I Got Rhythm, Melodic Analysis

Introduction to Jazz Piano Skills and Melodic Analysis

Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Well, here we are, week two of the month. And week two of the month means that we are going to spend the day doing a melodic analysis. Our tune study this month is George Gershwin's I Got Rhythm. Now, last week we focused on the harmonic foundation of the tune. We looked at the form, the changes, harmonic function, and of course our voicings, traditional block voicings and inversions, the traditional left-hand shells, contemporary left-hand shells, and of course our two-handed voicings. Now, today we shift our attention to the melody. We're going to explore how it's constructed, how it moves, and how to approach it with clarity and control at the keyboard, our fingerings, phrasings, target notes, essential stylistic treatments, ballad, basa, swing. In other words, we're going to take the harmonic understanding from last week and bring it to life melodically. You know, last week we talked about a problem that every jazz piano student faces at some point. And that's chasing information, the temptation to chase information instead of building real skills. And in today's world, as I mentioned last week, it's easy to do. There's no shortage of content. Lessons, tutorials, demonstrations, videos. It's an endless stream of ideas telling you what you should learn next. But here's the truth information has never been the problem. Lack of clarity is the problem. My point is this most students are not struggling because they don't have enough material. They're struggling because they don't understand how to organize what they already have. So guess what? They stay busy. They practice. They learn new things. But their plane doesn't fundamentally change. How is that? Why is that? Because without clarity, guess what? Effort gets scattered. And scattered effort always leads to very slow progress. Now, real growth, real growth in jazz piano comes from something much simpler. Understanding how music actually works. That is the key. Understanding how music actually works. And developing the ability to think clearly while you're practicing, while you're playing. Not more information, better awareness. Not more material, we need better organization. And talent doesn't solve this either. Time doesn't solve this. Clarity does. And the way we develop that clarity at jazz piano skills, you know what's coming. Clarity is grounding our thinking in a small number of fundamental musical truths. Everything we do here is built around and built upon what I call the seven musical facts. And what are those seven facts? Well, say it along with me. Fact number one, music is the production of sound and silence. Of course, when I'm talking about sound, I'm talking about our primary sounds, major, dominant, minor, half diminished, and diminished. Fact number two, sound is produced in two ways. Harmonically and melodically. Fact number three, when sound is produced harmonically, we're playing chords or what we often refer to as voicings. Fact number four, when sound is produced melodically, we are playing scales and arpeggios. Fact number five, when playing scales and arpeggios, guess what? We're moving in one of two directions. We're either going up or we're coming down. That's it. Fact number six, we decorate or we camouflage or enhance the scales and arpeggios with tension, or what we refer to as chromaticism, notes that fall outside of the harmony. And then finally, fact number seven, to make facts one through six interesting, right? We add rhythm. Those seven musical facts are musical gold. Seeing music in this way is the key to becoming a musician. Seeing music as the production of harmonic and melodic shapes moving up and down the piano through scale and arpeggio motion, decorated with chromaticism and expressed rhythmically? Hmm. That's the key. So let me say that again. Seeing music as the production of harmonic and melodic shapes that move up and down the piano using scale and arpeggio motion, decorated with chromaticism and expressed rhythmically. That is the key to learning how to play music, understanding the musical facts. Because once you understand the musical facts, once you understand what music actually is, you can begin to practice in a way that reflects that truth. Your practice stops becoming random, your practice stops becoming scattered. And guess what? It starts becoming organized. It starts becoming intentional. And here's the big one it starts to become productive. Once you understand musical truth, the musical facts, you can finally build practice strategies that align with how music actually works. So all that to say that today we are going to continue our organized and intentional and productive study of George Gershwin's I Got Rhythm with a melodic analysis. So today we're going to discover I got rhythm melodically. We're going to learn the melody by ear, transcribe it to the best of our abilities. We're going to learn the phrases and the target notes within that melody. And then we're going to play the melody of I Got Rhythm, supported by our voicings that we established, that we studied last week with a harmonic study, using three standard jazz treatments: a ballad treatment, a bossa nova treatment, and a traditional swing treatment. So, as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this