New podcast episode now available! It's time to Discover, Learn, and Play with Dr. JB Dyas
March 14, 2023

Jazz Improvisation Exercises, Bb Altered Sounds

This Jazz Piano Skills Podcast Episode explores Jazz Improvisation Exercises for Bb Altered Sounds. Arpeggio and Scale Patterns for developing proper fingering and articulation.

Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills; it's time to discover, learn, and play Jazz Piano!

Every Jazz Piano Skills weekly podcast episode introduces aspiring jazz pianists to essential Jazz Piano Skills. Each Podcast episode explores a specific Jazz Piano Skill in depth. Today you will discover, learn, play Jazz Improvisation Exercises for 'Bb' Altered Sounds. In this Jazz Piano Lesson, you will:

Discover
Jazz Improvisation Exercises

Learn
Developmental Arpeggio and Scale Patterns for 'Bb' Altered Sounds

Play
Five Arpeggio and Scale Patterns for the  'Bb' Altered Sounds of Music (#11, b13, b9b13, Fully Altered b9#9b5#5)

Use the Jazz Piano Podcast Packets for this Jazz Piano Lesson for maximum musical growth. All three Podcast Packets are designed to help you gain insight and command of a specific Jazz Piano Skill. The Podcast Packets are invaluable educational tools to have at your fingertips while doing the Jazz Improvisation Exercises for 'Bb' Altered Sounds.

Open Podcast Packets
Illustrations
(detailed graphics of the jazz piano skill)

Lead Sheets
(beautifully notated music lead sheets)

Play Alongs
(ensemble assistance and practice tips)

Educational Support
Community Forum
SpeakPipe

Episode Outline
Introduction
Discover, Learn, Play
Invite to Join Jazz Piano Skills
Lesson Rationale
Exploration of Jazz Piano Skills
Conclusion
Closing Comments

Visit Jazz Piano Skills for more educational resources that include a sequential curriculum with comprehensive Jazz Piano Courses, private and group online Jazz Piano Classes, a private jazz piano community hosting a variety of Jazz Piano Forums, an interactive Jazz Fake Book, plus unlimited professional educational jazz piano support.

If you wish to donate to JazzPianoSkills, you can do so easily through the Jazz Piano Skills Paypal Account.

Thank you for being a Jazz Piano Skills listener. It is my pleasure to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano!

Warm Regards,
Dr. Bob Lawrence
President, The Dallas School of Music
JazzPianoSkills

