Georgia on My Mind, Melodic Analysis

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.6)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano, my favorite time of the week. And here we go, right? Week two of the month, which means, as week two always means, it's a melodic analysis week. Last week, we took our tune of the month, which is Georgia on My Mind.

And we did our standard harmonic analysis, examining the form, traditional changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, and of course the voicings. We did block voicings, traditional shells, contemporary shells, and two-handed structures. And of course, we always follow our harmonic analysis with a melodic analysis to discover, learn, and play the lyrics, the melody.

fingerings, phrases, target notes, various standard treatments like a ballad or a bossa or swing. And we do this every week, right? And then we have a little fun with a rhythmic challenge as well. So every month we take a tune. We get comfy with that tune through a harmonic analysis, a melodic analysis, we do an improvisation, development, and of course we all

we're always studying rhythm with each one of these stages of the game, right? So we have three jazz camps, harmony, melody, improvisation. We have a rhythmic component to each one of those camps, right? The fact is every aspiring jazz musician, not just pianist, every aspiring jazz musician must gain a functional command, both conceptually and physically, of

tunes harmonically, melodically, improvisationally, and of course rhythmically. How do you do all this? All right, well it begins with establishing a very well thought out and constructed practice strategy. And that's what we do here at Jazz Piano Skills every single month. As I like to say, people don't plan to fail, they just fail to plan. And man, does that

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:52.409)
age old adage ring true when it comes to the study and practicing of jazz. I've made this point numerous times throughout the years and I'll continue to make it year after year, maybe even month after month, that jazz education has become saturated with information and it has. I'm intimidated. There's so much, right? Jazz tips all over the place in articles, books, internet, social media, websites.

podcast. And I'm in awe with the volume of information available to jazz students. And I've said it before, I was overwhelmed in the 70s when I began my jazz journey, and it has done nothing but exploded since the arrival of the internet and various ways to connect through it. In fact, I'm going to be talking later about my YouTube channel. See, it just keeps coming at you. But you know, regardless of the volume of information bombarding us each and every day,

What hasn't changed, what remains the same is the necessity of having access to number one, correct information, not just a lot of information, we need correct information that is presented coherently and strategically. And therein lies the problem because we have access to a ton of information and not all of it is correct information and not all of it is presented coherently and strategically. Tons of information more than ever.

right books, websites, apps, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, videos everywhere. But the information typically sadly is not presented coherently. It's presented as well, here, here's some more information and good luck. Hope it helps. Right? More information. The thought process really is that more information is better and that and we know that's not true. Right? That more information you have

doesn't necessarily mean the more you know, the better jazz pianist, jazz musician that you will become, right? It's just not true. Okay, so this is why it's important to know what the facts of music. I've been pounding this since the beginning of the year as well, because without the facts, you cannot begin to separate

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:19.986)
truth from fiction. Right? Without the facts, you cannot formulate a coherent and strategic practice plan. A practice plan that will produce the results that you hope to obtain. Without the facts, you'll be in a constant state of what I call just information gathering, a constant state of the pursuit of information for the sake of information. Right? So having the facts of music protects you from

falling for every new video website, blog, podcast and book that is published. So we need the facts more than ever. So what are these all important facts of music? Those, those of you who are regular listeners can recite it along with me. Okay. And there are seven here. are number one, music is the production of sound major dominant minor half diminished and diminished. And of course, silence.

sound and silence. Number two, when producing sound, we produce it either harmonically and or melodically. Shapes, right? The shapes of harmonic and melodic sounds. Number three, when sound is produced harmonically, we're playing chords or voicings. Number four, when sound is produced melodically, where you're playing the arpeggios and scales for that sound.

