I've Got the World on a String, Improvisation

Improvisation as Organized Musical Thought

The Seven Musical Facts

Prepared Creativity & Rhythmic Intention

Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills Membership

Weekly Blog & Educational Resources

Question of the Week: Why Improvisation Sounds Random

Harmony, Melody & Rhythm Organizing Music

Rhythm as the Missing Ingredient

Prepared Creativity Explained

The Monthly Tune Study Process

Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Week three of the month is here. I know it's hard to believe, but here we are once again, week three of the month. And as we all know, week three of every month is when we dedicate ourselves to developing our jazz improvisation skills. Week one always begins with a harmonic analysis of the tune, followed in week two with a melodic analysis, and now here in week three, we focus on improvisation development. Our harmonic analysis of I Got the World on a String explored, of course, the form, the changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, and of course voicings. Our melodic analysis focused on melody, fingerings, phrases, target notes, and of course melodic treatments. And today, our improvisational skills will be developed through melodic movement within harmonic shapes, using various upbeat and downbeat combinations to create essential rhythmic vocabulary. So important. Wow. No doubt about it, right? Our structured and sequential approach to studying tunes is thorough, it's practical, and incredibly beneficial for developing essential jazz piano skills. And that's why we are all here to do just that. So let's take a few minutes to talk about improvisation. One of the greatest misconceptions in jazz education is the belief that improvisation is spontaneous creation. I've brought this up before uh in previous podcast episodes. That many folks believe that improvisation is spontaneous creation. That great jazz musicians just simply sit down and magically create ideas out of thin air. And honestly, I mean that sounds fantastic, but honestly, nothing could be further from the truth. Because real improvisation is not randomness, it's not guessing, it's not accidental. Real improvisation is organized musical thought expressed in real time. Let that sink in for a second. In fact, let me say that again. Real improvisation is organized musical thought expressed in real time. And this is exactly why our monthly jazz piano skills approach is structured the way that it is. Week one, harmonic analysis, week two, melodic analysis, and now week three improvisation development. Because improvisation is the merging of harmonic understanding and melodic motion. In other words, improvisation is your ability to move melodically through harmonic shapes. It's your ability to move melodically through harmonic shapes with rhythmic intention. And we're going to be focusing on that today. Which means if your harmony is unclear, your um your improvisation will be unclear. And if your understanding of melody is weak, well then your improvisation will feel weak and disconnected. And if rhythm is ignored, which it often is, nothing sounds musical. This is why improvisation should never be approached as the memorization of licks. Because licks, without understanding, guess what? Eventually collapse. But when you do understand, when you understand harmonic function, melodic shape, directional motion, target notes, and rhythmic placement, your improvisation becomes logical. It becomes organized. Guess what? It becomes musical. And this brings us right back to our seven musical facts. Fact number one, music is the production of sound and silence. Fact number two, sound is harmonic and melodic. Fact number three, when sound is produced harmonically, we're playing chords, voicings. Fact number four, when sound is produced melodically, we're playing scales and arpeggios. Fact number five, scales and arpeggios can only move one or two directions, up or down. Fact number six, we decorate or camouflage those scales and arpeggios with tension or chromaticism notes outside of the harmony. And then fact number seven, to make all of these previous facts one through six interesting, we add rhythm, which gives everything life. Improvisation is simply those musical truths happening in real time. Which is why the goal this week is not to play more notes. The goal is to become more aware of how music actually works, how music actually moves. So this week we are going to explore how to develop improvisational vocabulary using harmonic shapes, melodic motion, directional movement, target note awareness, and of course rhythmic control. In other words, we're going to stop guessing and start organizing. Because great improvisation, as I mentioned earlier, is never accidental. It is prepared creativity, supported by clear musical understanding. So today we tackle improvisation development. Today we are going to discover how to move through I've got the world on a string improvisationally using harmonic shapes, melodic motion, and, as I mentioned, rhythmic control. We are going to learn why prepared creativity improvisation is your ability to move melodically through harmonic shapes with rhythmic intention. And we are going to play 26. Yes, I said that. So, as I always like to say, regardless of where you are on your jazz journey, whether you're a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you consider yourself a seasoned and experienced professional, you will find this Jazz Piano Skills Podcast lesson exploring I've got the world on a string, improvisation development, to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to, as I always do, I want to welcome all of you first-time listeners to the Jazz Pianal Skills Podcast. If you are indeed new to