AMDG

Transcript

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, I hope everyone has been enjoying playing the improvisational developmental patterns for the primary sounds of B flat. And, of course exploring the various fingering patterns that require a conscious shifting of the hand in order to establish a jazz articulation and to prepare the hand for continuous ascending and descending movement not an easy task, right? It takes a serious commitment, cloaked in determination, perseverance and patience, to develop proper hand movement in addition to nailing down the correct chord scale relationships. So if you are sticking to the program that we have been meticulously chiseling away at since the start of the new year, then I want to say congrats; the hard part is over. You might be saying we really the hard part is over. Yes, the hard part is getting started and sticking with it, which you have been doing now for three months. It's now an integral part of your practice routine, which is what needs to happen to have success with this essential jazz piano skill. And today, we take another huge step and tackled the altered dominant sounds for B flat, sharp 11, the flat 13, flat nine flat 13 and the fully altered sound flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five. And just as we have done with the altered sounds for C and F. Today we are going to discover essential improvisation exercises are going to learn developmental arpeggio and scale patterns of B flat altered sounds. And we are going to play five arpeggio and five scale patterns for the B flat dominant altered sounds of music for the dominant sharp 11, the dominant flat 13 dominant flat nine flat 13. And the dominant fully altered sound, which is the flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five. So as I always like to say regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner intermediate player and advanced player even if you're a seasoned and experienced professional, you're gonna find this jazz panel skills podcast lesson. Exploring jazz improvisation exercises for the B flat altered sounds to be very beneficial. But before we dig in, I want to take a minute as I do at the beginning of every jazz panel scales podcast episode, to welcome all new listeners. And if you are indeed listening for the very first time if you are new to jazz piano skills, I want to welcome you and I also want to invite you to become a jazz piano skills member. There are various membership plans to choose from. So check out jazz panel skills.com To learn more about all the perks of each membership plan. There are incredible educational resources and services and materials to take advantage of educational weekly podcast packets, a sequential jazz piano curriculum loaded with comprehensive courses and online weekly masterclass. online interactive Fakebook private jazz panel skills community hosted a variety of engaging forums, plus unlimited private, personal and professional educational support. All of these resources are waiting to help you discover learn and play jazz piano. So take a minute check it all out at jazz piano skills.com and become a member. All right, let's get to our question of the week. And like last week's question that dealt with the seventh mode of the harmonic minor for the diminished sound. This week's question has been asked multiple times as well by many jazz panel skills members, the question is this. I find the altered dominant scale difficult. Right? We all do I find the altered dominant scale difficult. What is the best way to determine the scale for all 12 dominant chords? When I tried to spell the scale, I get confused and unable to with any degree of confidence, determine the correct notes that I should play. What is the best way to learn this scale on paper? And on the piano? Wow. Such a great question. And the very first thing I want to say is you are not alone. This scale gives everyone fits when first trying to learn, right, and it gives us fits conceptually and physically just like you're experiencing. So if you're getting confused, first, first and foremost, if you're getting confused with the academic vernacular that surrounds this scale, I want to encourage you to let all the fancy shmancy labels go, especially the mode name, the mode name of super locrian, which is commonly commonly used to refer to this scale, or the sound. And in fact, first time, I heard the word super locrian, I was quite intimidated. And I thought, What the heck, super locrian is some kind of like new and improved Locrian mode, which by the way, I wasn't too comfortable with the locrian mode to begin with. And now you put super in front of it. And now I'm kind of freaking out, it just added to my anxiety. So with that being said, I want to give you a quick and easy way to figure out the fully altered scale. Without getting into all of the academic hurdles that we would jump to jump over in order to to explain it. Okay, so the first thing to know is that when jazz musicians speak of the altered dominant sound, they refer to a scale that includes four alterations for a flat nine, sharp nine, a flat five, and a sharp five, for alterations in total. Now, this means there are only three additional notes needed to complete the scale, right? Because there are seven notes in a scale. And we have already established that four of the notes are altered flat nine, sharp nine, flat five and sharp five. So what are the other three notes, they are the root, the third, and the seventh. And if you stop to think about that for a second, that makes sense, right, the root, the third and the seventh pretty important notes that go along with the four alterations. So now check this out. The flat nine in the sharp nine will appear between the root and the third. The flat five and the sharp five, appear between the third and the seventh. I want to say this again, right, the flat nine and the sharp nine appear between the root and the third, the flat five and the sharp five, appear between the third and the seventh. So if you're at your keyboard, or if you can envision your keyboard right, I want you to hold down the root, the third and the seventh. So let's do this for C dominant seven. So we're gonna go to root, third, and the seventh. So I have a C, E, and a B flat in my hand. Now, with your eyes, I want you to locate the ninth, which is the note D and you're gonna do this with your eyes, right. Locate the note D. And now with your eyes. I want you to flat the D which is the ninth. I want you to flat that D to D flat. We have the flat nine and now sharp that nine D sharp just visualize it just right as you hold down The root the third and the seventh. Now let's use the same approach to locate our altered fifths with our eyes, locate the fifth, which is G. And now with your eyes, find the flat fifth, which is G flat, and the sharp five, which is G sharp.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  10:22  
