shift our right hand across the keys as we play, right, the incremental shifting of our right hand so that we articulate correctly, and of course, so that we never run out of fingers. It only makes sense, right? That the continuous shifting of our right hand when playing establishes small movements, which are much more manageable, and much more accurate than giant leaps. I've said it many times, understanding and applying this truth, this musical truth becomes paramount when improvising and playing melodies of tunes. Especially bebop tunes, and especially the Bebop tune that we are about to discover, learn and play. So today you are going to discover a classic by Charlie Parker possibly my favorite Charlie Parker tune, Dewey square. And you're going to learn the chord changes harmonic function, Melody fingerings, for Dewey square. And you're going to play multiple patterns extracted from Dewey square for developing jazz language classic jazz language to use when improvising. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your personal jazz journey, a beginner an intermediate player and advanced player even if you consider yourself a seasoned and experienced professional, you're gonna find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson, exploring Charlie Parker's Dewey square to be very beneficial. But before we get started, before we dig 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 piano skills, I want to personally invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. There are various membership plans to choose from so when you have a moment, visit jazz panel skills.com To learn more about each of the membership plans and the various perks associated with each one. There are educational weekly podcast packets these are the illustrations the lead sheets in the play alongs that are available for every weekly podcast episode. There's an online sequential jazz piano curriculum which is loaded with comprehensive courses. Online weekly master classes online interactive Fakebook, there's a private jazz panel skills community, which hosts a variety of engaging forums. And of course, there's unlimited private, personal and professional educational support. available, all of these perks are waiting for you wanting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So again, when you have a moment, visit jazz piano skills.com check it all out. And of course, become a member. If you have any questions, by all means, feel free 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. Okay, on to the question of the week, which is a good one. Like they're all good ones right. But today is especially good. Today's question comes from Don Schilling, who lives in the Columbus, Ohio area. And Don writes, you have mentioned several times and multiple podcast episodes. The importance of developing your internal sense of time, can you recommend an efficient and effective way of developing this essential skill? Wow, Don, great question. And you're 100% Correct. I do talk about time, a lot. The reason is that the successful performance of all jazz panel skills and I mean, all jazz panel skills are dependent upon time. If your time is shaky, if your time is all over the place, you will never ever sound musical period. And this is why I recommend practicing all jazz panel skills within a musical context placed in time. So your desire dawn to practice time. And to specifically develop your internal sense of time, your instincts are spot on. So here's what here's what I recommend. Here's how I like to test my time, right and consciously focus on my internal development of time, I would use a metronome or a drum machine, I use a drum machine but either one will work to create a click or a boom, if you will. On count one, and on count one, only. The reason is you want to begin tracking counts two, three and four. internally. No audio representation of each of those beats silence right. Only count one is to be heard played by the metronome or the drum machine. So here's an example of what I'm talking about. I am going to use a drum machine and each boom that you hear right each boom that you hear right now is count one and this is said at a tempo of 110 So check this out

Dr. Bob Lawrence  8:46  
okay, you get the point right. So now that I my drummer is in place, and my drummer is set to play count one only. I am going to play a chord on count one and remain silent with the passing of of counts two three and four. Again tracking my internal sense of time so let's see how accurate I am tracking time and nailing count one with my tremor. Okay, here we go

Dr. Bob Lawrence  9:50  
all right, not not bad, right. So now let's expand my plane to include a progression. Now I would of course recommend Using the 251 progression, but you can use any progression that you wish. Now, I'm going to practice copying. In other words, playing my progression rhythmically with the two, and the five chords and one measure, followed by the one chord. For an entire measure, I'm using a 251 in the key of E flat major. Okay. So again, I want to try to nail count one with my one chord, regardless of my comping activity, with my two and five chord. In other words, regardless of how busy I get rhythmically with my comping, I want to be able to track time internally track time, so that I nail count one. Okay, so let's give this a try and see how accurate I am. Okay, here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  11:35  
