Tangerine, Harmonic Analysis

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.546)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. So here we are again. Wow, the start of a new month. And as all of you regular jazz panel skills listeners know, the start of a new month means we begin studying a new tune. But I like to say, I've said it many times, a new tune

But the same familiar and comfy approach. I love that. An approach that's thorough, it's organized, it's structured, it's logical, it's repeatable, and it's skill centric. All of which, all of which are needed for studying and learning a tune correctly. Skill centric. Skill centric is the key. And why is that? Well, because

That is exactly what tunes expect us to be. Those of you of listening that have been through our monthly process can attest to the fact that, you know what, it doesn't take very long. It happens pretty quickly that when trying to learn a tune the jazz piano skills way, we discover the skills needing attention pretty quickly. Tunes have a funny way of illuminating our weaknesses.

in a very blunt way. So you know, what are the essential skills that are needed to play the tunes? That's a very important question. It's question that all of us should be able to answer. And hopefully we can do so by now. You should have no problem. If you've been following along the Jazz Panel Skills road for a while, then you should have no problem answering the question because you know what, we answer it every month.

as we execute our three week tune study. And not only do we answer this all important question, we organize our answer into three camps. And what are those camps? Camp number one, harmony, harmony, our ability to determine form, harmonic function, common harmonic movement.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:52.736)
And of course, our ability to play the sounds of music, major, dominant, minor, half, diminished, diminished, using various voicing approaches. And we always look at traditional blocks, traditional shells, contemporary shells, and of course, two handed structures. So camp number one, harmony. Camp number two, melody. Our ability to hear, determine and properly articulate the melodies and phrases of the tune.

using various treatments, right, which, of course, requires some pretty mature technique as well. And then finally, Camp number three, improvisation, our ability to formulate and explore rhythmic melodic patterns in time, of course, based on the proper chord scale relationships. So Camp one harmony, Camp two melody, Camp three improvisation.

It makes no difference what tune you want to play if you are not capable of executing the essential jazz piano skills found within each of these camps. Well, you're going to have a difficult time playing tunes. And that's why at Jazz Piano Skills, we use tunes to illuminate and validate the skills needed to play jazz piano. And then we attack those skills. Every month, we start with a new tune.

every month, and we gain a new perspective on the essential jazz panel skills. And where do we stand with each of those skills? How proficient are we? What kind of command do we have of these skills? What skills need attention? So different tune, same skills, new perspective. And on top of all that,

top of all that, these camps, harmony, melody, improvisation, allow us to organize and methodically practice the essential jazz skills. And that is the key. That's the key. Once we know and have organized the essential jazz skills, we need to know how to properly practice the skills.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:13.325)
Proper practicing, of course, begins with a proper conceptual understanding of music. And there's no way you can have a proper understanding of music until you can, with confidence, verbally articulate what music is the study of. I'm going to say that again. It's so important. There is no way, no way you can have a proper understanding of music until you

until you can with confidence verbally articulate what music is the study of. And this is precisely why I stress it over and over since the beginning of the year. I know you're tired of hearing it. I'm almost tired of saying it, but not really, because I say it every day to students. It's so important that you know and frame everything you do.

within the seven facts of music. The seven facts of music give us a very clear understanding of what music is. So what are the seven facts of music? Fact number one, music is the production of sound and silence. Fact number two, sound, major dominant minor, half diminished and diminished, is produced

harmonically and melodically. Fact number three, harmonic shapes are chords, voicings. Fact number four, melodic shapes are arpeggios and scales, melodies. In fact, number five, when playing arpeggios and scales, we are moving in one of two directions. We can only go up or we can go down. That's it. Fact number six,

we decorate or camouflage the fact that we're playing arpeggios and scales with tension. And these are notes that are outside of the key or chromaticism. And then finally, fact number seven, to make all of this, facts number one through six, to make all of this interesting, we add rhythm. That's it. Seven facts of music. So everything we do,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:40.065)
as I just mentioned, should be framed within the seven facts of music. I've stressed it in every episode. Seriously, I think since the beginning of the year, that if you are unable to see the essential jazz piano skills framed by the seven facts of music, then there is a high probability that you're not accomplishing what you think you're accomplishing when you're practicing. It's a strong