Number five, when playing the arpeggios and scales, we're moving, always moving in one of two directions. We're either moving up or we're moving down. Number six, we camouflage or we decorate those scales and arpeggios with tension or chromaticism. And finally, number seven, to make musical facts one through six actually interesting, we add rhythm. Rhythm is the key. So

It's imperative that you think about these seven facts always when looking at any book or website or podcast or vlog, whatever you're looking at, you should be looking at it through the lens of the seven musical facts, right? The point that to the point that you actually see and hear music in accordance with these seven facts, you know, that once this

Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:45.928)
occurs. Once this tipping point happens for you, that everything you see, everything you read, everything you hear, you can identify as being framed by the seven facts of music, then you can begin constructing a practice plan that will actually produce the results that you want. Right? How cool is that? You know, this is exactly why I launched Jazz Piano Skills six plus years ago.

was to help everyone swimming in a pool of autonomous musical concepts, which is pretty typical for today. It just seems to be autonomous ideas, licks, progressions, theories, so on. So I wanted to have an entirely new approach to studying and practicing the essential jazz piano skills, an entirely new approach anchored by the seven facts of music.

And this is precisely why we approach our tune study each and every week, every month, every year, centered around the seven facts of music using three distinct phases or studies. Those studies again, harmonic analysis, melodic analysis, improvisation. And of course, we always add emphasis to these studies focusing specifically on fact number seven, rhythm.

Alright, so the harmonic rhythm challenge, right, usually it usually deals with some kind of rhythmic transcribing that focuses on comping skills. And the melodic rhythmic challenge usually involves transposing some kind of motif to various key centers. And then our improvisation rhythmic challenge that we'll deal with next week.

usually typically stretches an arpeggio or scale movement through various segments of the sound, right? So I'm thrilled that we have this process in place that we've established really a pretty amazing, educationally sound, three tier, three phase, three study, whatever you want to call it approach that is formulated and anchored by the seven facts of music. The seven facts again needed

Dr. Bob Lawrence (10:14.454)
to illuminate the essential jazz piano skills needed to successfully discover, learn, and play tunes to play jazz. So all of this to say that today we're doing a melodic analysis. Today we are going to melodically discover Georgia on my mind. We're going to learn the melody, of course, by ear, the phrases, and the target notes for Georgia on my mind.

And we're going to play Georgia on my mind. we typically do three different standards. I mean treatments. If I have time today, I will do that. I have some other surprises up my sleeve. So we'll see how time, if we have time to get all that in or not. But anyway, regardless, as I, as I like to say, wherever you are in your jazz journey,

right? A beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you're a seasoned and experienced professional, you know what? You're going to find this Jazz Piano Skills podcast lesson exploring Georgia on my mind to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to, as I do each and every week, I want to welcome first time listeners to Jazz Piano Skills. And if you are indeed new to the Jazz Piano Skills podcast or just new to Jazz Piano Skills, welcome.

I want to invite you to become a Jazz Piano Skills member. Your membership grants you many perks. Number one, it grants you a podcast that is 100 % ad free, which I absolutely love. It's been my goal from the very beginning. No ads, please. Just can we have education? Thank you. So that's number one. Number two, there are quite a few educational perks that come along with your membership. For instance, you have access to premium podcast content.

which basically means you get to listen to the entire episode each and every week. The first half of every podcast is free for everyone to enjoy. We deal with the question of the week. We lay out the educational agenda and the lesson rationale. In the second half of each podcast for members only, we deal with the lesson content, the demonstrations, and then of course the weekly rhythmic assignment as well.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:41.354)
You also as a Jazz Panel Skills member have access to the educational podcast packets. These are the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs that I design and develop for every weekly podcast episode. And they are available to help maximize your benefit from the podcast episode. So you certainly should have them in your hands when listening and you certainly should be using them throughout the week when practicing as well.

Additionally, as a Jazz Piano Skills member, you have access to the online educational courses. These are comprehensive, self-paced and sequential courses dealing with various essential jazz piano skills. You also have a reserved seat in the weekly masterclass that I hold, live masterclass every Thursday evening at 8 p.m. Central Time. And I know this is not the ideal time for everyone to

participate in a master class. However, the master classes are recorded and you can watch and rewatch the video of the class whenever and as often as you wish. You also as a member have access to the online private jazz piano skills community, which hosts a variety of educational forums. There are episode specific forums, general jazz forums. It's a great place to meet new friends, receive

feedback and assistance from other members and also to be helpful and provide feedback and assistance as well. And finally, as a Jazz Piano Skills member, you have access to unlimited professional educational support, right? Whenever and as often as you need it. So look, all of these educational perks are waiting, sitting there waiting to help you discover, learn and play Jazz Piano. So check it all out at jazzpianoskills.com and of course become a member.