And now that you see the scale, write it down on paper, C, D flat. Let's do this way C, D flat, C sharp, E, G flat, G sharp, B flat. Now that you have it correctly written down on paper, begin practicing the shape and hearing the sound. Right. You now see, you now feel and you now hear the see fully altered scale. How cool is that? No fancy shmancy names, no intimidating modes, no academic jargon to confuse you. Just the scale, just the sound and just the shape. Now that you've done it for C dominant, use the very same approach to locate document and play the remaining 11 altered dominant chords or scales. Right? Pretty simple. I hope this helps. And as always, as always, if further clarification is needed, please let me know. Okay, let's discover learn and play jazz pan Let's get after these jazz improvisation exercises. For the altered B flat dominant sounds. As I have mentioned previously, students struggles with improvisation, more often than not originate from poor fingerings not a lack of skill, not a lack of theory familiarity. But just simply due to immobile hands, resulting from poor fingerings. So, you know, I think it was last month I I presented you with a few questions. I wanted to I want to present them again today. You know, number one, what constitutes good fingering? Number two? What should we look for when establishing a fingering for certain musical phrase? Number three, what? What should we be trying to accomplish with our fingerings? Number four, is there always a fingering option that will reign supreme over all other options. And number five, are the golden rules of fingering truly golden and should never be violated, such as using our thumb on a black note to begin a musical line? Well, when pondering these questions, we often end up with a fingering dilemma, a fingering dilemma that often leaves us musically paralyzed. The whole point of our journey this year that we started back in January, the whole point of our journey is to establish definitive answers for these types of questions. But to circumvent any type of fingering dilemma, okay, in other words, we need to establish a simplistic approach to fingering right? And in doing so, established, established mobility for our right hand. That's what we're focusing on primarily, right, our right hand. I think this sounds good, right? Because deep down, you know it. And I know it, that if you can get your right hand to easily move around on the keyboard, you'll be able to play the tunes you love and embellish them. With melodic improvisation you'll be able to play jazz. And again, this is the entire point the entire objective of this entire year to simplify our fingering approach, to establish a fingering conviction, if you will, that will allow you to begin successfully practicing and establishing fingerings for all 60 chords using typical jazz patterns, right and in doing so, and doing so solidify, really, it's a fingering muscle memory that ultimately frees us up when playing so that we can actually think about musical expression, musical emotion, musical articulation, and musical creativity. So, to begin this fingering liberation, I want to begin, I want to begin paying very close attention, I want you to begin paying very close attention to playing all musical patterns using an intentional hand shift. Right. So regardless of the altar sounds, the sharp love and the flat 13, flat nine, flat 13, the fully altered flat nine, sharp nine, flat five sharp five sound, right, and all the modifications needing to be applied to the patterns to reflect these alterations, intentional hand shifts will be utilized. Right now, it's interesting, because you'll look at these patterns that we are about to explore. And you might look at these patterns and look at some of these fingerings with the intentional hand shifts built in, and you'll think, Man, this kind of crazy fingering, I think it would be better to finger it another way. But you have to keep in mind these fingerings these patterns are not standalone, complete musical ideas. In other words, they're coming from somewhere and they're going somewhere. And so her fingerings should be so that it allows us to continue forward with our musical thought be on the pattern that we're playing, right. So what we're really doing is not so much about learning the pattern. It's about actually focusing on our hand mobility, the hand shifts, it's not about the pattern. Sometimes if we get focused on the pattern, we don't want the pattern leading our fingering right now. Right, we were using, we're actually using the pattern to develop our fingering, if that makes sense. I hope so. Right. In other words, fingering is our primary focus, not the pattern. Okay. All right. So, with all that being said, let's get down to business. The educational agenda for today is as follows number one, we're going to explore jazz improvisation exercises for B flat altered sounds. Number two, we will play essential B flat altered arpeggio patterns that you need to discover learn and play from the root to the 13th of the sound.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  18:16  