Jazz Pianel Skills Podcast lesson exploring I got rhythm melodically to be very beneficial. Now, before we get started, I want to take a moment, as I always do, to welcome all of you first-time listeners to Jazz Piano Skills. And if you are new to the Jazz Pianal Skills Podcast, you're new to Jazz Piano Skills, welcome. I want to encourage you to explore becoming a member. Membership gives you access to structured, comprehensive learning materials to support your development at every level. As a member, you have access to the complete podcast episodes, including the demonstrations and lesson content. You also have access to the downloadable podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play-alongs. You have access to a library of courses designed to be sequential, practical, and sound based. You also have access to the weekly master classes that I host every Thursday evening. If you can't make it, no big deal. Full audio recordings are available for you to enjoy at your convenience. As a member, you also have access to the private online jazz pianel skills community for discussion, questions, and supporting regarding jazz education, regarding your journey. And then finally, as a jazz pianel skills member, you have access to me for support, educational support, guidance whenever you need it. So visit jazz pianel skills, check it all out. And of course, if you have any questions, please let me know. All of these resources are designed with one single goal in mind to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano in a very clear, a very structured, and meaningful way. Again, you can learn all about it at jazzpianelskills.com. So check it out. And again, if you have any questions, let me know. One final uh quick note if you are not receiving the Jazz Pianal Skills weekly blog post, I encourage you to join the email list. You can do so very easily at Jazz Pianel Skills. Uh each Saturday or Sunday, sometime over the weekend, I publish a written summary of the week's lesson designed to reinforce what you've learned and to help you stay organized in your study, to help you gain clarity of thought with your practice routine. All right, so let's get on to the question of the week. And this week's question comes from Sophia Mitchell. And Sophia lives in Seattle, Washington. Sophia writes, Dr. Lawrence, I feel like when I play a melody, I'm just playing a bunch of notes, even when I'm playing the right notes. It doesn't sound musical. How do I stop playing notes and actually make the melody sound like music? Sophia, fantastic question. I think we've dealt with this uh a couple different times uh at Jazz Piano Skills, but it's always a great question and always a question that needs to be uh revisited uh f frequently, right? Because it's worth hearing over and over and over again. Okay, so I feel like when I you you you mentioned that when you feel like you feel like when you play a melody, you're just playing a bunch of notes, and even when I'm playing the right notes, it doesn't sound musical. Well, uh most students Sophia, you're not alone because most students don't play melodies. They don't. They do play notes, just like what you're doing. They just they play notes, and there is a big difference be between playing melodies and playing notes. So a melody this is important. A melody is not a collection of notes. Okay, it's it's not a collection of notes. A melody, as you will find out later in this podcast episode, a melody is actually a collection of phrases. That's what a melody is. Now the problem is most students approach a melody like this, and I'm I'm I'm guessing you're kind of in this in this group, right? Most students approach a melody like this. They note next note, next note, next note. That's it. There's no shape, there's no direction, there's no breath, there's no expression. It's just note. One note to the next note, to the next note, to the next note. And when you play notes, guess what? You sound mechanical. You sound like you're playing just a bunch of notes. So melodies, as I mentioned, are built from phrases. Actually, just like language. If I speak word by word with no expression, with no connection, it would sound very unnatural to you. But when I group words into phrases with space, with expression, with pauses, right? Well, it becomes expressive. It makes sense, it communicates. And that's what we try to do when we play. We want to be expressive, we want our melodic thoughts to make sense, we want our melodic th thoughts to communicate. So, Sophia, you must stop seeing notes and start seeing melodic shapes because there's nothing more unmusical than notes. Okay, so we need to start seeing melodic shapes. So, how do we do that? All right, how do we do it? Well, number one, we identify phrases. So you don't start by playing. Here's and and and we do this every week here at Jazz Piano Skills as well. We don't start by playing, guess what we start? We start by listening. That's how we start. We ask questions like where does the melody breathe? Where does it pause? Where does it resolve? And we're going to look at all of that here shortly with I Got Rhythm. Right? So through listening, we discover where a melody breathes, where does it pause, where does it resolve. Right? And if you don't see, if you don't do that, right, if you don't listen