Lady Be Good, Improvisation

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.641)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play Jazz Piano. Here we are again, week three of the month. They fly by, And of course, week three of every month is the week we dedicate ourselves to improving our improvisation skills. Week one always begins with a harmonic analysis of a tune, followed up in week two with a melodic analysis, and of course, week three this week,

we work on developing our improvisation scales. Always fun. Our harmonic analysis of Lady B good, as we do with every tune, explored the form, changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, and of course, voicings. Block voicings, traditional shell voicings, contemporary shell voicings, and of course, two-handed structures. Our melodic analysis, as always with every tune, looks at

melody, the fingerings, phrases, target notes within the phrases, and various melodic treatments. And today our improvisation skills will challenge our ability to actually see and play inverted arpeggios. Yep, inverted arpeggios. More about that in a little bit. So our three-week study of every tune

that we dive into is a pretty thorough process. And of course, the study and practicing of all these essential jazz piano skills, harmony, melody, rhythm, improvisation, all of scales must be governed by a really crystal clear thought process that simplifies music for us conceptually so that we have a legitimate chance of developing physical skills.

You've heard me say it a million times, our conceptual development determines how and what we practice. So it's really important that we have a correct conceptual understanding of music. And we achieve this correct understanding, this crystal clear thought process by making sure all that we do musically, conceptually and physically, all that we do, we frame it

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:58.667)
within our seven facts of music. Our seven facts, of course, number one, music is the production of sound. Major, dominant, minor, half, diminished, and diminished. Two, sound is produced harmonically and melodically. We have harmonic shapes, we have melodic shapes. Fact number three, the shapes of harmony are called chords, or voicings. Fact number four, the shapes of melody are arpeggios and scales.

Fact number five, when playing scales and arpeggios, we are moving in one of two directions, up or down. And fact number six, we spend a lifetime camouflaging scales and arpeggios with tension or chromaticism. And then finally number seven, fact number seven, to make musical facts one through six interesting, we add rhythm. That's it. We need.

to make sure that we understand these seven facts. And we see that everything that we do musically, when practicing, we know exactly where that falls within the seven facts of music. And this is precisely why we approach our tune study centering around these seven facts, right using three distinct tune learning phases, a harmonic analysis, a melodic analysis,

and improvisation development. I'm actually thinking about changing that to rhythmic development with an emphasis or focus on improvisation. So we have harmony, melody, rhythm. I mean, really, that's what it comes down to. That's it. And we have to have a command of the skills, our harmonic skills, our melodic skills and our rhythm skills. That's it. Step one, two and three doesn't get much easier than that. So today,

We of course tackle improvisation development. So today we continue to discover Lady Be Good improvisationally. And we're going to learn how to compose a melodic line using inverted arpeggios. And we're going to play four inverted arpeggio etudes to expand our improvisation vocabulary. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:23.38)
an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this Jazz Piano Skills podcast lesson, Exploring Lady Be Good, an improvisation exploration 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 Jazz Piano Skills. And if you are

new listener to the Jazz Panel Skills podcast. If you're new to Jazz Panel Skills, welcome. I want to invite you to become a Jazz Panel Skills member. Your membership does a couple things. Number one, it helps keep Jazz Panel Skills podcast 100 % ad free. So in other words, 100 % education, 0 % advertisement. Fantastic. Number two, your membership

comes with a lot of educational perks. Number one, you have premium podcast content as a member. And what that basically means is that you get to listen to the entire episode. 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. The second half for members only deals with the lesson content, demonstrations,

and exploration of the podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs. Now, the podcast packets are educational materials that I designed and developed for every weekly podcast episode to help you maximize your musical growth from the topic from the subject that we're studying in the episode. Right. So these educational materials, the illustrations and lead sheets and play alongs are available for

all members past for past episodes, current episodes, and of course, all future episodes as well. As a member, you also have access to the online courses, which are comprehensive, interactive, self paced and sequential courses. You also have a reserved seat in my weekly masterclass that is held every Thursday evening at 8pm Central time, which of course I know is not the greatest time for everyone around the world.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:46.144)
However, all the master classes are recorded so you can watch and rewatch the video of the classes as often as you wish and whenever convenient for you. And also as a Jazz Panel Skills member, you have access to the online private Jazz Panel Skills community, which hosts a variety of educational forums, episode specific forums, as well as just general jazz forums. It's a great place to meet folks. It's a great place to

ask questions, receive member feedback and assistance, and also great place for you to offer your talents and give some member feedback and assistance as well. And then finally, as an educational, a Jazz Piano Skills member, you have educational support, private, personal and professional support. So all of these amazing privileges, these perks, as I like to call them are

waiting to help you discover, learn, play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazzpanelskills.com and become a member. And of course, if get to the site and you have some questions after you poke around a little bit, by all means, please reach out to me. I'm happy to spend some time with you and answer any questions that you may have. I also want to invite you to take a few minutes, encourage you to subscribe to the new Jazz Piano Skills YouTube channel.

