Sweet Lorraine, Melodic Analysis

TRANSCRIPT PRODUCED BY AI. ERRORS GAURANTEED!

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.418)
Welcome to the Dallas School of Music. No, hey, welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. Wow. Wow. Okay, hey, here we are, week two of the month, which means, as week two always means, it's a melodic analysis week. Last week, we kicked off the new month with a very popular standard, sweet Lorraine. And we did our typical, our standard.

harmonic analysis, examining the form, traditional changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, and of course, our voicings, our block voicings and inversions, traditional shells, contemporary shells, and our two-handed structures. Which means today, week two, we follow our harmonic analysis with the melodic analysis to discover, learn, and play the melody of Sweet Lorraine.

We'll check out the fingerings, we'll look at the phrases and the various target notes within those phrases. And of course, we'll explore some various treatments that force us to interpret and reinterpret that melody, really in preparation for our improvisation development that we will be looking at next week. How comforting, right? We follow a sequential educational process that unfolds every single month, regardless

regardless of the tune that we are studying. Every month we take a tune and we study it harmonically, melodically, improvisationally. And of course, this year we've added our fourth study, which focuses on solo piano approaches. These are areas of study that honestly every aspiring jazz musician, not just pianist, must gain a functional, conceptual and physical command of if they hope to

to be clear when I speak about one's ability to play, I am speaking about everyone at any level from simplistic playing to advanced playing. And when I say simplistic playing, I'm not meaning beginner. In fact, the professional jazz musicians I know are always trying to find ways to simplify their playing, not complicated. You know, a question that I'd love to ask him, I think I ask it every month, if not every week.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:56.291)
how do we accomplish our desire to become an accomplished jazz musician? Not only do I ask this question frequently, but I also give the same answer. It begins with establishing a very well thought out, a well constructed practice approach, a practice strategy or a practice agenda. I'm fine with any of those labels. So whichever one you prefer is fine. Now this well thought out practice approach begins

with a proper conceptual understanding of music. In other words, if you think about music incorrectly, you are behind the eight ball immediately. You're doomed before you even get started. And unfortunately, this is the case for so many people studying jazz. In fact, I will go as far as to say everyone, every student that I have taught in the last 35 years, everyone,

When we begin lessons, they do not have a proper understanding of music, how it's constructed, how they should go about studying it, what are the essential skills, none of it. So you can imagine without that conceptual understanding locked in, wow, you are doomed before you get started.

you are actually going to end up running in place. So it's very important that music becomes conceptually easy for you if you hope to develop physical skills. So the formula is really very simple. Music conceptually easy equals musical success physically. And the opposite is true. Music complicated conceptually equals musical struggle

and failure physically. I say it all the time. If your musical thought process is skewed in any way, any shape, any form, you have no shot of having success with it physically. It's just that simple. So one of my goals with jazz piano skills is to make sure that you, to make sure that everyone begins thinking of music in the most simplistic and most

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:22.996)
accurate way possible so you can begin developing your jazz chops successfully. And that is precisely why I stressed all of last year and continue to stress this year and will continue to do so throughout the year. I will continue to stress the seven facts of music. Now these seven facts have have governed the thinking of every successful musician from the beginning of time.

literally, to the current date. I'm not kidding. From Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Ellington, Peterson, Korea, you name it. don't care. Plug in whatever musician you want. They understand the seven facts of music well. So let's recite these facts again together. Fact number one, music is the production of sound and silence. Sound, of course, being major.

dominant, minor, half-diminished, diminished, the primary sounds of music. Silence being

Dr. Bob Lawrence (06:29.187)
that. Fact number two, sound is produced harmonically and melodically. Fact number three, when sound is produced harmonically, we are playing chords. We often refer to the chords as voicings, but we're playing chords. Fact number four, when sound is produced melodically, we're playing scales and arpeggios. That's it. Fact number five, when we play scales and arpeggios, you know what? We can only move one of two directions. We're either going up

or we're coming down. Again, that's it. Fact number six, we camouflage, we decorate the scales and arpeggios so people don't realize that we're playing scales and arpeggios. We decorate these scales and arpeggios with tension or chromaticism, notes outside of the harmony. And then finally, fact number seven, to make musical facts one through six interesting, we add rhythm.