Right oh, I got a little practice to do. But now let's have a little more fun, right, let's make it a little more challenging. Let's play the same 251 progression. But now improvise in my right hand, as I play the progression in my left hand, my drummer is going to continue to nail count one. So I can see. So I can hear how accurately I am tracking time when I have multiple things happening, all at the same time, right harmonic movement, left hand shell voicings and improvisation in my right hand. With all this going on, can I track time and always be aware of the accurate placement of count one? I don't know. Let's find out. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  13:06  
Very challenging and very effective for helping you develop your internal sense of time. And again, you can use a metronome, you can use a drum machine makes no difference. And if you want to use the drum machine, check out drum BIT dot app, right? That's like it's a cool little web page with a drummer waiting to practice with you. And in fact, this is exactly what I just used with each of these examples here today. Right. The other thing I would mention Don is record yourself when doing this, right. It's, it doesn't lie, the recorder doesn't lie. So anyway, I, I hope this helps Don and I hope you find this approach to practicing time beneficial, especially for developing your internal sense of time. Let me know how it goes. And as always, if further clarification is needed, don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to spend some time with you and of course help you in any way that I can. Okay, all of us, right? All of us at the beginning of our jazz journeys. We all do it. We invest a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of energy, searching for the secrets to learning how to play jazz. I've talked about this before. But we try all kinds of approaches all kinds of gimmicks and hopes. Deep down we're hoping to discover shortcut, a shortcut that, of course, will shave years off of our developmental timeframe. We've all done it. I've done it, you've done it. And today, right and it's easier than ever to do it right with YouTube and all the other gazillion sites out there and videos that you can access. It's very easy to run down a million different rabbit holes and search The secret, the secret formula for playing jazz piano. And in doing so we end up with what we actually end up with is a ton of data fragments, as I like to call it, right? A lot of good information may be right, but absolutely no how no idea whatsoever how to connect the information, how to connect these data fragments, or even determine if they should be connected at all. Right? So, yeah, again, don't get me wrong. I love technology. In fact, I was just using technology there to practice, you know, the development of my internal sense of time. So, you know, technology has had an enormous benefit of benefit. It's been enormously beneficial for aiding in our musicianship development No, no question about it, right. But you know, sometimes as I as I remind us all, sometimes the old fashioned ways are still the best ways and when it when it comes to developing good technique and articulation, fingerings improvisation vocabulary. I'm telling you, the study in the plane of bebop tunes, I think still remains the very best approach. The bottom line, if you want to get good at playing jazz piano, there's no better way than studying it historically. And historically speaking, there is no period of jazz. Right, that will develop your time, your feel your articulation, your fingerings, your improvisational vocabulary, better than the Bebop period. So for those of you who may actually be listening, for the first time, or may be new to be Bob, right, Bob is is is a period of jazz that developed and flourished basically during the 40s. And the Bebop style of jazz features tunes using fast tempos, challenging melodies. A lot of chord changes, some of them complex with altered, altered sounds, that move in and out of numerous key centers, all of that within a single tune. Right. So bebop is the perfect formula for developing jazz chops. Right. So the bottom line is what I'm saying is there's no need for you to look any further your internet search, you know, is over there, right, the secret is out. Everything about jazz that you need to know and develop is found within the melodies of bebop tunes. That is if you know what you're looking for. That is why I like to refer to jazz or bebop as jazz gold. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. We will explore Charlie Parker's Dewey square. And number two, we are going to examine the core changes and the harmonic function of Dewey square. Number three, we will of course play the melody of Dewey Dewey square, and explore proper fingerings. Number four, we will extract four classic patterns from the melody of Dewey square to use for discovering and developing our very own jazz vocabulary. And number five, we will be playing all examples today. Kind of a mixed bag here. We're going to be playing some of them are at a tempo of 140. And a lot of the in the improvisational patterns, I will be playing it 110 120 somewhere in that neighborhood. So if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take a few minutes right now hit the pause button and download and print your podcast packets, your illustrations, your lead sheets and your play alongs. Again, your membership grants you access to all of the educational podcast packets for every weekly podcast episode. Right and so you should be using these materials when when listening of course to the podcast, but you should also be using this material when you're sitting at the piano as well. So if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories and there are a million of them out there, such as Apple or Google Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio Pandora, then go directly to jazz piano skills. podcast.com That's jazz panel skills podcast.com to access download, and download your podcast packets and you'll