You know, currently have several playlists to check out that will help you with your jazz journey. There are of course the daily challenges, the harmony, melody and rhythm challenges that go out. There are jazz talks that are now being published on a weekly basis. And of course all the podcast episodes and guest episodes are published at YouTube as well. You know, I'm starting, like I said, 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 video is published. Needless to say, I'm pretty pumped up about YouTube. It's teaching an old dog new tricks, getting involved with that platform, but I'm enjoying it and hope that you find the educational content there to be beneficial as well. All right, so on to the question of the week. This week's question comes from Michelle Wijaya.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (10:08.32)
Michelle lives right here in the Dallas, Texas area, and she is a professional pianist and educator. She actually holds a master's degree from SMU, Southern Methodist University, and teaches piano here in the Dallas area and studies jazz piano with me. And here's your question. It's great. Check this out. Her question, how do you practice jazz? That's it.

How do you practice jazz? You know, what a great question. Simple, profound, and of course, straight to the point. Which, you know, the best questions are typically exactly that. Simple, profound, straight to the point. So Michelle was in for her lesson on Monday. And I always start every lesson with every student the same way.

I ask the question. It's a trick question, actually. The question I always ask every student is, well, hey, how are the keys treating you this week? Any questions? Any revelations? Let's start with questions. And see, it's a trick question because if you're studying and practicing, there's no doubt you have questions. There's no way

if you're studying and practicing that you do not have questions. It's simply impossible. So when I asked the question, Hey, let's start with your questions. If the response is well, you know, I don't really have any questions. They might as well have just said, well, you know what, I never I didn't touch the keys at all this week or study at all this week. So therefore I have no questions. That's fair enough. Right? So

I'm always curious what questions the student has regarding their experience that week when practicing. And of course, you know what, if you're studying and practicing as well, you're going to have revelations. going to be there. There are going to be light bulb moments where you go, Aha, I think I get this. So anyway, I, Michelle came in for her lesson and I said, Hey, Michelle,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:34.976)
How's it going? It's fantastic. I said, Wonderful. How are the keys treating you? She said, Good. I said, Wonderful. I said, What questions? What questions? What revelations? Have you had this week? She said, Yes, I have a question. I said, Wonderful. What's your question? She said, How do you practice jazz? Was it I cracked up laughing because it was just like, wow, I wasn't expecting that.

know, straight to the point. How do you practice jazz? Kind of as if to say, look, let's no messing around. We got to get down to business. Just like get straight to the point here. How do you practice jazz? Her question, of course, is a result of information overload. And we've, we've talked about this several times in the Jazz Panel Skill and various Jazz Panel Skills episodes that

know, we live in a day and time now, unfortunately, where we are bombarded with information all over the place, especially the internet, right? And so, you know, she's, she's got all this information been told all these various things that she should be practicing and studying and, and it gets to the point really, it gets to the point where you have to ask, wait a minute, stop the madness. Can somebody just please tell me how how to practice jazz.

Well, I said to Michelle, said, you know, such a great question. I said, I'll make it simple for you.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:17.28)
practice jazz first and foremost, must always start with whatever whenever you sit down to practice, you must always start with sound. What sound are you going to practice? What sound major dominant minor half diminished diminished. In fact, this is fact one of our seven facts of music.

then I said, Michelle, you start with a sound, you isolate a sound, and then you attach a skill to that sound. So if you sit down to practice today, you should say to yourself, what sound do I want to practice? I'm going to practice the major sound. And then the very next question is, what skill do I want to practice? Do I want to practice voicings? Do I want to practice scales? Do I want to practice arpeggios?