Jazz Piano Skills, new to the Jazz Pianal Skills Podcast, welcome. I am very glad you are here. And I want to encourage you to explore becoming a Jazz Pian Skills member because everything we discuss here, the clarity, the structure, the organization, is fully supported inside the Jazz Pianal Skills membership. As a member, you'll have access to the complete weekly podcast episodes, including all the demonstrations and lesson content. You'll have access to the downloadable educational podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, and the play-alongs. You'll have access to a sequential library of courses designed to be practical, organized, and sound based. And you'll also have access or a reserved seat in what I like to say, my weekly masterclass that I hold every Thursday evening. If you can't make the masterclass on Thursday evenings, there are complete video archives that you can enjoy at your convenience. And as a jazz piano skills member, you have access to a private jazz pianel skills community for discussion, questions, and support. And finally, as a jazz piano skills member, you have direct access to me whenever you need guidance. Pretty cool. So check it all out at jazzpianoskills.com. And if you have any questions at all, please let me know. I'm happy to spend some time with you, answer any questions that you may have. But just keep in mind that Jazz Piano Skills is designed with one goal in mind to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano in a clear, structured, and meaningful way. If you are not already receiving the weekly Jazz Piano Skills blog, I encourage everyone to join the email list. Every weekend I publish a written recap of the week's lesson designed to reinforce what you're learning, help you stay organized, and keep you moving forward in your development. All right, so with that, all being said, let's move on to the question of the week. All right, this week's question comes from Mark Shecker. And Mark, I hope I'm pronouncing your last name correctly. Mark Shecker, living in Seattle. And Mark writes, Dr. Bob, when I improvise, I often feel like I'm just wondering. Like my lines sound random and disconnected. How do I make my improvisation sound more musical? Mark. Outstanding question. And honestly, this is one of the most common questions, and it's the most common frustrations that jazz musicians experience. Because improvisation can very easily feel random, especially if you do not understand what's organizing the music. And this is exactly why I constantly stress the importance of harmony organizing sound, melody organizing motion, and rhythm organizing time. Right? So improvisation, sound motion, time. So if you have a poor understanding of harmony, it's going to be very difficult to organize sound. If you have a poor understanding of melody, you're going to have a difficulty organizing motion. And if you have a poor understanding of rhythm, you're going to have difficulty organizing time. So harmony organizing sound, melody organizing motion, and rhythm organizing time. So important. Because when those three things are not clear, Mark, if those three three things are not clear in your mind, your improvisation will indeed sound random. Your improvisation will indeed feel scattered. So let's simplify this as easily as we can in this short segment. Most players improvise by trying to think note to note, processing notes. Right? They react emotionally, physically, or mechanically without really understanding where the line is going. So the line loses the line or the shape, right? Loses direction. The line loses shape. It loses rhythmic intention as well. But great improvisers, right, the really skilled improvisers are not randomly choosing notes. They are hearing motion, they are targeting harmony, they are shaping phrases rhythmically. In other words, they are organizing musical movement in real time. And this is where your practice has to change. Instead of practicing endless scales root to root, or memorizing disconnected or out of context licks, you need to begin practicing harmonic shapes with targets, melodic shapes with direction, rhythmic shapes with placement, and all that organized into musical phrases. You need to practice that intentionally. Because improvisation, again, improvisation is not the creation of random ideas. It is the organization of musical ideas, right? Not the creation of random ideas, it is the organization of musical ideas. Musical ideas that are discovered, musical ideas that are learned, musical ideas that are played over and over and over, again and again and again. Okay, and I want to talk about rhythm. Rhythm is usually the missing ingredients. Most players spend far too much time worrying about note choices and not nearly enough time organizing rhythm, which we're going to do today. But rhythm is what makes lines sound musical. Rhythm gives motion shape, and rhythm gives phrases life. Rhythm actually creates musical momentum, which is exactly why today's lesson focuses going to focus heavily on controlling upbeats and downbeats. Because that's how I really want you to think about rhythm. Rhythm is a combination of upbeats and downbeats. Because your ability to organize rhythm determines whether your improvisation sounds conversational or miscombobulated or chaotic. So, Mark, here's what I want you to begin doing immediately when practicing. Just stop trying to play more and instead focus on organizing what you already know. Right? Target chord tones. Um move directionally using arpeggio and scale motion. Control rhythmic placement. Keep your phrases simple because clarity always sounds musical. In fact, we're gonna in fact, Mark, we're gonna do all this today. Exactly this. We're gonna target chord tones, we're gonna be very intentional with