And we will be using a root third, fifth and seventh entry. Number three, we will be playing essential B flat altered scale patterns that you need to discover learn and play again from the root to the 13th of the sound using a root third, fifth and seventh entry. Number four, I will be playing all jazz improvisation exercises exercises today, using check it out the B flat seven fully altered sound. So yes, we're going to attack that fully altered sound. And number five, I will be playing all jazz improvisation exercises using a traditional swing groove of 110 which by the ways is a very fast tempo. But for the sake of time, we're going to move things along at 110. I would encourage you big time to use slower tempos when working through this fully altered B flat sound. No doubt about it. So if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take a few minutes right now hit the pause button I want you to download and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets and the plane logs again. As a member. Your membership grants you access to all educational podcast packets for every weekly podcast episode. So as I mentioned every week you should be using these podcast episodes when listening to this lesson. And of course you should be using them when practicing as well. So if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast directories and there are Any, like Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora and so on, then be sure to go directly to jazz piano skills podcast.com Jazz panel skills podcast.com to Lot to download your podcast packets and you'll find the active download links for your illustrations, your lead sheets and your play alongs you will find those active download links in the show notes. And one final but very significant message that I make a point to bring up every week. If you think that the jazz improvisation exercises for the B flat altered sounds, and the various scales that we are about to discover, learn and play are over your head. Right? Then I would say to you relax, sit back. No worries, no need to panic. Just continue to listen and continue to grow your jazz piano skills intellectually by listening, that's it. Just listen. And keep in mind every skill, right? Every skill is technically over our heads when introduced. But this is how we get better. Right? We place ourselves in the middle of conversations that we have absolutely no idea what is being discussed. Right, we're hearing terms that we've never heard before. And this is how we grow. Alright, I say it all the time that musical growth begins upstairs mentally conceptually before it can come out downstairs physically in our hands. So the very first step, sit back, listen to this podcast. Listen now to discover and learn. The play as always does will come in time. I guarantee it. Okay, now that you have your lead sheets in your hands, I want to point out a few things you will see that lead sheets one through four, deal with arpeggio motion, while lead sheets five through eight deal with scale motion. Okay, you will also notice that the jazz improvisation exercises are the same for all for altered. B flat dominant sounds for the sharp 11 for the flat 13, flat nine flat 13 in the fully altered flat nine sharp five, flat five sharp, flat nine sharp nine flat five sharp five sound Wow, that is a mouthful. The exercise is of course, right? The exercises are modified to reflect those sounds, the proper sound. You'll also notice that my fingerings suggested fingerings are included for every note of every exercise for every sound. Now, of course, you can modify the fingerings slightly. But as I remind you every week, be careful, right? Remember the fingerings are what allow you to play with proper jazz articulation. So you may be inclined to change the fingerings because you think it feels more comfortable or that it's easier. And you're easier may actually end up making it harder. But keep in mind with any modification that you make. The whole point here is that we are working on the mobility, the hand, the hand shifting, so your finger fingerings have to include in the pattern somewhere in the pattern, if not twice, at least once a hand shift, right? We have to have at least one hand shift happening in each pattern. So just be careful if you make any modifications. Okay, I want you to grab we don't have time to play through all the altered sounds today. Am I as I mentioned earlier, I'm going to be focusing on the fully altered sound, the flat nine sharp five, flat five, sharp five, they see that right again, I can't remember which ones are flat nine sharp nine, flat five sharp five. Wow. Okay, so grab lead sheet for grab a lead sheet, eight lead sheet for deals with arpeggio movement through the fully altered sound. lead sheet eight deals with scale motion scale movement through the fully altered sound. Okay, we're going to model everything today. Using lead sheet four and lead sheet eight with a fully altered sound. Of course, your job is to apply the same approach to the remaining lead sheets that are dealing with the sharp 11, the flat 13 and the flat nine flat 13 Sound flat nine flat 13. Right again, arpeggio motion and scale motion for for each sound, okay? And the fingerings notated for each pattern for each sound as well. Okay, so we have lead sheet four, and we have lead sheet eight, pulled out of our lead sheet packet. So we're going to start with lead sheet for dealing with the altered arpeggio patterns, fully altered arpeggio patterns. Okay, so the very first thing I want to say before we jump in to playing these arpeggio patterns for the fully alter sound in the scale patterns for the fully altered sound, I want to stress that we're dealing with the fully altered sound, I mean, we have for alterations within this sound, the flat nine, sharp nine, flat five, sharp five, now alterations, alterations create tension, that's what alterations do, they create tension. And here we are today going to isolate this tension, we're going to take this B flat, dominant sound, and we're going to isolate this fully altered dominant sound with the flat nine, sharp nine, flat five, sharp five. In other words, we're going to isolate the tension. So what what I'm getting at is that your ears are going to hear things because this tension is not going to be resolved. It's going to be a lot of tension in these exercises. So you're gonna, you're gonna hear this and your first reaction to the ears are gonna like, oh, my gosh, sounds terrible. Well, yeah, maybe. I mean, I, I've played these so often, and so much, that the the altar sounds actually sound normal to me now. And hopefully, that will happen for you, as well as you work on these patterns. These alter nines, and these altered fives will actually start to sound pleasant to the ear. But I just mentioned that now that upon first hearing, if your ears are telling you, wow, this is awful, just keep in mind that we are isolating tension and practicing tension. Okay, so All right. So with that being said, looking at lead sheet for skill for you'll see again, we have letter A, B, C, D, and E, five different patterns that we're going to use to work on hand mobility, fingerings, right. So it's not so much the pattern that so that's important. It's the fingering in the mobility of our hand, that is the focal focal point. Okay. So you'll see letter A,