probability, high probability that you are running in place, right? That you have a skewed perspective of music. And if you have a skewed perspective of music, well, then the bad news is your practice is skewed. And if your practice is skewed, then you definitely are not accomplishing what you think you're accomplishing when you're practicing. That's a bummer, right? Because you're putting in the time, but you're not getting the results.

So here at Jazz Piano Skills, we prevent that from happening. We take an essential skill and we examine it harmonically and melodically, and then we use it to develop our improvisation abilities through the study of rhythmic and melodic patterns. Now, with all that being said, today we continue our study of essential jazz skills organized into our three camps, harmony, melody and improvisation.

using another classic jazz standard. And as always, we're going to begin with a harmonic analysis. So today you are going to discover the 1941 standard by Victor Schützinger. Schützinger. Well, you got to be careful how you pronounce that last name. And lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The tune is called Tangerine. You are going to learn the form.

chord changes, harmonic function for tangerine, and you're going to play tangerine using my suggested voicings. Block voicings, shell voicings, two-handed voicings. And we're also going to look at the common harmonic progressions found within tangerine for ear training development. 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 are a seasoned and experienced professional.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (10:04.075)
you're going to find this Jazz Piano Skills podcast lesson exploring the great standard tangerine to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to, as I always do, I want to welcome all of you first time listeners to the Jazz Piano Skills podcast. If you're a new listener, if you're new to Jazz Piano Skills, I want to welcome you and I would also like to extend an invitation for you to join Jazz Piano Skills.

Your membership grants you many perks. Number one, as a member, you have access to premium podcast content, which means you get to listen to the entire podcast episode. Now the first half of every podcast episode is free for everyone to enjoy. I lay out the educational agenda, the lesson rationale, I deal with the question of the week. The second half of the podcast for members only lesson content.

and demonstrations. You also along with the lesson content and demonstrations have access to the podcast packets and these are the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs, the educational material that I designed and developed for every weekly podcast episode. These materials help you maximize your musical growth and get the most out of each podcast episode.

Now the courses online courses as a member you have access to as well. These are comprehensive, sound based, self paced and sequential courses focusing on harmonic, melodic and improvisation development. You also as a Jazz Piano Skills member have a reserved seat in my online weekly masterclass, which is held every Thursday evening at 8pm Central Time. I know this is not the greatest time for everyone around the world. However,

All of the master classes are recorded so you can watch and rewatch the video of the class at your convenience and as often as you wish. As a Jazz Panel Skills member, you also have access to the online private Jazz Panel Skills community, which hosts a variety of forums, episode specific forums, as well as general jazz forums. It's a great community. It's a great place to meet folks.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:25.513)
get some feedback and assistance when needed and also to, you know, give some feedback and assistance as well. And then finally, as a Jazz Piano Skills member, you have access to unlimited educational support. This is private, personal, professional support available for you whenever you need help. So check it all out at jazzpiano skills.com. All of these amazing privileges are waiting to help you discover, learn and play jazz piano.

Once you're at the site, if you have any questions whatsoever, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to spend some time with you answer any questions that you may have and help you in any way that I can. Now, I also just want to take a second to encourage everyone to subscribe to the Jazz Piano Skills YouTube channel. I am producing educational content videos that I think you'll find beneficial for your jazz growth.