If you get to the site and you're poking around, you have some questions, by all means, feel free to reach out to me. I'm always happy to spend a little time with you and answer any questions that you may have. So do not hesitate to, to give me a call or an email. All right. wait, before we go on to the question of the week, I, I also want to take just a few minutes to encourage you to

Dr. Bob Lawrence (15:06.42)
subscribe to the new Jazz Piano Skills YouTube channel. I say it's new, it's actually old. I've had the channel now for several years, but did nothing with it. I had no idea even what to do with it. But now I'm starting to figure some things out and it's pretty fun and it's pretty cool. So I currently have five playlists at the Jazz Piano Skills YouTube channel. There's a

Daily Rhythms, Daily Rhythms Challenge, there's jazz lessons, the song study of the month, have tips and tunes, podcast episodes and podcast guests. So there's quite a bit there already. I'm starting to populate these playlists with new videos every week. So be sure to subscribe so you are notified when a new jazz panel skills drop occurs. For example, for example,

I just released this morning, a daily rhythm challenge tutorial video that explains the program, where and how to access the daily rhythms and the backing tracks, both the ensemble and drum backing tracks, and provided some suggestions on how to go about practicing rhythms so that you improve your internal sense of time along with

improving your rhythmic vocabulary along with improving your improvisation skills. So needless to say, I'm pretty excited about this new dimension to jazz piano skills and looking forward to growing the YouTube channel to help us all discover, learn and play jazz piano or whatever instrument you are studying. It's not just for pianists. There's a lot of benefit there for all instrumentalists and vocalists as well. Okay, so now let's

get to the question of the week. Okay, this week's question comes from Alexander Bessing living in Mannheim, Germany. And Alexander is has well before we. All right, before we get to Alexander's question, I have to say Alexander man, man, he is a student of jazz, a serious, I mean, and I'm talking a serious student of jazz.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (17:28.938)
think he has devoured every piece of information on the internet that deals with jazz. And then he from all the information that exists on the internet, he formulates a question from all that material he devours, and then he sends his question to me for answers. And that this happens. This happens almost every week to the point

quite honestly, to the point my family even asked, I mean, how's Alexander doing this week? And I said, he's doing great. In fact, I contacted him earlier. This is hilarious. I contacted him earlier today to see if it would be okay for me to use his question in the podcast. And his response was, which one? Right? So I kind of gives you an idea. Now, don't get me wrong, I love it. I absolutely love it. I just feel bad that sometimes I can't

get an answer out to him as quickly as I would like, just simply due to other questions needing attention as well. But Alexander is a great guy and can't wait to meet him someday, which I know will happen. Right. It's going to happen. Either I will make my way to Germany or he will make his way to the great state of Texas, but one day we'll meet. so here's the deal. Instead of me reading his question,

he sent it to me through SpeakPipe, which is a great way. Typically, everybody sends me questions via email, which is fantastic. But I want to remind everybody to use the SpeakPipe widget that is on the website on all the pages is an easy and quick way to send me a question as well. So since he sent it to me on SpeakPipe, I just thought it would be easier for me to just play the audio file of the question and then attempt to answer it. So here it is. Here's Alexander from Germany.

with his question. Check it out. Dr. Lawrence. This is Alexander Bessing again. I don't want to bombard you with speedbite messages, but I've came across a really interesting description of a suspended chord. And maybe it's of interest to you. Just let me read it. It's from the book, How to Play from a Real Book for All Musicians by Robert Rawlins. Maybe you know this book.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (19:50.672)
and he describes the suspended chord as follows. The best way to think of a sus chord is as a chord where the fourth replaces the third. Although sus originally was an abbreviation for suspended, the contrapuntal background of this chord no longer applies. In other words, in classical music, a suspended fourth must by definition be followed by resolution to a third. But this simply does not happen in jazz and popular music.

