Over the Rainbow, Harmonic Analysis

Introduction to Jazz Piano Skills and Monthly Study

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, here we go. A new month, which means we begin a brand new monthly jazz standard study. As always, my objective is simple: to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano, not by simply accumulating more musical information, but by developing the essential skills that allow you to understand music more deeply, practice it more intentionally, and communicate more confidently at the piano. Each month, as all of you regular jazz piano skills listeners know, we take one classic jazz standard and we basically use it as our musical laboratory. We explore the tune from different perspectives. Week one, harmony, week two, melody, week three, improvisation, week four, solo piano development. Each week's lesson builds upon the previous one, helping us understand not only the tune, but more importantly, the essential jazz piano skills that never change. Because the tune may change, the key may change, the style may change, but skills, guess what? The skills they always remain the same. And those are the skills we're committed to strengthening every time we sit down at the piano. Now, this month, our journey centers around one of the most beloved songs ever written, Over the Rainbow. It's a timeless melody, a beautiful harmonic landscape. And you know what? It's a wonderful opportunity for us to deepen our understanding of how harmony functions, how melodies are supported, and how thoughtful harmonic movement creates an emotional impact. As always, I encourage you to listen with curiosity today. I want you to think deeply about the concepts that we're about to explore. And most importantly, I want you to spend time at the piano this week putting these ideas into practice because

Exploring 'Over the Rainbow' - A Musical Laboratory

Dr. Bob Lawrence 2:55

understanding grows through thoughtful conceptual and physical practice. And thoughtful practice transforms understanding into what? Musicianship. So here we go. Settle in, get comfy, as we are about to explore Over the Rainbow. You know, this tune, it's interesting. This tune has touched generations of listeners. And you know what? It's not because it's harmonically complex. It's not because it's technically demanding. In fact, I would say its appeal is that the harmony and the melody are not complex at all, but rather very traditional, standard. And of course, of course, the lyrics convey a very lovely and sweet thought. So when you have beautiful harmony, harmonic movement, beautiful melody, and sweet lyrics, you have a great tune. You have over the rainbow. So of course, today we focus on harmony, as we always do week one. We we will discover once again that harmony is never just a collection of chords, right? Harmony creates movement, harmony creates expectation, harmony creates tension, it creates release, creates emotion. In many ways, the harmony tells the emotional story that the melody sings, which of course we explore melody next week. And that's exactly why we begin every monthly tune study with the harmonic analysis. Not because we want to memorize chord symbols, but because we want to understand why those chords exist, why they move the way they move. Why one chord creates stability, another one creates anticipation, why one chord feels like we're home, another chord feels like we're in the middle of the journey. Because once we begin understanding harmonic function, harmonic movement, the lead sheet is transformed. It's no longer, it just no longer a page just filled with random chord symbols. It becomes a musical conversation. Every chord, as I have said many times, comes from somewhere. Every chord has a purpose, every progression has direction, every cadence tells part of the story. And that's especially true. You're going to find out that's especially true with Over the Rainbow. So today we will discover something every great jazz musician eventually learns that harmony is not just a collection of chords. Harmony is movement. Harmony is direction. Our goal today is to discover how the harmony of Over the Rainbow