Dr. Bob Lawrence  28:03  
we have simple arpeggio from the root to the seventh, then from the third to ninth, fifth to the 11th, seventh to the 13th. Now with the fully altered sound, it's going to be some modifications need to be made here, right. So our letter A, if you take a look at that, that B flat dominant arpeggio, we have a fifth in the arpeggio, so we're gonna have to alter, I decided to go with a sharp five. Okay, so you're gonna hear A, B flat, D, F sharp, C, tension a flat. So that arpeggio is modified to reflect an altered five. So you'll see that there's an altered nine. In the second arpeggio, we have an altered five and nine in the third arpeggio with the with the fifth entry, and then we have an altered nine and an altered five and the fourth arpeggio so I'm going to play each arpeggio four times before moving on to the next arpeggio. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble and let's listen to letter a simple arpeggio with a Root Entry, third entry, an altered fifth entry, and a seventh entry. Okay, so let's check it out. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  30:53  
Pretty cool, right? I told you some tension in there's some sounds that you may or may not be familiar with, right. But again, keep in mind, we're dealing with the fully altered dominant sound for alterations. You may, your ears may not, may not be familiar with the sounds at this time, but they will be I guarantee it, as we work through all this, they will start to become more and more comfy as we get a little further down the road here. So, alright, so let's take a look at letter B. Again, we are, are sticking to four patterns, route entry, third entry and altered fifth entry, and then a seventh entry. The arpeggio now is got some shape to it a little different form to it. And it's a little longer phrase, right? This this musical phrase covers three beats in the measure and we have intentional hand shift and each pattern Alright, so let's bring the ensemble in. And let's take a listen to letter B here we go check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  33:37  
Again, I'm playing these I mentioned earlier in playing all these patterns today at 110. Honestly, that's a fast tempo, I would prefer to have you practicing these at a much slower tempo. So you can focus on the fingerings. And of course, you can focus on the notes of the scale of the sound that we're utilizing when playing these patterns, right? So by all means, slow it down 6570 75. I'm playing at 110. Because just because of the sake of time. All right, so let's look at letter C, letter C. Notice I mentioned earlier about, you know, the golden rules of fingering and one of the golden rules is that you should never start up a musical phrase or idea with your thumb on a black note. That's not always the case. Right? And I would recommend here in letter C you can see right away I'm starting that very first melodic this melodic motif, this melodic pattern that starts on a B flat look at my fingering that I have notated there, have you starting with the thumb, okay, and then on the altered five, I have an F sharp in there as the altered five, a sharp five and I have you starting with the thumb on the fourth pattern which starts on the seventh, which is the A flat, I have you starting with the thumb. So three out of these four patterns are starting on a black note. And I am suggesting that you utilize the thumb to work on this hand shift of one four to one four, or a 13214. All right to get used to that motion. So let's bring the ensemble in and let's check out let her see see what we think here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  37:03  
All righty, now we're on the letter D. eighth note triplets always have to be dealing with eighth note triplets. Right? It's it's a rhythmic, rhythmic motif or rhythmic pattern that you're gonna deal with in jazz. So of course, it's going to be part of our vocabulary that we utilize and helping us with our fingering, development and hand mobility. So, letter D, we have eighth note triplet on count one count to count three of each pattern, right, the one the pattern starting off of the one pattern starting off with a three pattern off the sharp five and pattern off the seven. All dealing with triplets. A lot of a lot of tension in these patterns, of course, because we're dealing with a lot of the altered sounds, the altered fives and the altered nines pay careful attention to the fingerings and here we go. Let's check this out letter D.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  39:33  
Very cool, very nice so Okay, now we're on the letter E the last pattern dealing with arpeggio motion, we're back to eighth note, eighth notes all the way through the entire pattern. But notice the length of the idea now the musical idea extends across the bar line into the second measure for account one of the second measure. So once again, we have a Root Entry a third entry a sharp Five entry and a seven entry. And once again pay attention to the fingering and the hand shifts. I note I made mentioned last week that, you know, it's a good idea maybe to take some yellow highlighter, or a red pencil or something, and mark where these hand shifts are taking place. All right, just so that you can see make them illuminate off the page for yourself, I find that to be very, very helpful. And I do that same kind of technique. When I'm doing transcriptions and I'm playing through transcriptions. I will actually mark where my hand is shifting through lines because a lot of times I'm playing transcriptions of instrumentalist, not pianist, and I have to be consciously aware of hand shifts in order to make those instrumental lines of work on the piano. So okay, so let's listen to letter E, our last exercise dealing with arpeggio motion for the fully altered B flat sound, so here we go check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  42:37  
All right, so we've just completed five exercises, all dealing with arpeggio motion and dealing with the fully altered, B flat dominant sound. So a lot of those arpeggios had flat nines and sharp nines and flat fives and sharp fives. Well, guess what the scale patterns are going to utilize the exact same proach we have five patterns for each sound. Skill eight is what we're looking at right now, which is the fully altered sound. And once again, we're going to utilize the same format, where we're entering a Root Entry, a third entry, and altered fifth entry and a seventh entry to play these scale patterns. Okay, so let's, let's look at letter A. Let's listen to letter A. And one thing that I will point out is that a lot of these exercises dealing with scale motion, you may see in the fingering notation where I have you actually ending the musical thought the musical line with your thumb. Right as I mentioned earlier, these ideas are not intended to be a complete idea. In other words, I want you to think of these ideas as coming from somewhere. And these ideas going somewhere as an improvised solo. So when I have the hand shifting to the one on the last note of these patterns, is because it's preparing the hand for continued movement for continued movement, okay? So do not let that shock you. That's not a typo. I have it where we end on one. Alright, so let's bring the ensemble in. Let's check out letter A. Here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  46:03  
Nice write, again letter A will help you really get a handle on the seven notes of the altered scale for B flat. So if I had to pick one exercise, one exercise, out of all the exercises today, letter A of my scale movement here on skill eight, lead sheet eight letter A, would be my number one go to, I'd practice that, maybe quite possibly, I'd practice that before I even would do the arpeggios. Because I really want to get a handle on the scale. Because the more familiar I am with the scale, and being able to see the scale from various entry points, the easier it will be for me to play my arpeggio patterns, and the easier it will be for me to play Of course, my scale patterns. Okay, so let's move on to letter B. The scale now has a little more shape to it, we're not just going straight up, you can see there's a movement taking place ascending, descending, ascending with these lines. So let's bring the ensemble in and let's take a listen to letter B here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  48:47  
All right, well, we dealt with eighth note triplets with the arpeggio patterns, right, we're going to deal with eighth note triplets here with scale movement as well. So take a look at letter C, we have an eighth note, triplet on counts 123 and four through the entire measure, and then crossing the bar line to count one of measure two. And again, you may see where I'm having you end some of these ideas with the thumb. Again, just prepping the hand for continuing motion. All right. So let's bring the ensemble in and let's check out these eighth note triplets. And here's a perfect example of what I'm just talking about. The better you know the scale the easier it will be to play patterns such as letter C, you have to know the scale. So here we go. Check out Letter C