find the active download links within the show notes. One final but very significant message if you think if you're sitting there listening right now and you're thinking that the various skills that we are How to discover learn and play. As we explore Charlie Parker's Dewey square, if you're thinking, wow, this is all over my head, then then I would say to you, no worries, right? Just sit back, just relax, continue to listen. And continue to grow your jazz piano skills intellectually by doing just that by just simply listening to this podcast episode. Every new skill, every new skill is over our heads when first introduced, but but this is how we get better. We place ourselves right smack dab in the middle of conversations, where we are hearing things that we've never heard before, right? We're hearing language that we've never heard before, words we've never heard before. So we're actually forced to grow intellectually. And I say it all the time, all musical growth begins upstairs mentally, conceptually, before it can come out downstairs physically in your hands. So sit back, relax, listen to this podcast now to discover and learn the play. As it always does, will come in time, I guarantee it. Okay, now that you have your lead sheets, in your hands, I want to talk you through them quickly, you will see that the lead sheets one and two, present, the chord changes and harmonic function for Dewey square, right? To help you truly discover and learn the changes and harmonic function of d square I strongly in addition to these lead sheets, I strongly recommend using the templates found in your illustrations podcast packet as well, they go hand in hand with these lead sheets. Now Lichi three, you'll notice has the chord changes again, but now the melody is included. And lead sheet four includes the melody plus the fingerings that I use when playing do a square, spend time a lot of time playing the head, the melody of Dewey square over and over and over again, at slow temples, by the way, right? To help you digest these finger patterns. And to identify where hand shifts are that we've been focusing on. Throughout the entire year right now lead sheets five through eight, to take a look at those, they deal with four patterns that I have extracted from Dewey square, to use as launchpads, if you will, for developing our own jazz vocabulary that we will be using when improvising. Right? So we got a lot to get through today. No doubt about it. So let's get busy. But before we do, let's sit back and listen to the master. Right. Let's sit back and listen to Charlie Parker. Play Dewey square. This is so much fun. It's a great tune. You're gonna love it. If

Dr. Bob Lawrence  23:05  
you're new to Dewey square, you're gonna fall in love with it immediately. I guarantee it. So let's just sit back and listen to Charlie Parker playing Dewey score here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  24:12  
Wow, does that make you tap your foot? Or what? Right? It's like great melody. don't notice that the bridge? Well I'll talk about that here in a second when we get to function and inform and such. So okay, let's pull out lead sheets, lead sheet one and lead sheet two. And I want you to place them side by side. So lead sheet one you'll notice has the chord changes only chord changes only. And lead sheet two has the harmonic function only or the Roman numeral representation of the chord changes. I call it the harmonic DNA of the song. Okay. So it's great to place these two lead sheets side by side, lead sheet one with the chord changes laid next to lead sheet two with the harmonic function, I'm going to play through the changes of Dewey square right now. And with these two lead sheets in front, I'm going to play through a twice the first time through write, I want you to follow the chord changes. And I want you to try to think the harmonic function as you look at the chord changes. So in other words, we're in the key of E flat, E flat major, and the very first chord is an E flat major seven, but I want you to think, one, one major seven, the very next chord is a flat minor seven, I want you to see A flat minor seven, but I want you to think four, minor seven, then it goes back to E flat, which is one, but check it out, E flat is not major now. So it's a one dominant, right, and then it goes to the D flat dominant, which would be flat seven dominant, which then goes to the C dominant, which would be six dominant, and so on. So the idea here is that when you're looking at the chord changes, you want to develop the skill to be able to see the chord changes, but think harmonic function, right, your ears will thank you for this as well. Then I want you the second time through I want to look at the harmonic function, the Roman numerals there, I want you to see the Roman numerals, but I want you to think the core changes, right. So as I always like to say you want to condition yourself or train yourself to actually think the opposite of what you're seeing. It's a tall order indeed. But if you practice it, you will get it so I'm going to play through now the core changes of Dewey square a couple times through again, we have lead sheet one and lead sheet two in front of us we have the chord changes on our left hand side we have the harmonic function on our right hand side. So here we go. Let's check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  29:05  