Understanding Harmony: The Emotional Landscape

Dr. Bob Lawrence 5:49

creates the emotional landscape through which the melody travels. We'll see that next week. So as we study the tune together, we're not simply going to identify chord symbols. We're going to uncover their purpose. We're going to ask, why is this chord here? Where is it leading? Because every chord has a reason for existing. Every chord comes, as I just mentioned, from somewhere. Every progression has direction, every cadence is important. And once we discover harmonic relationships, we can begin learning them. You know what? We can begin hearing them. Not by memorizing, of course, and that doesn't happen by just memorizing isolated chord symbols, but by understanding and connecting harmonic function. So we're going to learn to recognize common progressions, and we'll begin hearing how each harmonic sound contributes to the overall musical narrative. Because real learning, real learning occurs when our ears, our eyes, right, our hands begin working together. And finally, we're going to play. Not merely reproducing chord symbols from a lead sheet, but expressing harmonic motion with understanding. We'll begin hearing where the music wants to go. We'll begin anticipating harmonic movement. We'll begin feeling the natural flow of the progression. Because ultimately, our goal is never to memorize a tune. That's not it. Our goal is to understand how tunes work. The tune simply gives us the opportunity to strengthen essential skills that what? That never change. So today we're going to discover the harmony of Over the Rainbow. We're going to learn the harmonic relationships, harmonic function of Over the Rainbow. And we're going to play the harmony guided with a conceptual, physical, and oral understanding using block voicings, traditional shell voicings, contemporary shell voicings, and of course our two-handed structures. But before we begin our harmonic analysis of Over the Rainbow, I want to review, as we do every week, I want to review the seven musical facts. Now, these are not theories, they are not opinions, they are not preferences. They are the foundational truths that govern everything that we do musically. Every tune, every practice session, every improvisation, every solo, every arrangement, every performance, everything. So let's review them. Fact number one music is the production of sound and silence. And of course, when I'm speaking of sound, I'm speaking of our primary sounds that exist in music: major, dominant, minor, half diminished, and diminished. Every harmonic sound you will ever encounter belongs to one of these five families. Everything else is simply a variation or extension of these sounds. Fact number two, sound is produced harmonically and melodically. That's it. Every musical idea is expressed one of two ways: harmonically, melodically. There's no third option. That's it. Fact number three, when sound is produced harmonic harmonically, we're playing chords or what we often refer to as voicings. Every voicing you have ever learned or will ever learn is simply an expression of harmonic sound. Fact number four, when sound is produced melodically, we're playing arpeggios, we're playing scales. That's it. Those two melodic structures govern every melodic idea. Whether you're interpreting a melody, creating an improvisation, developing a solo, it makes no difference. Everything is built upon arpeggios and scales. Fact number five uh when we play arpeggios and scales, we are moving in one of two directions, up or down. We're ascending or descending. Every melodic line is simply directional motion. And with harmonic movement, we're either moving using circle motion or diatonic or chromatic movement. That's it. So both harmonic uh harmonic sound, melodic sound has movement, has motion. Okay. Fact number six, uh, to disguise the fact that we're playing uh melodically, that we're just playing ascending and descending arpeggios and scales, guess what? We add some tension. Most commonly chromaticism. But you know, any of the notes that are outside of the key, we create tension, interest, energy, whatever you want to call it, expression. And then finally, fact number seven, to add interest to facts one through six, we add rhythm. Rhythm. Rhythm gives life to harmony, rhythm gives life to melody, uh, rhythm transforms musical information into musical communication and musical interest. So, those are the seven musical facts. Everything we practice, everything we study, everything we play should be governed by these seven foundational truths. And today, as we begin our harmonic exploration of Over the Rainbow, you're gonna see these seven musical facts come to life