The SAS-Core just sits there as an entity in itself. And therefore, the word suspension is best avoided. So that brings me to the conclusion that we had this discussion, right, that the suspended chord does not resolve to the major third of a dominant or whatever. So when you listen to some modern jazz stuff, fusion jazz and so on,

There's no resolution at all. This is what I already explained in a speak back message to you, I think. So do you think, or don't you think it would be better to treat the suspended courts as an entity for itself then? So let me know your opinion. So I think that's really interesting. So what do you think of that? Thank you very much, Dr. Lawrence. Let me know. Goodbye. Have a good day.

Isn't he great? I told you always with a great question. Always reading, always studying, very inspiring. So while I was listening to Alexander and I was listening to the question, I couldn't help but to think, you know, why are people so intrigued? They're so intrigued by and care so much about the suspended sound, the suspension. Now,

Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I love the suspended sound, the suspension, and use it a lot when playing. But I can honestly say, I think I receive more questions about the suspended sound more than any other sound, including altered dominant chords. It's just amazing to me. So Alexander, your question is awesome. And I love how you are processing this information from the Rawlins book, How to Play from a Real Book.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (22:17.566)
and relating it to what I teach and how I approach cataloging sound in music. As you know, I teach there are five primary sounds of music major dominant minor half diminished and diminished. Anything else, anything else that you would encounter alterations like flat nine sharp nine, sharp 11 flat 13 flat five sharp five suspensions. They're what I like to call

decorative modifications, decorative modifications to one of the primary sounds of music to either the major dominant minor half diminished or diminished sound. In this case, the suspension is a decorative modic modification to the major or dominant sound. Now, how I've come to this conclusion over my lifetime of study is based entirely on the sounds that are produced by the major

harmonic minor and melodic minor scales. And here they are. The major scale produces major, dominant minor, and half diminished sounds. The harmonic minor scale produces major sharp five, major sharp 11, dominant flat nine, flat 13, minor, a minor sharp seven, half diminished, and, and the diminished sound. So this is where we get our diminished sound.

from the harmonic minor scale. The melodic minor scale produces a major sharp five. We have a dominant sharp 11, dominant flat 13, dominant fully altered. We have a minor sound, a minor sharp seven sound, and a half diminished. See, so when you strip down, when you strip down the major harmonic and melodic minor scales to the

foundational sounds that they produce, we end up with major dominant minor half diminished and diminished. I'm going to say that again, when you when you look at those three scales, the foundational sounds that they produce, we end up with just major dominant minor half diminished and diminished. Nowhere in those scales, do you find the suspension or suspended sound? Nowhere. Therefore, I do not treat it

Dr. Bob Lawrence (24:42.244)
I do not treat it as its own sound. do not, it does not make my list of the primary sounds of music. Now, the fact that it can stand on its own and not resolve doesn't carry a lot of weight with me because I can isolate, I can isolate any sound and hang, hang out on it indefinitely. And in fact, I practice this way and I, and I encourage all of you to do the same, to isolate a sound.

bathe in it physically, visually, orally, while exploring it and improvising over it. Right? So, like, again, the fact that it doesn't resolve, that's not part of my equation in determining the five primary sounds of music. So, Alexander, it's a great question.

keep devouring everything you can about music and formulating your thoughts. No better way to grow intellectually, which of course will have a profound impact on how you practice, which ultimately has a profound impact on your playing. So keep your questions coming. I'll be sure to answer them as quickly as I can. And you know what? Hey, I'll let my family know that you're doing great as well. All right. It's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano.