And I currently have several playlists. There are weekly challenges, quick tips and jazz talks that are released on a weekly basis. So again, I would encourage you when you have a moment, if you haven't already done so, subscribe so that you are notified as soon as a Jazz Panel Skills video is released. Okay, so on to the question of the week. And this week's question comes from Dina Donaldson.

living in Grand Forks, North Dakota. boy, Dina, it's getting part of that, that time of year, it's gonna start getting cold in Grand Forks, North Dakota. I had a sister, my sister and brother-in-law, who was in the Air Force lived there for a while. And I went to, I went to visit Grand Forks, North Dakota, over the Christmas holiday. And I told them at the end of my visit when I was leaving,

I said, I love you both very much. So please do not interpret me never returning. Do not interpret that as a sign of a lack of my love because it's just too cold here. So anyway, Dina, I bundle up. But anyway, thank you for your question. Here's what Dina writes. Hi, Dr. Lawrence. I am learning my chords and beginning to play lead sheets.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (14:50.38)
But I am frustrated because my chords do not sound smooth. I know I'm supposed to use inversions, which I am doing, and they still do not sound right. How do I voice chords so they sound smooth and connected? What am I missing? Well, Dina, great question. And you are actually in a wonderful spot in your development.

It sounds like you have a command of the 60 primary chords of music. Your 12 major chords, 12 dominant chords, 12 minor chords, 12 half diminished chords, and 12 diminished chords. It sounds like you had a command of the chords. So now it sounds like you are trying to figure out how best to connect these chords when playing a tune. So first and foremost, congrats on being able to play your chords using root position.

and inversions. It's fantastic. It's a great accomplishment. Now, connecting them, as you have discovered, can be challenging, especially if you are trying to determine what shape to use on the fly when playing each chord. That's a tall order, right? If you're trying to determine what shape to use, root position, first, second, third inversion on the fly,

as soon as you see each chord. In other words, you know what, in other words, you haven't practiced harmonic motion patterns to develop muscle memory, where the hands know instinctively where to go. Right? That's the goal. To practice harmonic motion patterns to develop muscle memory where the hands know instinctively where to go. And it sounds like what's happening is that you are actually trying

to decisions on the fly. And if you're doing that, you are facing an uphill battle. So what I want to provide for you today, I want to provide four harmonic motion patterns to begin practicing over the two five one progression so that you do indeed develop instinctual muscle memory patterns.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (17:15.696)
which will make playing tunes I promise so much easier. So to begin, to begin, I want you to take a timeout from playing lead sheets, just forget about lead sheets for a while, right from playing tunes. And instead, I want you to focus on the most common harmonic motion found in tunes. And of course, when I'm talking about the most common harmonic function motion found in tunes, I'm

talking about circle motion, right? Circle motion, known affectionately as the 251 progression. Now, if you are playing block chords, root, third, fifth, and seventh of the sound, which I assume you are, then there are a couple of facts that I want to make sure that you are aware of. Okay. Fact number one.

when playing four note chords blocks, root, third, fifth, and seventh of the sound, moving in circle motion. When you're playing these four note chords moving in circle motion, two, five, one, right? It's so important to know this. Only two notes will move when transitioning from one chord to the next chord. Only two notes. So what I'm saying to you is

is if you're playing a two five one progression, if you're moving more than two notes to go from your two chord to your five chord, and from your five chord to your one chord, then you automatically know, something's not right. Because when playing four note chords blocks moving in circle motion to five one, two notes only are needed to move when transitioning from one chord to the next chord. That's fact number one.

Fact number two, if you are playing four note chords, blocks, moving in circle motion, then there will be four ways to play that progression. Four note chord, four ways to play the progression. These two facts are so important to know before we dive in. Again, going back to what I've always say, right? Conceptual understanding drives physical development.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (19:41.136)
So with our awareness of these two facts, I want to walk you through how to practice the two five one progression in a way that as you put it smoothly connects each chord, which is what you've been searching for. All right, so here we go. I'm going to play these examples in the key of C. So we're going to be dealing with the D minor seven, going to the G dominant seven.

resolving to the C major 7. So if I start with the D minor 7 in root position, D, A, C, all I have to do, move the top two notes, the A and the C down to G and B. That's it. Now I have my G dominant 7 in second inversion. And now to resolve that G7 to C major, all I need to do is move the

bottom two notes. So I'm going to move my D and F down to C and E. That's it. Pretty smooth. Listen to that.