our directional movement, with our arpeggio and scale movement. We're gonna control rhythmic placement, and we're gonna keep our phrases very compact, very simple. Uh, we're going to actually practice clarity, which again always sounds musical. And remember, improvisation, as I have stressed already in just this episode alone several times, that improvisation is not randomness. It is prepared creativity. And I love that expression. It is prepared creativity, supported by harmonic understanding, melodic organization, and rhythmic control. So, Mark, I I know we only have a short period of time here to deal with your question. I hope that my answer is helpful. Uh, you know, listen to the rest of the podcast episode. If you are a member and you have access to uh the the lesson content and demonstrations and and podcast materials, uh, then I think you're gonna find uh your question to be answered answered pretty rather thoroughly. Okay, so um, but but if you have if if you have uh more questions or uh further clarification is needed, by all means feel free to reach out to me. Happy to uh spend more time with you and explore your question in greater in greater detail. So all right, so before we begin today's lesson, I just I want to quickly review the rationale behind the Jazz Panel Scales monthly tune study approach. When studying, when learning any tune, I approach it, we approach it here at Jazz Panel Scales the same way. And again, as I have stressed, uh genre makes no difference. It doesn't matter whether jazz, rock, pop, country, folk, RB, the process is the process. It is the same. First, what do we do? We listen. Various artist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and of course pianist, professionalist, uh professionalist, professionals, amateurs, uh, and this is why we have a killer listening list that is uh put together for us every single week. Lisa does phenomenal with this, every single week that coincides with our studies. So, number one, we listen. Uh because listening is where musical awareness begins. It begins with listening. Then we turn our attention to harmony. We do a harmonic analysis, we look at form, changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, and of course voicings. Why? Because harmony organizes sound. That's what harmony does. So important. It harm it harmony organizes sound. Next, we do we do a melodic analysis. We transcribe the melody to the best of our ability. We look at the phrases within the melody, target notes within those phrases, uh, entry points, destination points, and then of course we explore that melody using a variety of treatments. Typically the the three standard jazz treatments ballad, basa, swing. Because melody, what? Melody organizes motion. So harmony organizes sound, melody organizes motion. And then we turn our attention to improvisation development, like we are going to do today. We often are looking at things like chord scale relationships or arpeggio scale movement, melodic motifs, melodic pathways, rhythmic placement, phrase organization. You know why? Because rhythm organizes time. Pretty thorough. It's a pretty complete approach. So this month we've already completed a harmonic analysis of I've got the world on a string. We've already completed a melodic analysis of I've got the world on a string. And now it's time for us to begin developing improvisation vocabulary for I've got the world on a string. So, with that being said, the educational agenda for today is as follows. First, we are going to listen to several definitive recordings of I've Got the World on a String. Second, we are going to explore one of my practice routines for developing prepared creativity, or often referred to as improvisation. And finally, number three, we are going to apply this routine to the very first chord of the tune, F major seven. And of course, your job will be to apply the exact same process to the remaining chords of this great standard. Now, if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take just a few minutes right now, hit the pause button. I want you to download and print your podcast packets the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs. Again, your membership. Grants you access to all of this educational material that is developed for every weekly podcast episode. And I mention it every week, right? You should absolutely have this material in front of you in your hands when listening to the podcast episode, when listening to the lesson to maximize your benefit. And of course, you should have this material sitting on your piano or on your music stand when practicing throughout the week. Okay, 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 uh illustrations and the uh play alongs uh toward the end of the podcast episode today. But I want you to grab your lead sheets, and today you should have, you ready? You should have one lead sheet. Yes, just one. But as you all know, great things come in small packages, and that is certainly the case today. So you see in lead sheet one, I have 26 melodic motifs that we are going to go through today. Um, but before we do that, I want to just say to all of you listening to the free portion of this podcast that this actually concludes today's episode. And all as always, I want you to have fun as you continue to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. And I hope again that you will consider becoming a jazz piano skills member so that you can join us for the remainder of every podcast episode as well as join us in our master class each week as well. Okay, so let's grab that lead sheet one. Let's dig in. 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.com. Visit jazzpianoskills.com to learn more about membership privileges and become a jazz piano skills member. Thank you.