Dr. Bob Lawrence  51:13  
Never easy, right? The eighth note triplet never easy and it's certainly not easy when you start applying it to a fully altered scale. Wow. All right, so onward to letter D, we're back to eighth notes. Again extended extended musical idea that goes all the way through measure one crosses the bar line into measure two. And once again, pay attention to the fingerings I may have you ending some of these musical phrases with your thumb All right. So again, 110 is the tempo again, I would play these patterns at a slower tempo as you get familiar with the scale and as you get familiar with the movement of the lines, so here we go letter D check it out.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  53:37  
All right, we are down to our final pattern for the day scale pattern, dealing with the altered fully altered sound for B flat. And again, straight eighth note movement. You know, I mentioned this last week too, we did up I used a groove with a straight eighth straight eighth feel as opposed to a straight swing eighth feel. I you know, even though I'm doing everything today with a swing eighth field, I would encourage you if you're using some backing tracks at home or you have some kind of application that creates a backing track for you. Feel free to use a straight eighth groove as you learn these exercises and these work through the fingerings then you can switch it over to a traditional jazz swing groove language like I'm using here today. So letter E is our last pattern straight. Eighth notes again that move through the entire measure crosses over the bar line and the measure one into the second measure counts one and two. Again, some tricky fingerings that pay attention to and again, I may be ending some of these lines with the thumb student so do not be surprised again ending with the thumb because I'm treating these lines as a fragment of a longer line is as a improvise solo. Okay, so let's bring the ensemble in let's check out our last pattern for today letter E here we go.