The Seven Musical Facts: Foundations of Jazz

Dr. Bob Lawrence 11:36

in a very practical and very musical way. Because they're simply not facts to memorize, they're actually facts or they're truths to understand, skills to develop, and principles to apply every time you sit down at the piano. Okay, so with that being said, before we go any further, I want to take a moment to welcome all first-time listeners to Jazz Piano Skills. If you are new to the Jazz Piano Skills podcast, new to Jazz Piano Skills, welcome. I am delighted that you are here. And I want to personally thank you for joining us as we begin a brand new monthly study of Over the Rainbow. Now, if you've been listening to today's episode, you've probably noticed that jazz piano skills, that we approach learning jazz a little differently. Our focus is not simply on presenting musical ideas. Our focus is on helping you discover the musical truths that govern every tune you will ever play. Because once those truths become clear, those seven musical facts that I just talked about, everything else begins making sense. And that's exactly why jazz piano skills exist. To help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano through a very uh carefully designed educational process that develops understanding, it builds essential skills, and transforms the way you practice, which actually then transforms the way you perform. As a jazz piano skills member, uh you have many perks that come with that membership. You have access to the entire podcast episode. Um the first half of every podcast episode is free for everyone to enjoy, but the second half, when we get into the educational content, demonstrations, illustrations, the podcast packets and such, um that is for members only. So your membership only, your membership gives you access to the entire podcast, plus the podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, and the play-alongs. Now, these materials I design to help reinforce the concepts discussed throughout each podcast episode, each lesson, and to help guide your practice throughout the week. In addition, as a member, you can enjoy the live weekly masterclass that I host every Thursday evening. You can tap into the extensive video archive of the master classes. You can enjoy the interactive online courses and then become active in our private online community forums. It's a growing educational library that is designed to help you continue developing your jazz piano skills with confidence and clarity. So check out all the perks at jazzpianoskills.com. And of course, if you have any questions, uh please let me know. I'm always happy to spend some time with you and answer any questions that you may have. One other note, if you are not already receiving the Jazz Pianel Skills weekly blog, I encourage you to join the Jazz Pianel Skills email list. Every weekend, I published a I think it's a pretty detailed written recap of the week's lesson. The weekly blog reinforces the concepts discussed throughout the podcast, highlights the most important educational takeaways, and hopefully clarifies the key ideas and helps organize your practice throughout the week. You know what, many members have given me great feedback. They tell me that uh listening to the podcast and then reading the weekly blog helps deepen their understanding because they experience the lesson from two different perspectives, right? I always say that sometimes hearing an idea is helpful, sometimes reading an idea is helpful, and and quite often doing both dramatically improves understanding and retention. So whether you're joining joining us for the very first time or you've been a part of jazz piano skills uh for for many years now, um, make sure that you are receiving that weekly blog. Okay, so let's uh move on to the question of the week. This week's question comes from Michael Anderson, living in Portland, Portland, Oregon. And Michael writes, Hello, Dr. Bob. I've been listening to the Jazz Panel Skills podcast for several months now, and I've noticed something very different about the way you teach. You don't seem to spend much time talking about the latest voicing substitutions, modes, or jazz tricks that I hear discussed everywhere else. Instead, you continually return to what you call the seven musical facts. At first I wasn't sure why, but the more I listen, the more I feel like everything you're teaching keeps pointing back to those same seven ideas. Why? Why do you keep returning to the seven musical facts instead of continually introducing new concepts? Isn't learning jazz supposed to be about learning more information? In other words, doesn't more information automatically lead to becoming a better musician? Or am I beginning to understand that learning jazz is actually something very different? Thank you for everything you do. I'm finally beginning to feel like music is making sense. Well uh Michael, that's your last line there is the whole point. Getting music to actually make sense. And I gotta say thank you for your question. When I received it, um actually I received it a few weeks ago. Um I knew right away I was going it was going to become one of the questions of the week. It's a very thoughtful question. Uh I can tell that you're a deep thinker, and that's great, and you've given it much thought. So um I love questions like this because I I know something important is beginning to happen. When when right, I had a teacher who used to say, I know how you're advancing, I know how you're improving by the questions you ask and the statements you make. So this question tells me, Michael, you're something is about you're gonna have a breakthrough moment, okay? Um, you're beginning to uh recognize the framework, and that's exactly what I hope happens for every jazz piano skill uh skills member. Now, let me answer your question with a question. What if the objective of music education isn't to continually continually introduce no idea new ideas? What if the objective is to continually deepen your understanding of timeless truths? Think about that. Those are those are two very different educational models. One says, um, here's something new. The other says, let's understand more deeply what has our always been true. In fact, I talked about this quite a bit in last week's podcast episode. You know, the seven musical facts are are not seven ideas that I happened to invent. There's seven musical truths that I discovered after a lifetime of studying music, teaching music, performing music, and watching uh thousands of students struggle to connect what they were learning. Eventually I realized something. Every musical concept, every voicing, every scale, every arpeggio, every improvisational solo, every arrangement, right, every solo piano performance, they all could always be traced back to the same seven musical truths. Always. Not sometimes, but always. Now that realization changed everything for me. It changed how I thought about music, it changed how I practiced, uh, it changed how I taught I teach. And ultimately, it became the educational foundation of jazz piano skills. Think about mathematics for a moment. Mathematicians don't invent new truths every week. Right? I mean, it makes you laugh when you think about that. Mathematicians do not invent new truths every week. They they continually discover deeper this is important, they continually discover deeper applications of timeless truth. Now music works exactly the same way. The seven musical facts never change because the truth never changes. What changes is our understanding of those truths. And as our understanding deepens, our practicing changes. Our ears change, our hands change, our confidence change, our musicianship changes. And that's why you'll hear me return to the seven facts again and again and again, week after week after week. Not it's not because I have nothing new to say. I can yak. I can go on a yaking streak, there's no doubt about that. But but it's not because I have nothing new to say, it's because every tune illuminates those truths from a different perspective. Teach me tonight illustrated them last month. Now over the rainbow will illuminate them again this month. Next month's tune will illuminate them again. As I say, the tunes change, the truths remain. And every time we revisit those truths, our understanding deepens. That's called education. Not the accumulation of information but the the illumination of truth. And when truth becomes clear, something remarkable happens. Practice becomes intentional. Progress becomes measurable. Um music begins making sense. And perhaps the greatest the greatest gift of all, the frustration of trying to figure everything out by yourself begins disappearing because you finally have a framework, a framework that organizes everything you study, everything you practice, everything you play. And that's why the seven musical facts will always remain at the heart of of jazz piano skills, not because they're mine, but because uh they're true. You know, I think a uh a great way to wrap up my answer to your question, Michael, is to simply say this, and I've said it before uh in uh previous podcast episodes, that if you do not see in the songs that you're practicing and playing the seven musical facts, and if you don't see in the skills that you're practicing the songs that you want to play, right? Goes both ways. You need to be able to see the seven musical facts in the songs, and then you need to see the songs in those seven musical facts or in the skills that you're practicing. If you you're if you're not seeing seeing that from both per both directions, then there's a disconnect. But that's why we're here. This is part of the journey at Jazz Piano Skills, is helping us all get to that point to where we can see these seven musical facts in the songs that we play, and we can see the songs that we play in the skills that we practice. Think about that. So, anyway, I hope uh it's a great question, fantastic question. I hope my I hope my answer, as always, provided some clarity. Uh however, if more clarification is needed, Michael, give me a shout. Happy to jump on the the phone with you and spend some time uh discussing this further. So, again, great question, and thank you for taking the time to write it, and thank you for taking the time to send it in. Very much appreciate it. Okay, so let's talk about today's educational agenda. As always, our objective today