I have to admit, it's pretty cool to know and recite these seven musical facts. It's pretty cool to have this kind of conceptual understanding of music that governs our practicing. Wow. So listen to this very carefully. Seeing music as the production of harmonic and melodic shapes.

that go up and down the piano using scale and arpeggio motion decorated with chromaticism or tension and expressed rhythmically is the key to becoming a musician. Because once you understand that music is indeed the production of harmonic and melodic shapes that go up and down the piano using scale and arpeggio motion decorated with chromaticism or tension,

expressed rhythmically, you begin to assemble a practice approach, practice strategies that reflect this understanding, that reflect this musical truth, that paves the way for you to have success physically. It paves the way for you to become an accomplished musician. Now again, the opposite is true.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (08:49.122)
without this musical understanding, without these seven musical facts guiding your way, you are simply wandering around collecting a lot of information, hoping that something sticks, right? As I like to say, you're flying on a wing in a prayer. It's not a good plan. I see it all the time. I remind students without musical truth,

conceptually understood, then the odds of developing accomplished jazz skills, jazz musicianship are worse than being struck by lightning or winning the lottery. Either way, right? Either one. It's just simply not going to happen. And again, you know, I'm not being hard or I'm not being mean. I'm just being truthful. So with our musical compass in hand, our seven musical facts, we tackle a new tune every month.

the same way. We look at it harmonically, melodically, improvisationally, and solo piano approaches, which are four musical camps or four pillars that are entrenched in the seven musical facts. So all of this to say that today we are going to do a melodic analysis.

that today you are going to melodically discover sweet Lorraine. You are going to learn the melody by ear. We're going to look at the phrases. We're going to look at the target notes within the phrases of sweet Lorraine. And we are going to play the melody of sweet Lorraine supported by our voicings from our harmonic study last week using three different jazz treatments.

So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you consider yourself a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this Jazz Piano Skills Podcast lesson exploring Suite Lorraine to be very beneficial. But before we jump in,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (11:06.958)
Before we get started, want to, as I always do, I want to welcome all of you first time Jazz Piano Skills listeners. If you're new to the podcast, if you're new to Jazz Piano Skills, welcome. We're glad that you are here. And I want to invite you to become a Jazz Piano Skills member. Your membership grants you many cool perks. Number one, as a Jazz Piano Skills member, you have access to premium podcast content, which means you get to listen to the entire episode.

first half of every Jazz Panel Skills podcast is free for everyone to enjoy. I deal with the question of the week, the layout, the educational agenda and the lesson rationale. The second half of every podcast episode for members only, we deal with the lesson content, demonstrations, we explore the podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs. These are the educational materials that I design and develop for

every weekly podcast episode. This material, these podcast packets help maximize your musical growth, help you get the most out of every weekly podcast episode. As a Jazz Piano Skills member, you also have access to the online Jazz Piano Skills courses. Now these are comprehensive, sound based, self paced and sequential courses focusing on harmonic, melodic and improvisation development.

As a Jazz Panel Skills member, you have a reserved seat in the weekly masterclass that I host every Thursday evening, 8pm Central Standard Time, which I know is not the best time for everyone. the video record the masterclasses are video recorded. So you can watch and rewatch the class at your convenience and as often as you wish. As a Jazz Panel Skills member, you also have access to the private

Jazz Panel Skills online community, which hosts a variety of episode specific forums, general jazz forums. It's a wonderful place to receive member feedback and assistance and give member feedback and assistance. And it is where we post the listening list every single week. It's a killer listening list every single week that goes along with each podcast episode.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (13:31.052)
And finally, as a Jazz Piano Skills member, you have access to educational support, private, personal, professional support, whenever you need it. So all of these amazing perks, these privileges are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazzpiano skills.com. And of course, become a member. Once you get to the site, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to spend some time with you and answer any questions that you may have.

Finally, if you are not receiving the Jazz Panel Skills blog post every Saturday or Sunday, please take the time to join Jazz Panel Skills, the Jazz Panel Skills email list. Very easy to do. You can do so right on the homepage of Jazz Panel Skills. Once you're part of the email list, you will get the announcement every weekend when the blog is live. And the blog summarizes the podcast episode and the lesson for the week in

writing. It's a great document to review and to explore to help you stay on track both conceptually and physically when practicing. Okay, so let's go on to the question of the week.

question of the week. This week comes from Maria Delgado. Maria Delgado from San Diego, California. And Maria writes, I just want to say how much I enjoy jazz piano skills. Your monthly tune study approach has been incredible, incredibly helpful for me, because it finally makes learning jazz feel organized instead of overwhelming. Thank you, Maria. That means a lot to me. I'm currently working on the melody for Sweet Lorraine.