Let's discover, learn, and play Georgia on my mind. All right. So when studying, when learning any tune, as I mentioned every week, I approach it the same way. Genre makes no difference. I go about learning a tune the same way. There's basically four steps. Number one, I listen. Number two, I do a harmonic analysis. Number three, a melodic analysis. Number four, an improvisation development. Exactly the format, the process that we implement every month.

here at Jazz Piano Skills. When listening, I listen to various artists from various genres, vocalist, instrumentalist, pianist. It makes no difference. If they perform Georgia on my mind, I'm going to check it out or the tune that we're studying. Harmonic analysis, for me, harmonic analysis is always dealing with the form, the chord changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, voicings.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (27:05.848)
My melodic analysis, I always transcribe the melody. I look at the phrases of that melody, various target notes within the phrases. I like to explore various treatments of the tune, and I typically stick with the three standard treatments, ballad, bassa, swing. And then my improv development, use the tune for improvisation development. I'll look at chord scale relationships. I'll explore arpeggio and scale movement through those sounds.

And of course, experiment with tension chromaticism as well. Right. So it's pretty thorough, pretty complete approach that I utilize with every tune and that we do every single month. So this week, right, or I should say last week, we did our harmonic analysis, where we looked at the form and the changes harmonic function and voicings. And this week, we're going to turn our attention to our melodic analysis and we're going to

dive in here to the melody and the phrases, the various treatments as well. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we are going to listen to definitive recordings of Georgia on my mind. Number two, we're going to learn the melody, we're going to transcribe the melody for Georgia on my mind. Number three, we're going to look at suggested fingerings to play the melody.

And number four, where we will identify the melodic phrases found within Georgia On My Mind. Number five, we will apply the voicings to the melody of Georgia On My Mind. And then hopefully we can get to the standard treatments, the ballad, swing, and bossa treatments as well. So if you are a Jazz Piano Skills member, I want you to hit the pause button right now, take a few minutes, download and print.

podcast packets. Again, these are the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs. Again, your membership grants you access to the premium content, as well as the podcast packets. So make sure that you take the time to access them and print them out and have them in your hands as you're listening to this episode. And of course, you're to be wanting to use them as you practice throughout the week. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets, I want you to grab your lead sheets.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (29:29.976)
You should have seven in your packet this week, seven lead sheets. So I want to walk through them quickly, then we'll thoroughly go through each one as well. All right, so lead sheet one is kind of what I call the fill in the blank exercise for Georgia on my mind. I give you some, some guide tones, if you will, to help you transcribe the melody. And you're kind of filling in the blanks in between those guide tones.

So it's a fun exercise. It's a great way, especially if you're new to transcribing, if you're new to discovering melodies by sitting at the piano and poking them out, letting your ear do the heavy lifting and finding where the notes are to formulate the melody. This is a great lead sheet for you. It's got some, like I said, it's got guide tones to help you discover the melody. Now when

we'll get into this a little bit more. anyway, that's lead sheet one. Lead sheet two, melodic lead sheet, it's kind of your, it's the answer guide, basically to lead sheet one. So you've transcribed the melody. Now you can check your work and see how accurate you are. Lead sheet three has the fingerings that I suggest for playing the melody of George on my mind. Lead sheet four identifies the phrases.

which will help you learn the tune and digest the tune melodically. Lead sheet five identifies the target notes of the phrases within George On My Mind. And then lead sheet six, we take our left hand block voicings from last week, we apply the melody to those voicings, you're going to love that. And then lead sheet seven, we do the same thing, but we use the left hand shell voicings, the traditional and shell voicings as we play the melody over the top.

of those shapes. So, wow, we have a ton to get done as always. So let's get busy. in days past, at this point, I would play some definitive recordings of our tune of George On My Mind. But as you know, I made some changes this year with the podcast episodes and I moved the suggested listening to the community forums. And again, a couple of reasons for this. Number one,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (31:56.02)
I want to be able to recommend more than just one tune to check out because there are always several renditions worth your attention. And number two, I want to preserve as much time as possible within the podcast for educational content. Right? That's why we're here. So I would suggest right now again, hitting the pause button and heading over to the community and check out the various renditions that I have posted in the forums there for you to listen to.

There's some really great renditions, so take some time to sit back, relax, and enjoy these great artists and their performance of Georgia On My Mind. And once you have completed your listening, well, then it's time to get to work. So grab your lead sheets, and let's grab lead sheet one. And let's take a look at this fill-in-the-blank exercise that I mentioned earlier and why it's so important.

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