Dr. Bob Lawrence  56:42  
As always, is always just like running a marathon man every every one of these podcast episodes so much to try to get in within one very fast hour. So, even though I play these exercises days using the dominant fully altered sound only. That was only for the sake of time, I want you to practice these exercises for the dominant sharp 11 dominant flat 13 and the dominant flat nine flat 13 sound as well. And again, these altered sounds are coming from our harmonic and melodic minor scales. Just throwing that out there because I want you to know, we're just not grabbing these alterations out of thin air they are coming from our harmonic and melodic minor scales, these patterns, the fingerings, they're all laid out for you in your lead sheets, podcast packets, so be sure to utilize them. Now remember, you can modify the fingerings slightly to suit your hand best but just be sure that whatever fingerings you choose, right, be sure that it includes a hand shift, right? When you want an hand shift, and you want fingerings that allow you to play with a proper jazz articulation through the entire sound right? Not just not just launching from the root but also being able to play with the same type of articulation launching from the third, launching from the fifth and launching from the seventh, right? Remember that each musical phrases articulation regardless of that entry point should sound the same. Now, without doubt you have a ton to tackle this week, a ton to practice. So use your time wisely next week. Next week we explore another tune in probably be a bebop tune because no there's no genre better than Bebop. Right for examining our fingerings right bebop heads are challenging. So let's let's probably what we will be dealing with again next week is some be some tune out of the Bebop library. Okay. I want to encourage all jazz piano skills members out there. Again, use your podcast packets, your illustrations, your lead sheets and your play alongs to guide you as you study in practice, right. These are educational tools that will help you gain a mastery of the jazz piano skills conceptually physically and of course musically. And always, always, always be patient. Developing mature professional jazz piano skills takes time. So begin structuring your improvisation development after the plane demonstrations that I modeled for you today. In this podcast episode and I guarantee it you'll begin to see feel and hear your musical progress. Well, I hope you have found this jazz piano skills podcast lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercise This could B flat altered fully altered sounds. I hope you found it to be insightful and beneficial. And don't forget if you are a jazz panel skills ensemble member I'll see you online Thursday evening at the jazz piano skills master class that's 8 pm Central time to discuss this podcast episode lesson exploring jazz improvisation exercises for B flat altered sounds in greater detail and of course, to answer any questions that you may have about the study of jazz in general. You can reach me if you have any questions of course, you can reach me by phone 972-380-8050 My extension here at the Dallas School of Music is 211 You can reach me by email that's Dr. Lawrence, drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com. Or you can use the nifty little SpeakPipe widget that is found throughout the entire jazz piano skills website. Well, there is my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the jazz improvisation exercises for the B flat alternates. And most of all, have fun as you discover, learn and play jazz piano