to G7, move two notes to C major. Beautiful, right? So another way to look at that is that you're playing your D minor, the top two notes move, and now the bottom two notes move. Okay, so that's option number one. Playing the II V I progression with the two chords starting in root position. Now, if the two chord, the D minor,

is starting in first inversion. Now my chord is F, A, C, D. My root is on top of my block. Now I'm only going to use two notes again to move. My A and C, my inner notes, are going to move to my G and B. So my two inside notes. And now to move from my G7, to resolve my G7 to my C major 7, my two outer notes are going to move.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (21:53.338)
it. So two inner notes move, which means the two outer notes need to move when going from the five to the one. So again on the D minor first inversion, I'm to move my A and C, the two inner notes, the G and B. And then to get from my G7 to my C major, I'm going to move my two outer notes, my F down to the E, and my D to the C.

resolve it very nicely to the one. So to hear it again.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (22:31.464)
again, only two notes are moving. Option number two, okay. Now option number three, we start our D minor and second inversion. So I have A, C, D, F. Guess what? The bottom two notes are going to move. My A and C move down to my G and B. And if my bottom two notes move, then now to resolve my G7 to my C major, it must mean my top two notes must move. And sure enough, they do.

My D and F move down to C and E, and I resolve it nicely to C major seven. So again, D minor, second inversion, moving to the G seven in root position, resolving to C major in second inversion. And once again, I'm only moving two notes at a time. Two notes, the move from the minor to the dominant,

two notes to move from the dominant to the major. All right, and then finally, option number four, if the D minor is being played in third inversion, C, D, F, A. Now, in order to get to my G7, my two outer notes are going to move. So now I have G dominant in first inversion, and now my two inner notes are going to move to get to my C major.

up with C major in third inversion. So again, listen to it. Wow, very smooth, nicely connected. And again, only use moving two notes to get from my minor to my dominant, moving two notes to get from my dominant to my major. So again,

Option one, starting with D minor in root position.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (24:33.48)
D minor in first inversion.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (24:40.04)
3d minor in second inversion

Dr. Bob Lawrence (24:55.304)
All four options just require the movement of two notes to go from the two chord to the five chord to the one chord. So Dina, you want to practice this voice leading with the two five one progression circle motion because circle motion is the most common motion that you're going to find in the tunes that you're wanting to play. Ninety plus percent of every standard, I guarantee it, ninety plus percent of every standard

chord changes are moving in circle motion. Of course, the other type, two types of harmonic movement, diatonic and chromatic movement, but without question, circle motion is the most common. So therefore, start with circle motion armed with these two facts that I mentioned earlier that when playing four note chords blocks moving in circle motion, only two notes will move when transitioning from one chord to the next chord.

In fact, number two, that if you're playing four note chords, blocks, moving in circle motion, there will be four ways to play the progression, which I just demonstrated, right? So again, with our awareness of these two facts, I want to stress to you that you practice this in all 12 keys. You will find that you are building the muscle memory to instinctually move

from one chord to the next chord, right? So it will help you, as you said, smoothly connect your chords. So I hope this helps in practicing these four ways to play or to connect the chords using the circle movement, the two, five, one progression. I think you're going to find, if you do it, you're going to find playing lead sheets to be much, much easier. Now,

When you get to traditional shell voicings and contemporary shell voicings and two handed voicings that we're going to actually look at today with our harmonic analysis of tangerine. When you get to those voicing types, let me know. There are harmonic motion patterns for these voicing types as well that you will want to practice apart from any tune in preparation for playing tunes. So I hope it helps if further clarification is needed.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (27:16.162)
By all means, Dina, not hesitate to reach out to me and let me know. I'm happy to kick the can around a little more with you and help you in any way that I possibly can. All right, it's time to get busy. It's time for us to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. It's time for us to discover, learn, and play tangerine. Well, as always, when studying and learning a tune,