Wow, so you're working ahead. I love that. And really trying to play it musically rather than just reading the notes. My question is about phrasing. Okay, here we go. Maria goes on to say, Sometimes when I play a melody, it feels like I'm just playing one long string of notes instead of musical phrases. Yes, and I bet it sounds like that too. How do you know

Dr. Bob Lawrence (15:44.899)
where the phrases actually are in a jazz melody. Is there something specific I should be looking for when studying a tune to help me identify those phrases? Thanks again for everything you do. I'm learning a ton and having a lot of fun with the program. Maria, fantastic, fantastic question. Because you know what, if you don't recognize the phrases of the melody, which we're going to be looking at today, if you don't recognize the phrases of a melody, then you can't

shape the melody. And if you cannot shape the melody, it will always sound mechanical. It will always sound like a long string of notes instead of musical phrases. Now, before going any further, allow me to explain what I mean by shaping the melody. is one of those... shaping is one of those expressions that musicians, especially jazz educators,

love to say they say it all the time without ever explaining it. So, so let me do so shaping a melody means well, it means guiding the listener through the phrases using dynamics, articulation, direction and time, so that the melodic line feels like it's going somewhere. It's saying something. In other words, the melody should feel like a musical sense.

with a destination, not a string of equal notes. And when you shape a melody, you are controlling and you're aware of direction where the phrase is moving. You are able to emphasize which notes matter most. You're able to determine length, how long notes are held or how short are they played. You're able to control space.

where the phrase breathes, right? And you're also able to control energy, how the phrase grows and releases. So I always tell everyone think like a singer, like a vocalist. The easiest way to understand melodic shaping is to imagine singing the melody, right? A singer would never perform a melody with with every note being the same length, the same volume, the same emphasis. Instead,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (18:11.833)
great vocalist lean into important notes. I reference those as target notes. They grow toward the peak of the phrase. They relax at the end of the phrase, and they breathe between ideas. That natural vocal behavior is, is melodic shaping. Think of it this way. Every phrase has an art.

right? Most melodic phrase actually have a pretty simple arc. They start, it builds to a peak, and then it releases. Or another way to say it is, they start with low energy, rising energy, arrival at some peak, and then relaxation. When pianist, when instrumentalist, it doesn't not just pianist, when instrumentalist and pianist ignore that arc, guess what?

melody, Maria, as you stated, becomes flat, like just a string of notes. When they shape it, however, the melody suddenly feels alive. The melody feels like you're speaking, the melody feels like you're saying something. So let's just take a practical example. In fact, we'll, as we get into sweet Lorraine here, a little later, you'll see this come to life.

But a practical example, take a four bar phrase, which most jazz phrases are, right? So instead of playing all the notes equally, you might think beginning lightly, gradually increase intensity, emphasize the target note, right, or the peak of the phrase, slightly relax the final note, and then leave some space before the next phrase begins. That's breathing, right? So that's the real simple explanation.

You know, another simple test would be, you know, ask yourself, Maria, when you're looking at a melody, where's the most important note or notes of this of this phrase? The note that becomes the destination? What's the entry point of the phrase? What's the destination point of the phrase? What's the peak of the phrase? Right? These are questions that you should be asking when you're looking at a melody, and that's called shaping. So

Dr. Bob Lawrence (20:38.503)
shaping a melody means treating the phrase like a story with direction, arrival and release, instead of a row of equal notes. If every note, as you mentioned in your question is equal, the nothing is important, everything falls flat. shaping a melody means giving the phrase direction emphasizing its destination, and allowing of course, the music to breathe.

that's silence. Fact number one music is the production of sound and silence or breath breathing. Now I just mentioned that most jazz standards are built using four bar phrases that doesn't mean every phrase is exactly four bars, but it's the most common design. Right, but so bottom line is think of musical set, think think of phrases as musical sentence, a beginning a direction, point of arrival, right?

And when you look at melodies like Sweet Lorraine, like we're about to do, you will notice that the melody naturally breeze every few measures, right? Naturally. So anyway, Sweet Lorraine actually is a perfect example of lyrical freezing. And we're going to discover that here shortly. The melody is warm, it's vocal, it's conversational. And if you

as one long line of notes, it will sound very boring. It will sound very stiff. It will sound very predictable. But if you identify the phrases, which we are about to do, and the target notes within those phrases, which we are about to do, and you allow the melody to actually breathe naturally and shape each of those musical sentences because of your awareness, then the tune immediately becomes alive. The tune

becomes expressive. So I'll wrap up with this Maria. Jazz articulation begins with phrasing. Phrasing begins with listening. This is why we have our killer listening list every week that Lisa puts together. That's why that's so important. Okay, so again, jazz articulation begins with phrasing. Phrasing begins with listening. Listen to the melody. Listen to where it breathes. Listen to where it resolves.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (23:02.595)
Because when you recognize the phrases, guess what? You stop playing notes and you start focusing on expression. Once you learn how to play expressively, it is then that you begin telling the story of a tune. How cool is that?