in such a way that you can identify the phrases, if you don't see the phrases, you you can't play the phrases. And if you can't play the phrases, you're back to playing notes. So every phrase has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And every phrase moves up and down. Which is, again, these are parts, this is all part of the seven facts of music that I stress every single week as well. So we number one, we want to identify phrases. Number two, we want to identify the shape of the phrases. And then uh number three, this is really important, Sophia. You want your phrase playing uh to be primarily legato. Jazz is a legato music. Notes connect, they they don't sit next to each other, they flow into each other. That's a really important fact to digest and understand that notes don't sit next to one another, they actually flow into one another. Jazz is not played note to note, it is played phrase to phrase. Again, we're we're gonna find that, discover that here shortly with I Got Rhythm. Jazz is not played note to note, it is played phrase to phrase. Now, remember fact number one: music is sound and silence. Phrases need space. If you don't leave space, there is no phrasing. Okay? Now, uh we we need to control the rhythm. This is huge as well, right? You just don't play notes, you place them in time, either slightly ahead of time, it could be slightly behind time, or it could be on time. But the key is that control rhythm in such a way that you can actually play in time, either ahead of it or behind it, or on it. This is where expression comes from. So I guess what I'm actually trying to say is what you play matters far less than when you play it. That's really the truth. What you play matters far less than when you play it and how you play it. Now, this becomes very obvious again when we look at I Got Rhythm. This melody is not a stream of notes, it is built from very clear conversational phrases. Right? There's like it's almost like a call and response with space and repetition included. And again, we're gonna discover all that when we explore melody of I Got Rhythm here shortly. So, Sophia, if you if you play I Got Rhythm or any any song, if you play it as notes, it's gonna sound stiff. It's gonna sound unmusical. Uh if you play it as phrases, uh now it becomes expressive, now it becomes musical. Now, here is the big shift for you that I think is so very important. Right now you're thinking I'm playing the melody. And where where I want to get you to is not thinking I'm playing the melody. I I want you to think that I'm being expressive but by shaping musical phrases, by communicating and expressing musical phrases. That's a big shift, but that's what that's what we uh attempt to do every single month with our tune study, especially during uh week two with our melodic analysis. So how do we do how do we do all of this, right? How do we practice this? Well we in a very structured way, of course, right? So we practice it one phrase at a time, we sing it, right? We shape it, we leave space, we connect notes, right? But that's how we practice it, one phrase at a time. And we sing that melody. Whether right, we sing it we should be singing through our instrument. We want to sing through the piano, we want to shape those phrases, be expressive, and we do that by leaving space and and connecting notes. Again, notes don't sit side by side. Right? So again, we don't practice notes, we practice phrases. So, Sophia, once you begin to see and hear phrases, that's why we spend time looking at phrases and target notes within the phrases with our melodic analysis. Once you begin to see and hear phrases, everything changes. Everything changes. Your melodies start to breathe, they start to become uh expressive, they communicate, they flow. They don't sound like a bunch of notes. So, because music is not about playing the right notes, which I think everybody, I mean, that's kind of the mindset, right? I gotta play the right the right right notes versus wrong notes, right? So music is not about playing the right notes. It's about making the notes actually sound right. You know, great musicians can actually play wrong notes and make them sound right. It's amazing. So think about that. That's a lot to throw at you with with your question. I understand that. So if if more clarity is needed, by all means, please reach out to me. I'm happy to help. And as I like to say, kick this can around a little more with you and help you really kind of jump this hurdle, getting beyond playing note to note, instead thinking of phrase to phrase, so that you can begin to uh be expressive with your music, uh, not only for others to enjoy, but for you to enjoy. All right, so let me know. Again, I hope uh I haven't caused more confusion than clarity, but if if I have, please let me know and and we'll uh take another stab at it. All right, it is time to get busy because we got a lot to get done today. It's time for us to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. It's time for us to discover, learn, and play. I got rhythm. Well, to study any tune, to learn any tune, uh, as you know, there's an approach. It's just not a random process. There should be a logical approach, and of course, that's what we do here at jazz piano skills. Uh, when studying any tune, we approach it the same way. And again, uh genre would make no