I approach it as you all know, the same way. And again, genre makes no difference. If we're, you know, if we were studying a rock tune or pop tune country or folk R &B doesn't have to be a jazz tune any any genre. I always go about it the same way. Right? Number one, I listen, I listen to every rendition of that tune that I can possibly get my hands on. And I listen to renditions from various artists, vocalist, instrumentalist, pianist.

in different from different genres. I listen to professionals, I listen to amateurs, it doesn't matter. I want to listen to various interpretations of the tune as much as possible. And that's why we always put together a very extensive listening list every single week for you to check out before we dive into our tune study. Now, after I do my listening, I turn my attention to harmonic analysis, which we're going to be doing today. I like to look at the form of the piece.

understand that form, understand the unique chord changes within the tune, the harmonic function of those chord changes. I like to highlight common harmonic movement. And of course, I will experiment with voicings using traditional blocks, using contemporary shells, traditional shells and two handed structures. After I do a harmonic analysis, I turn my attention to melody.

I'll transcribe the melody, of course, by ear. I'll highlight the phrases within that melody and the various targets within the phrases, important notes within the phrases. And then, of course, I'll explore various treatments of that tune. Another reason why listening is so important, to listen to all the various treatments. We tend to hear at Jazz Panel Skills, look at the standard treatments of a tune, a ballad, a bossa swing.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (29:38.859)
And then finally, after doing the melodic analysis, I will turn my attention to improvisation development, where I will study the chord scale relationships, arpeggio scale movement, the use of tension and so on, and various patterns, rhythmic patterns, melodic patterns, harmonic patterns for improvisation development. So it's a very thorough, it's a very complete approach that we execute every single month when we study a tune. And

I find it to be a way that when I actually study a tune in this way, I actually learn the tune. I actually can say I know the tune as opposed to trying to memorize the tune. So, you know, this week our harmonic analysis, of course, again, will have us listening, determining the form, learning the chord changes, harmonic function, and the voicings for tangerine. Next week, we'll do the melodic analysis. And of course, the week after that,

improvisation. So the educational agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we are going to listen to definitive recordings of tangerine. Number two, we will discuss the form of tangerine. Number three, we will discover, learn and play the chord changes for tangerine. Number four, we will discover, learn and play the harmonic function for tangerine. Number five, we will discover, learn and play

suggested voicings for tangerine, my block voicings, left hand shell voicings, two handed, two handed structures, two handed structures. And we will also take a look at a common harmonic movement found within the chord progression of tangerine as well for ear training development. So, wow, that's a lot, right? So if you are a Jazz Piano Skills member, I want you to take just a few minutes right now, hit the pause button and I want you to download

print the podcast packets. Again, these are the educational materials, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs that I produce and develop for every podcast episode. And getting your membership grants, you have access to this material. So please have them in your hands when listening to the podcast episode so that you get the most out of the episode.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (31:59.169)
And of course, you should have these podcast packets sitting on your piano when practicing during a week or on your music stand to help you maximize your musical growth. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets in your hands, I want you to grab as always, we begin with our lead sheets. All right, you should have eight lead sheets in your packet eight lead sheets. And I just want to

walk through them here very quickly. Sheet number one, diagrams the form of tangerine. Lead Sheet two identifies unique chord changes found in tangerine. Lead Sheet three, you'll see gives you a clean lead sheet of just the chord changes. Lead Sheet number four provides you with a harmonic function lead sheet, very important. Lead Sheet five highlights the common progressions.

that we will use for ear training. Lead Sheet 6, block voicings, the chords voiced using block shapes. Lead Sheet 7, you'll see the shell voicings for tangerine. And then Lead Sheet 8 gives you the two-handed voicings that I play when, that I use when playing tangerine. So great lead sheet packet, a ton to dissect.

So we need to get busy. Okay, so. All right. Grab lead sheet number one. And let's talk about the form of tangerine.

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