All right, so with that being said, I hope that Maria, that helps. And again, as with every question of the week, I hope I didn't create more confusion than clarity. But if I did, please let me know, reach out to me. I'm happy to spend some more time with you and dive into this all important essential jazz skill of phrasing and shaping a melody. All right.

All right, so now it's time to discover, learn and play jazz piano. It's time to discover, learn and play sweet Lorraine. All right, so it's so important to state that when studying and learning a tune, it's important that you have a process. And that's what we have here at Jazz Piano Skills, right? We approach it the same way. And what I have stressed is that it

genre makes no difference. It has no impact on how we approach study in the tune. So it doesn't matter whether it's a jazz jazz tune, a rock, R &B, country, folk, pop, whatever. Who cares? We approach it the same way. And the very first thing we always do, I just mentioned the how important it is we we listen. So we have a listening list that we go through every every week.

that allows us to enjoy various artists, not just pianists, but vocalists and instrumentalists, and not just professionals either, right? When I'm learning a tune, I love listening to everyone who's performing that tune, whether they are an amateur musician, professional musician, regardless of the genre of music they they they're part of, it makes it makes no difference to me. Listening is so vitally important.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (25:23.533)
Then we turn our attention to harmonic analysis, where we look at the form, the changes, function, common movement, voicings, of course, then melodic analysis, like we're going to do today, transcribing the melody to the best of our ability, identifying those phrases and the various target notes within those phrases. And then of course, we explore playing those phrases, playing that melody using various treatments found in jazz, really in

preparation for improvisation, because that's where improvisation actually begins with one's ability to interpret and reinterpret the melody of a tone to be authentically correct based on the style of the interpretation of the tune. Okay. And then finally, we will do improvisation development next week where we will

study chord scale relationships, melodic pathways, motif development, and of course rhythmic vocabulary. So it's a very thorough, it's a very complete approach to tune study. So like I've already mentioned, we've completed our harmonic analysis, which we did last week, this week, today, melodic analysis. And then next week, we will do some improvisation development. So

The educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we are going to listen, right? We're going to listen to various recordings of Sweet Lorraine. Number two, we will learn by ear, transcribed to the best of our ability, the melody of Sweet Lorraine. Number three, we will look at my suggested fingerings for playing Sweet Lorraine.

Number four, we will identify the melodic phrases of sweet Lorraine and the key target notes within those phrases. Number five, we will apply the voicings that we studied last week with our harmonic analysis. We apply those voicings to sweet Lorraine to support the melody that we are learning today. And then finally, we will apply three treatments

Dr. Bob Lawrence (27:38.595)
to sweet Lorraine that will challenge our abilities to properly interpret that melody. So if you are a Jazz Panel Skills member, I want you to take just a few minutes right now, hit the pause button. I want you to access, download and print your podcast packets. Again, these are the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs that your membership grants you access to. So please take advantage of it.

So once you have your podcast packets in hand, then we will get to work. Alright, so as always, we're going to start with the lead sheets. We'll talk about the illustrations and the play alongs toward the end of the podcast. But we always begin with our lead sheets. And in your lead sheet packet, you should have seven lead sheets. Let me just talk you through them quickly before we do a deep dive. Number one lead sheet one.

is what I call the fill in the blank lead sheet. There are some guide tones there that will help us with our efforts to transcribe the melody of Sweet Lorraine. Lead sheet two is the answer key, right? It is the melody of Sweet Lorraine, musically notated so you can compare your effort, compare your work to a basic representation of the melody of Sweet Lorraine to see how close you are if you're in the ballpark. Lead sheet three,

I have the melody of a sweet Lorraine with the fingerings notated for you to explore and to practice. Lead sheet four identifies the phrases within the form and melody of sweet Lorraine. Lead sheet five takes those phrases and identifies the key target notes. And then lead sheet six and lead sheet seven are where we

place the melody now on top of our voicings that we studied last week. Our block voicings and inverted shapes, as well as our traditional and contemporary shell voicings. It's great packet. It's a great study. So we need to get after it because we have a ton to get done. So grab lead sheet one. Let's take a look how we are going to approach transcribing the melody.

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