I want to practice rhythm? Do I want to practice improvisation? You know, what skill are you going to attach to that sound? And I've mentioned this several times before in the past as well. Every single practice session should have a single practice objective. That's it. So if you sit down, you determine that the sound that you are going to address during this practice session is major, then you need to attach a skill, not skills.

a skill to that sound. So I said to her, said, so for instance, let's say you said major, you attach voicings to that sound. And now you say I'm going to practice my major voicings. So kind of interesting. Michelle then said, well, you know, that sounds wonderful. However, how do you keep yourself from getting bored? I said bored.

said, yeah, practicing major voicings. mean, for your entire practice session, how do you, how do you prevent from getting, getting bored? I said, well, Michelle, said, look, if you're bored, if you're experiencing boredom, that is a huge gigantic red flag. That's a big indicator that you are a single, you have a single, how do I say this? When it comes to that skill, you're not multi-dimensional.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (16:42.476)
you're looking at it from a single dimension. So yes, if you if you are going to sit down and practice major sound and you're going to practice major voicings and all you know is the voice a major chord in root position, root third, five and seven and that's it. That's the only dimension that you have. Then yeah, I can see that that's that could be pretty challenging to spend an entire practice session.

working, practicing your major sound and voicings. So that would be a red flag that tells you, know what, within this practice session, I need to incorporate various voicings, expand my voicing vocabulary, if you will, to prevent boredom.

So, you know, if I sit down and say, okay, now I can practice my major chords in root position and first, second, third inversion. Now I have a little bigger arsenal. What if I add traditional shell voicings, three, seven, nine, and seven, three, five voicings that I work on? now it's getting more interesting. My arsenal's just got a little bigger. What if I want to add contemporary voicings to my study, my practice? Okay.

Now my arsenal is even getting larger. What about two-handed voicings? Okay, even better. And I could go on and on, right? So the deeper the well that you establish for yourself with that particular skill, there's no way you're going to become bored. No way. So boredom would be a red flag that you need to do some studying to broaden your

perspective of that skill and start incorporating those elements into your practice with regards to that sound and that specific skill. And one other thing I would mention here as well that I told Michelle was that when you sit down to practice and you select a sound like major and then you attach a skill to it like voicings, that doesn't mean that you're going to practice those voicings.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (19:00.358)
for all 12 major chords within that practice session. You may isolate a single chord. So you may be going, I'm going to practice sound major, I'm going to practice skill voicing, I'm going to practice chord C, and that's it. So you're working on your C major voicings. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that because all your work with your voicings

within for C major will have a profound impact on the other 11. I guarantee it. All right. So the work that you're doing for major in C is not like it's enjoys autonomy and it only benefits C. So what I'm trying to say is that oftentimes what happens even when you isolate a sound and then a skill,

then there's the risk of even being too broad and trying to cover that for all 12 keys or all 12 chords, right? So keep whittling down, keep whittling down so that your practicing is very, very focused. And Michelle got it. She got it. And I was very proud of her because she was like, OK, this makes so much more sense. So yes, how do you practice jazz?

practice jazz, you have to be very vigilant in that you start with sound, attach skills to the sound, and determine what out of the 12 families or the 12 keys or the 12 chords, which ones are you going to practice focus on during that practice session. This is what I call very systematic, very formulaic

very skill centric practicing. In short, I call it grunt work. It takes great discipline to practice this way. But if you ask the question, how do you practice jazz? This is how you do it. How you don't practice jazz is take, you know, five different books that you've purchased at the at the bookstore on jazz, take it to the piano, you know, open up the page.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (21:24.166)
random page in one book, random page in another book, a random page in another book, and start practicing a kind of a hodgepodge of different ideas and concepts in jazz, hoping that somehow you're getting better. Because you're not. You're just simply not. And that's the danger we run today with all the information that we have floating around. And that was at the heart of Michelle's question when she said, do you practice jazz? Because it was overwhelming.

the amount of information. So again, this kind of validates the importance of our seven facts of music, which start with sound, and then it starts with harmonic, and then it goes from there to harmonic and melodic shapes within that sound. That's where it begins. And that is the foundation of jazz. And that should, that should be how you structure and govern your practice sessions, so that you can say you

truly know how to practice jazz? It's such a great question. And again, I'm going to be diving into this deeper with a Saturday morning sunrise lesson coming up this weekend. So it's such an important question that you know what, we all ask it. Michelle had the guts to actually voice it, but we all ask it, how in the heck do I practice this art form? Because

if I'm left just to kind of grabbing some information here and grabbing some information there, and trying to just randomly connect pieces of a puzzle that I don't even know if they should be connected or not connected. That's, that's not the way you go about it. And we certainly have all felt this over, you know, this sense of drowning in information, which always leads to the

the question that Michelle was courageous enough to ask and that is, how do you practice jazz? So again, Michelle, great question. I hope my answer on on Monday helped and and I hope my answer here helps and if not, hopefully the Saturday morning sunrise lesson going a little deeper will help even further. So, all right.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (23:43.3)
Let's, let's get busy. Let's discover, learn and play jazz piano. Let's discover, learn and play Lady Be Good, an improvisation exploration. So as I always do every week, I lay out the lesson rationale and how we go about studying a tune. And you know what? It's the same, always. And it's the approach that I use with every tune that I go to study.