Educational Agenda: Analyzing 'Over the Rainbow'

Dr. Bob Lawrence 24:47

extends well beyond simply learning the harmony or the chords of over the rainbow. Our objective is to strengthen the harmonic skills that every jazz musician, every jazz pianist must develop. All right, remember the tunes change, the skills remain. So we're gonna use Over the Rainbow as our musical laboratory today, while we develop really five essential harmonic analysis skills. First, we'll identify the form of the tune. Again, every standard has an architectural design: A A B A, A B A B, A B A C, or one of many other common song forms, right? But but understanding form allows us to organize music before we ever begin practicing the music. Um, okay, second, what we will identify the unique harmonic sounds found within the tune, right? And again, we're dealing with major, dominant, minor, half diminished, diminished. We'll isolate each harmonic sound so it can become the focus of intentional practice because uh, once harmonic sounds are isolated, they can be developed harmonically and melodically and rhythmically using the seven musical facts. The third, we'll study harmony from uh two perspectives the chord changes and the harmonic function. We'll examine both uh lead sheets side by side and begin developing one of the most important skills, I think, in all of jazz. That is your ability to see uh when seeing chord symbols to think harmonic function, when seeing harmonic function to be able to think uh chord symbols. Number four, we will identify common harmonic movement found throughout the tune. And then uh number five, we'll begin developing uh voicing vocabulary needed to express these harmonic sounds. We'll look at our traditional black voicings and inversions, traditional shells, contemporary shells. We will look at our two-handed voicings as well. By the end of today's lesson, you'll understand far more than the harmony of Over the Rainbow. You'll strengthen the harmonic thinking skills that you will serve you on every jazz standard that you study and play from this point forward. Because once again, our goal is never simply to learn another tune. Our goal is to become better musicians. Okay, now before we begin today's harmonic analysis of over the rainbow, I want to take a moment and speak directly to all of you jazz piano skills members. If you are a member, this is the time to hit the pause button, access, download, and print your podcast packets. Um, again, this educational material is part of your membership, so take advantage of it. I carefully design this material to go along with every weekly podcast episode. I'm talking about the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play-alongs. They're all created to reinforce the educational process of discovering and learning and playing jazz piano. So, as we've discussed many times, understanding grows much more quickly when you can see the concepts while hearing them explained. So don't simply listen today's lesson. Study along with it. Have your lead sheets in front of you, examine the illustrations, make notes, circle important ideas, highlight harmonic movement, write questions in the margins that we can address during the master class. In other words, engage with the material because active learning always produces deeper understanding, a much deeper understanding than passive listening. Right? So then when you sit down at the piano throughout the week, have those same materials sitting beside you, and use those illustrations again to reforce, reinforce today's concepts. Use those lead sheets to help develop your harmonic thinking, and of course, use those play-alongs to begin transforming the understanding into musical experience. Remember, the podcast packets are not worksheets to complete, they're educational tools designed to guide your thinking, organize your practicing, and and hopefully strengthen your musicianship. So, again, if you're a jazz piano skills member, take just a couple minutes right now, download and print your podcast packets. Okay, now that you have your podcast packets in front of you, um let's grab our lead sheets. As always, we will walk through our lead sheets today. I'll address the illustrations and the play-alongs toward the end of the podcast. But grab your lead sheets packet. We should have seven, no, I'm sorry, eight lead sheets in your packet. And let's start with lead sheet one. Lead sheet one, we're going to look at the form of Over the Rainbow. And you'll notice right away the form is your class. Thank you for listening to Jazz Piano Skills. The remaining premium content of this episode is available to Jazz Piano Skills members at Jazz Pianoskillspodcast.com. Visit jazzpianoskills.com to learn more about membership privileges and become a Jazz Piano Skills member. Thank you.