neat right, again, not an easy skill to develop, but is certainly worth the effort. And again, your ears will thank you because you will begin to hear harmonic movement. Okay. All right. So now let's take a look at lead sheet three and lead sheet four. Let's grab those two lead sheets. Place them side by side. You'll see the melody notated on lead sheet three, a clean copy of Dewey square, and then lead sheet four you see the melody but now you also see the fingerings that I'm using included and notated in there as well. Now what's interesting about Dewey square this is a classic A be a form right 32 measures long, four sections a BA each section eight measures But take a look at letter C. Let's take a look at that middle section there, right, the A, the B section, it's labeled letter C, don't let that confuse you, but it's the B section of the tune. You notice no melody. What? No melody, that's where you get to improvise. That's where you get to create, have some fun, and utilize some of that jazz language that we have been developing throughout the entire year. So this is the first time we've looked at a bebop tune that has intentional improvisation built into the bridge, where there's where it's up to you to create the bridge, right is it does not exist. So I'm going to play right now the melody of of Dewey square. And of course I'll improvise a little bit there in Section C but going to play through it two times. So one time you can follow just the melody second time through you can follow the melody with the fingerings maybe make some notation, make some notes where some of those hand shifts that we've been studying throughout the year are taking place as well. So all right, let's bring the ensemble in and let's take a listen to Dewey square here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  33:15  
Pretty cool little tone right. You know if you've been working on two hand voicings throughout the year as well. You know we have our traditional black voicings traditional shell voicings contemporary shell voicings two handed black voicings when, when that I use especially when I'm copying or accompanying an instrumentalist. So a lot of times I like to, I like to take my two handed voicings and I like to to play them and then I like to play a trumpet line on top of it so I can kind of hear how those voicings are going to sound underneath and instrumentalist. So I'm going to do that right now I'm going to play through D square again, I'm going to play two handed voicings through the through the changes here for the changes here of d square and I'm going to place a little trumpet on top of it so I get a feel for how my two handed voicing sound, backing up or playing beneath and instrumentalists. So. Let's take a couple minutes and listen to this as well. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  36:12  
Great fun. Okay, now let's get to our improvisational idea. So I will need you to grab lead sheet 567 and eight, it's gonna be 567 and eight. So, lead sheet five, we have the very first pattern, very measure one, measure one. And you'll notice that the line starts on the seventh of the E flat major. And it works its way basically down through the chord tones outlining the chord, right, you have a D in that line, you got a B flat in that line, you got a G in that line and E flat in that line, right. So the E flat major seven is certainly outlined in this melodic idea that Charlie Parker begins do a square with. So I want to take that melodic idea that shape. And I want to practice that shape and start to explore it a little bit, maybe rhythmically. And with regards to resolution as well, where I resolve that line, whether it's on the ninth or are on the the seventh or the sixth, I'm going to explore a little bit and see what I can come up with. So I'm gonna bring the ensemble in going to play E flat major. This is going to begin at a tempo about 110. I'm going to state that melodic idea a couple of times and then you'll hear me start to to embellish and work around that shape to discover some some ideas that I can begin developing for my own improvisational vocabulary for the development of my own improvisational vocabulary. So again, let's bring the ensemble and let's check it out measure one E flat major seven descending shape, okay, here we go check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  39:37  
Nice right, so again, I'm always looking at bebop melodies. I'm always looking at four neat little melodic ideas that I can extract from the tone, isolate those ideas, and begin using those ideas to develop my own jazz vocabulary. So with that in mind I want to draw your attention to measure for the C seven. And what's interesting about this little line is that this little motif is that it starts on the ninth of the C seven, it goes up the third to the 11th, and then descends using scale motion. So the idea is, wow, that's a great little motif. I certainly don't need to always play it starting on the ninth, right, you know, if I start on the ninth as written. Cool, but what if I start on the fifth and do the same thing with the seven can do the same thing. Right, so I can take that motif. And I can start moving that motif around within various entry points within the sound itself. So that's exactly what I'm going to do, I'm going to bring the ensemble and we're going to set up the C seven for a few measures. And then I'm going to play the original motif, or enters on the ninth, upper third to the 11th and then descend using scale motion. And then I'm going to start moving that motif around utilizing different entry points, whether it be the ninth or the fifth, or the seventh, and so on. And let's see what happens. Let's see how it sounds. So here we go check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  42:52  