difference. We study jazz here, but if it was if it was uh rock piano skills or pop piano skills or country piano skills, it really doesn't matter. It the genre is irrelevant. We would go about learning a tune the same way. And what do we do? I just mentioned it earlier. The very first thing we always do is listen. We want to check out various artists, vocalists, instrumentalists, pianists, professionals, amateurs. Uh if anybody's performing the tune that we are wanting to learn, we should be open to listening to their rendition of the tune. This is where real musical growth begins. Okay, so of course, that's what we do. We have a killer listening list that goes along with every podcast episode that is put together. Lisa does a phenomenal job for us, and it is posted in our jazz piano skills community. And uh that's what we do every week. We start off with a great listening list of various artists and uh again professionals to amateurs, vocalists, instrumentalists, pianists to help us. Experience the tune in as many different ways as possible. After we listen, we turn our attention to the first week of every month, a harmonic analysis where we look at the form, the changes, the function, common movement, and voicings of the tune. Week two, this week, we always do a melodic analysis, we transcribe melody, look at the phrases, the various target notes within the phrases, and explore various standard jazz treatments like a ballad, pasta, swing. And then finally, week three, we turn our attention to improvisation development, which of course is going to involve rhythmic, uh, rhythmic development, chord scale relationships, arpeggio and scale movement through the sound, melodic pathways, motif development. So it's a very thorough, it's a very complete, very logical uh approach, listening, harmonic analysis, melodic analysis, improvisation development. Then of course, we we we now we we top it all off with a study, a weekly study of solo piano approaches. So we have a very thorough and complete process that we unfold every single month with every single tune. Very intentional, and it helps us form a clarity of thought that I mentioned earlier, which is so very important for our jazz journey, for our jazz growth. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we're gonna listen, of course, to I Got Rhythm. Number two, we will transcribe to the best of our ability the melody of I Got Rhythm. Number three, we will look at my suggested fingerings for playing this melody in a very legato and connected way through our phrases. Number four, we will identify those melodic phrases and the target notes within the phrases. Five, we're going to take our voicings from last week and we're going to pull together the melody and the voicings. We're actually putting it all together. And then finally, uh, we will then look at playing I Got Rhythm with our voicings, with our melody, using various standard treatments, which will force us to interpret those phrases, that melody, in very different ways. So if you are a jazz panel skills member, I want you to take just a few minutes right now to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets to play along. Again, your membership grants you access to this premium content, so be sure to take advantage of it. You should have this material in your hands when listening to the podcast episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you should have this material sitting on your piano or music stand at home when practicing throughout the week. Alright, so now that you have your podcast packets, I want you to grab your lead sheets. We always start with the lead sheets. I'll talk about the illustrations and the play alongs a little later. But grab the lead sheets. You should have seven lead sheets in your packet. And I just want to walk through them quickly before we dive in. Lead sheet one is what I call the fill-in-the-blank lead sheet. This is going to be our template that we use to transcribe the melody of I Got Rhythm. Lead sheet two gives us the answer guide, if you will, to lead sheet one. So after we've transcribed the melody, we can kind of test and check our work with lead sheet two. Lead sheet three, I've notated the fingerings with the melody that I would recommend utilizing when playing I Got Rhythm. Lead sheet four identifies the phrases found within I Got Rhythm, the musical phrases. Lead sheet five dives a little beneath the surface here with those phrases and identifies those target notes. Okay. And then finally, lead sheet six, lead sheet seven, we bring in our voicings. Lead sheet six, uh, the the block voicings and inverted shapes to play, to use when playing the melody of I Got Rhythm. And then lead sheet seven uses our traditional and contemporary shells as our left-hand voicings when playing the melody of I Got Rhythm. So we got to get through one through seven lead sheets today. We got a ton to get to get done as always, so we need to get busy. So let's grab lead sheet one and let's take a look at how we are going to approach transcribing the melody of I Got. Thank you for listening to Jazz Piano Skills. The remaining premium content of this episode is available to Jazz Piano Skills members at Jazz Pianoskills Podcast dot com. Visit jazzpianoskills.com to learn more about membership privileges and become a Jazz Piano Skills member. Thank you.