regardless of the genre, because it may obviously I mean, it makes no difference whether I'm trying to learn a jazz tune, a rock tune, pop pop tune, country folk R &B, whatever. I go about it the same way. We go about it the same way every every month here at Jazz Piano Skills. Number one, we listen. Most important, we listen to various artists, vocalist, instrumentalist, pianist from different genres, perform whatever tune that we are studying.

we want to absorb as many renditions of that tune as possible. Number two, we dive into harmonic analysis where we look at form, changes, harmonic function, harmonic movement, and voicings. Then we turn our attention to a melodic analysis. We learn the melody, we transcribe that melody, in other words, learn it by ear. We look at the phrases found within the melody, the target notes within the phrases.

and also various treatments that we can utilize to help truly learn the tune. You know, typically the standard jazz treatments of a ballad, bossa, and swing. And then we turn our attention, as we will be doing here today, to improvisation development. And that typically can involve several things, all of it focusing around rhythm, of course, but there's chord scale relationships, arpeggio on scale movement through the various sounds of the tune.

might be tension that we look at, or even like today, we're going to be looking at inverted arpeggio movement. So it's a very thorough, it's a complete approach. It's a standard approach that we use, which is actually very liberating and comforting that we know the process, again, the process that we are going to utilize whenever we look at a piece of music or want to learn a piece of music. We listen, harmonic analysis,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (26:09.136)
melodic analysis, and then of course, improvisation, rhythm with an improvisation focus. So with that being said, the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we are going to, of course, listen to definitive recordings of Lady Be Good, as always, which are posted in our community.

Number two, we are going to explore inverted arpeggios for the changes of Lady Be Good. Number three, we will play four etudes that I have composed to help us gain familiarity with the shapes and the sounds of inverted arpeggios and how they are used to develop improvisation vocabulary.

So if you are a Jazz Piano Skills member, want you to, as always, hit the pause button and take a few minutes to download and print your podcast packets. Again, these are the illustrations, the lead sheets, and the play alongs that are available for you every week to go along with every weekly podcast episode. And as I mentioned, you should absolutely have these in your hands when listening to the episode to get the most out of it.

you should have them sitting on your piano or music stand at home when practicing as well. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets, I want you to as always, we start with the lead sheets and I'll address the the illustrations and the play alongs toward the end of the podcast. But I want to start with the lead sheets. And you should have seven lead sheets in your packet today, seven lead sheets.

and quickly lead sheet one lays out eight inverted arpeggios for the F major sound. Lead sheet two, eight inverted arpeggios for B flat seven. Lead sheet three, eight inverted arpeggios for A minor seven. Lead sheet four, eight inverted arpeggios for D seven. Lead sheet five, eight inverted arpeggios for G minor seven.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (28:23.93)
lead sheet six, eight inverted arpeggios for C dominant seven, and then lead sheet seven has four inverted arpeggio etudes. So what I have done here is taken the A section of Lady B Good, the chord progression, we're doing it in the key of F major, so the chord progression F major to B flat seven to A minor to D seven to G minor to C seven, or another way to think about it, the one going to the four, three, six, two, five.

So we will be playing inverted arpeggios for each one of those sounds, and then we will put it together in lead sheet seven with four inverted arpeggio etudes. Okay, so we got a lot to do. Now typically at this time in the past, you know that I would play a definitive recording of the tune, but this year as you all know we have changed it a little bit. We've now the listening list is posted

in our community forum. And I would encourage everyone to spend some time there listening to the various renditions that have been posted. They are fantastic. So before you do anything else, head on over to the community, spend some time listening to the recordings. And then once you've done that, then return to the podcast episode and grab your lead sheets.

and of course, lead sheet one. So let's take a look at how to begin developing our jazz improvisation using inverted arpeggios for F major seven. 

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