100% works, right 100% works. How cool is that to be able to discover a little motif, and then start moving that motif around within that sound. Very valuable, very valuable indeed. So same thing, we can do the exact same thing with measure five, the F seven. Now notice the f7 starts on the 11th of the sound, right? And he goes from the 11th to the ninth to some of its kind of a triad shape, right. And then he goes down to the to the B flat again. So it's the Tryon. Ending with the bottom note, the bottom note being the same as the top note that he started that triad shape with. So again, the thought process is this well, what if I create that descending triad from various entry points within the F seven sound and just end my musical phrase with the same note that I started with an octave lower. Interesting, right using the same architectural structure that Charlie Parker is using n Dewey square. So I'm going to bring the ensemble back in going to set up the F seven sound. I'll state the original motif couple times. And then I'll take the exact same shape structure and start moving that around with in the sound of F seven. So let's see what this sounds like. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  46:07  
Again 100% works, right? Great little melodic motif that we can move around within the sound. Awesome. So now look at measure eight, we have a two five relationship here, right, we have the F minor seven go into the B flat dominant seven. And simple little idea, right? He starts the F minor on the fourth or the 11th of the sound, goes up to the fifth and returns right to the 11th. Right. That's it. So I'm going to actually take that little motif. And I'm going to actually play that through my to five with seven different entry points. The root of the F minor, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth and the seminar. You'll hear it. So I'm going to set up the to five sound with the ensemble first. I'll state the original motif a couple times, then you'll hear me move that motif through the Dorian mode, or the Mixolydian Dorian MixoLydian mode, right? The scale of F minor off the root the second third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh. Let's see what this sounds like. Here we go check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  49:10  
What a coincidence, it works too amazing. Take a little motif, being able to move it around various entry points within the sound. how invaluable is that? How fun is that? For developing jazz vocabulary for developing your jazz vocabulary. Needless to say, you got some work to do, right? You take these four ideas, right, I've demonstrating them today on the E flat major and on the C seven the F seven and then the two five in there in relationship to the key of E flat. But the idea is to move these around the various keys and you'll see that notated in your lead sheets packet to move that around using circle of fifths motion. So wow, a ton a ton to do a ton to practice, but the payoff will be gigantic, I promise. And wow, talk about a ton to do right. We did a ton already today in one very short and one very fast hour. Again, I cannot stress enough, I just cannot stress enough the importance of playing bebop heads, melodies for developing fingerings technique. Your turtle sense of time, articulation. Write it for developing your, your jazz vocabulary, right? No better Etude no better exercise out there than a bebop. Okay, just a reminder as well do not skim over studying, and learning that the chord changes the harmonic function of Dewey square. Again, huge payoffs, especially for your ears, right. After all, the foundation, the melody rests upon that those chord changes and that harmonic DNA that I mentioned earlier, right. And again, just use your illustration podcasts packet to help you gain a command of these essential skills. All right. Finally, I love to take apart these bebop tunes as I did today, these little melodies, these little motifs, and move them around within the sound to discover my own idea. So you can actually extract some other nuggets within within Dewey square that you can certainly play around with and do the exact same thing that I modeled for you today. Take that exact same motif if it's something that intrigues you, and then move it around in the same manner that I did today. As always, as always, as you're practicing, be patient. Developing mature and professional jazz piano skills takes time takes a lot of time. It takes a lifetime to be honest. So begin structuring your study and practicing after the demonstrations that I modeled for you today in this podcast episode, and I guarantee it you will begin to see you'll begin to feel and hear your progress. Well I hope you found this jazz panel skills podcasts lesson exploring Charlie Parker's Dewey square to be insightful and of course to be beneficial don't forget if you're a jazz panel skills ensemble member member I'll see you Thursday evening online. At the jazz panel skills masterclass. Again, start time is 8 pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode exploring Dewey square in greater detail and of course to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general. If you're a jazz piano skills member again, be sure to use those educational podcast packets, check out the jazz panel skills courses and you know what get out there and get involved in the jazz panel skills community. Introduce yourself make some new jazz piano friends, always, always a great thing to do. If you have any questions, you can reach me by phone 972-380-8050 My office extension here at the Dallas School of Music is 211 if you prefer email, my email address is Dr. Lawrence drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or you can use that nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is found on I believe every single page of the jazz piano skills a website to send me a message that way. While there is my cue, that's it for now. And until next week, enjoy Charlie Parker's Dewey square. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano!