Tangerine, Melodic Analysis

Dr. Bob Lawrence (00:32.952)
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Here we are, week two of the month, which means, as week two always means, it's a melodic analysis week. Last week, we took our tune of the month, the standard tangerine, and we did our typical harmonic analysis, examining the form, traditional changes, harmonic function, common harmon-

common harmonic movement. Of course, we looked at the voicings, the block structures and their inversions, traditional shells, contemporary shells, and of course the two-handed structures. We always follow our harmonic analysis with a melodic analysis to discover, learn, and play melody, fingerings, phrases, target notes, and of course various standard treatments of the tune. So every month we take a tune and study it harmonically, melodically,

and as we will do next week, improvisationally. These are areas of study that, quite honestly, every aspiring jazz musician, not just pianists, but every jazz musician, must gain a functional command of, a conceptual and physical command. And how do you accomplish this essential task? Well, I'll tell you. It begins with establishing a very well thought out and constructed practice strategy.

which requires a proper conceptual understanding of music, or as I like to say, the seven facts of music. If music does not become simple for you conceptually, then you have no shot of having success with it physically. Let me say that again, because it's really important. If music does not become simple for you conceptually, then you have absolutely zero shot of having success with it physically.

And is why, that is precisely why I stress over and over and over again the importance of knowing the seven facts of music, which are number one, music is the production of sound and silence. Sound, of course, being major, dominant, minor, half diminished and diminished. Fact number two, sound is produced harmonically and melodically. We have harmonic shapes, we have melodic shapes.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (02:58.977)
Fact number three, when sound is produced harmonically, we are playing chords or voicings. Fact number four, when sound is produced melodically, we are playing arpeggios and scales. Fact number five, when playing those arpeggios and scales, we can only move in one of two directions, right? We can either go up or we can come down. Fact number six, we like to decorate or camouflage those arpeggios and scales with tension. Notes outside.

of the harmony, or what we call chromaticism. And then finally, fact number seven, to make all of this interesting, facts one through six, we add rhythm. Yep, 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, tension, and expressed rhythmically, that's the key to becoming a musician.

Because once you do understand that music is the production of harmonic and melodic shapes that go up and down the piano using arpeggio and scale motion, decorated with chromaticism, tension, and expressed rhythmically, well, at that moment, it's at that point you can begin to assemble a practice strategy that reflects this understanding, that reflects this musical truth.

Until then, well, until then, without this understanding, without knowledge of this musical truth, conceptually solidified, you are just simply wandering around collecting information to throw at your musical dartboard, hoping that something sticks, that something actually hits the bullseye, and you have instant success.

not a good plan. In fact, I think I actually think you have a better you have better odds at being struck by lightning winning the lottery or becoming faster than a speeding bullet more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. In other words, it's just not going to happen. So with our musical compass in hand, the seven facts of

Dr. Bob Lawrence (05:27.595)
music, we tackle a new tune every month harmonically, melodically, improvisationally, which are the three musical camps that encompass the seven musical facts. So all this to say that today we are doing a melodic analysis. Today we are going to melodically discover tangerine and we are going to learn the melody, of course by ear.

We're gonna check out the phrases and the target notes of tangerine, and we are going to play the melody of tangerine supported by our voicings that we discovered last week with our harmonic analysis using three standard jazz treatments. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your personal jazz journey, a beginner, 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 tangerine melodically to be very beneficial. But as I always do, before we jump in and get after it, I want to welcome all of the first time listeners to the Jazz Piano Skills Podcast. And if you are indeed new,

Jazz Piano Skills, you're listening for the first time, just became aware of the Jazz Piano Skills website and the Jazz Piano Skills podcast, I want to invite you to become a Jazz Piano Skills member. Now your membership comes with many perks. Number one, you have access to premium podcast content, which basically means you get to listen to the entire podcast episode. The first half of every podcast episode for Jazz Piano Skills,

is free for everyone to enjoy. I deal with the question of the week, lay out the educational agenda and the lesson rationale. The second half of the podcast of every podcast for members only, presentation of the lesson content, the demonstrations, and then of course, the review of the podcast packets, which are the educational materials that I design and develop for every weekly podcast episode, the illustrations, the lead sheets and the play alongs.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (07:52.106)
that you should have in your hands when listening to the podcast episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you should be having this material on your piano or music stand when practicing throughout the week as well. As a member, you also have access to the online courses. These are comprehensive sound based self paced and sequential courses that are that focus on harmonic, melodic and improvisation development.

As a Jazz Panel Skills member, you have a reserved seat in the online weekly masterclass, which is held every Thursday evening at 8pm Central Time, which of course I know is not the best time for everyone. But that is why every masterclass is recorded so you can watch the video of the class whenever convenient for you and as often as you wish. And finally, as a Jazz Panel Skills member, you have access to the online private Jazz Panel

Skills Community. Wonderful community that hosts a variety of forums, there are episode specific forums, as well as general jazz forums. It's a great place place to meet folks, offer some member feedback and assistance and receive some member feedback and assistance and as well. And last but not least, as a Jazz Panel Skills member, you have access to educational support, private, personal and professional support.

available throughout the week, throughout the month, throughout the year, whenever you need assistance. So all of these amazing privileges are waiting to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano. So check it all out at JazzPianoSkills.com and of course become a member. If you get to the site, you're poking around, you have some questions by all means. Do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to answer any of the questions that you may have and help you in any way that I can.

I also want to take just a few minutes to encourage everyone to subscribe to the Jazz Panel Skills YouTube channel to begin receiving notifications about the educational videos that I am publishing every week. And in fact, I'm happy to share with you that I now have, which I'm really thrilled about, I now have a weekly educational agenda that I am actually implementing, getting it launched here this week.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (10:15.5)
that I've posted at the Jazz Panel Skills website. And the way it works is this on Monday of every week, I release a previous week recap video, YouTube video that summarizes the educational content presented throughout the previous week, right? Then on Tuesday, I will continue to release a new Jazz Panel Skills podcast episode.

along with the educational podcast packets. On Wednesday, that will be our Quick Tip Day, which is a YouTube video presenting valuable insight regarding the practicing of an essential jazz skill. On Thursday, I have the online masterclass, which is again also recorded and released as a YouTube video. And then Friday is Challenge Day.

where I present either a harmony melody or improvisation slash rhythm skill in a YouTube video that will test your ability to execute the skill proficiently. And then Saturday, I will release and publish a new blog article. And the blog, by the way, can be accessed through the Jazz Piano Skills website, but you should also be

receiving an email announcement as well. So if you're not, if you're not receiving that email announcement with for the blog, please let me know and I'll make sure that you get on the mail list. And then finally on Sunday, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to rest. I'm to go to church. I'm going to pray. I'm going to spend time with family, watch some sports, fire up my big green egg, eat a little barbecue and enjoy an ice cold Shiner Bach beer made right here in the beautiful state of Texas.

perfect is that? And then I start all over again on Monday. you know, it only took me 307 episodes, but I now finally have a repeatable weekly educational agenda that ties everything together. And that I think that we all can lock into this weekly agenda, that that what we all find to be enormously beneficial to our jazz growth. And again,

Dr. Bob Lawrence (12:36.65)
You can check out that weekly educational agenda on the Jazz Piano Skills website. Okay, so let's get on to the question of the week. This week's question comes from Deborah Garza, living in Boulder, Colorado. And Deborah writes, Hi, Dr. Lawrence, I have played the piano for many years started as a child. My playing experience has been classical music, but I have always loved

jazz. I recently discovered jazz piano skills and have thoroughly enjoyed learning the standards. My question is this. How do I break out of playing the melody exactly as written after years of training of playing the melody exactly as written? And how much freedom do I have when interpreting

a melody? Wow. That's a great question, Deborah. It's, it's tough. I'll tell you, it's tough, right? I totally get it. And it's also you know what, it's funny, because I was trained as a classical musician, and I could never, ever play melodies exactly as written. I found that to be extremely difficult. And of course, I

I frustrated my classical teachers endlessly. Right? For sure. Every lesson was, I can still hear them now, right? Every lesson was Bob, that rhythm there is not quite right. And you know what, let's double check some of those notes, because I think you're, I think you're playing some notes that are not correct. know, heck, I finally said, you know what, forget this. I'm going to switch to jazz.

where I have some liberty to play things the way I want to play them, right? And all I can say is best decision ever. So anyway, sounds like, Deborah, it sounds like you have the opposite problem. You are great at playing melodies as written and find it challenging to get off the paper.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (15:03.038)
and play what you are feeling. Opposite problem, but no problem. Okay, so I think the challenge is to play what you are feeling. And if you're not feeling anything, well, good luck. So let's do this. want to answer another question first that I think will ultimately answer your question, Deborah.

So the question I want to address first is this. How do I develop feelings that are idiomatically jazz so that I can naturally experience and express those feelings when playing jazz standards?

that's a great question. So the answer is one word. Listen. That's it. You have to listen to jazz a lot. In fact, you will hear me a little later in this podcast episode express the importance of listening when learning tunes and how it is the first thing that I do when learning a tune. It's that

important. Now I think I have mentioned this musical fact in just about every podcast episode that I have done. And that is this, your hands and your ears can never go where they have never been. It's impossible. So if you are not giving your ears a heavy dose of jazz listening, then it's

going to be very difficult for you to play anything that sounds like jazz. So you'll always then resort back to the written page. So likewise, you know, I have used, I have used an example multiple times that, that if I, you know, if I wanted to learn how to speak French, I would invest immediately in recordings of people speaking French.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (17:20.01)
Now, I wouldn't care about what they're saying. I wouldn't care about following the conversation. Heck, I wouldn't even care about the words that they are speaking. All I would want to do is begin hearing the articulation of the language. And I would want to become familiar with what the language sounds like.

Right? So the same goes for jazz. We listen so that we can become familiar with how jazz sounds. Then we begin imitating the sound.

And that begins with our ability to play melodies in idiomatically jazz way. Right? So it all starts with listening. So Deborah, how do you break out of playing the melody exactly as written on the page? It begins with doing a lot of listening so you can begin doing a lot of imitating. You should be able to internally sing the melody.

with or without lyrics makes no difference being able to sing the melody with or without lyrics so that your hands respond to your vocalization. In essence, your hands are taking dictation. Now the second part of your question was about how much freedom you have when interpreting a

Now the answer to that question is two words, a lot. And yes, the letter A is a word. However, however, we need to be very, very careful, very careful, right? Your interpretation of a melody should leave no doubt as to what song you are playing. No doubts. In other words, if your interpretation of a melody is not reckoned

Dr. Bob Lawrence (19:37.062)
recognizable as the tune you are playing, then you have a really bad interpretation of the melody. I know that may sound obvious, but I wanted to make sure I stated this all important caveat. So, Debra, I hope that some of this insight and information is helpful to you. know, later in this podcast, I will be demonstrating the presentation of the melody of tangerine using

different jazz styles, all using different tempos, which is going to require me to interpret the melody very differently. Right. So what I will be modeling is a very good way to practice melodic interpretation, helping you break away from the written page. So check it out. Let me know what you think. And of course, further clarification,

is needed. Or if you have additional questions, I'm happy to dig deeper with you and help in whatever way that I can. All right, but it's a great question. Know that you're not alone. And I would strongly suggest diving into a lot of jazz listening, listen to it as much as possible. Okay. All right. So along those lines,

When studying and learning any new tune, I go through this outline every week. I approach it the same way. And again, genre makes no difference. It has no impact, right? It doesn't matter whether it's a jazz tune, rock, pop, country, folk, R &B. I go about learning the tune the same way. Guess what the number one thing is I do? The very first thing? I listen, right? Listen. And I listen.

to everything I get my hands on. I listen to various artists, vocalists, instrumentalists, pianists, professionals, amateurs, it makes no difference. If somebody is playing the tune that I want to learn, I'm going to check it out. It's just that simple. Number two, I always turn to doing a harmonic analysis first. Again, maybe that's because I'm a pianist, and we play chords.

Dr. Bob Lawrence (21:55.206)
and harmony. We pay a lot of attention to harmonic structures and harmonic function and chord movement. So I always turn to a harmonic analysis like we did last week, looking at the form, understanding the changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, play around with voicings. That's number two. Number three, after I had my harmonic analysis done, I will turn my attention to melody. I'll transcribe that melody. I'll play it

learn it by ear. I will then dissect that melody into phrases, and I will look at various target notes within those phrases. And then of course, I will experiment and play around with various treatments of the tune, forcing me to interpret that melody in a variety of ways, right? And then finally, number four, after all that, I'll turn my attention to finally

improvising with the tune. And I will study the chord scale relationships. I will look at various ways to utilize arpeggio on scale motion through the tune. I'll explore with attention and chromaticism, and of course, ideas as well. So again, it's a pretty thorough process. I listen.

harmonic analysis, melodic analysis, improvisation development, everything that we do here at Jazz Piano Skills every single month, every single month. And listening again is so important. You know, we have in the forums, a listening list that Lisa puts together for us every single, every single week, which is out of this world. It's fantastic. Always a great variety of

interpretations and an artist performing. And so again that this whole whole approach we do it every single month with every single tune every single week right listening listening and then our harmonic melodic and improvisation analysis. So you know this month like I said we've already completed our harmonic analysis today we are turning our attention to our melodic development. So the edu

Dr. Bob Lawrence (24:17.426)
agenda for today is as follows. Number one, we are going to listen to various recordings of tangerine. So head on over to the forums to the community and check out the list that has been prepared for us. Number two, we will learn the melody of tangerine by ear transcribing it. Number three, we will look at my suggested fingerings for playing the melody of tangerine. Number four, we will identify the

melodic phrases found within the melody and the various target notes within those phrases. And number five, we will apply the voicings from last week's harmonic analysis to the melody of tangerine. And then finally, number six, we will take our melody and our voicings and we will then interpret those, the melody and voicings using three standard treatments to tangerine. So wow.

what a lineup. Now, if you are a Jazz Piano Skills member, I want you to hit the pause button right now and take just a few minutes to download and print your podcast packets. Again, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play alongs. As I mentioned earlier, your membership grants you access to this material. And again, you should have this material in your hands when listening to the episode to get the most out of it. And of course, having having on your piano when

practicing throughout the week as well. All right. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets, I want you as always, we begin with the lead sheets. So grab your lead sheets. And you should have seven lead sheets in your packet. Okay, and I want to just walk through them quickly. Before we do a deep dive on each one of them. So lead sheet number one is what I call a fill in the blank template.

where we are going to transcribe that melody. And I have some guides within the template there, as you can see, to kind of keep you on track, helping you to decipher the melody of this tune. Lead sheet number two is just a clean, melodic lead sheet. It's kind of like the answer guide to lead sheet one. So once you've done the transcribing work, then we can look at it and compare your results

Dr. Bob Lawrence (26:45.476)
to my results. Okay. Lead sheet number three, I have inserted my suggested fingerings for playing tangerine. Lead sheet four, I identify the phrases that we want to be aware of, and we want to practice to help us truly learn this tune. And then lead sheet five dives a little deeper within those phrases.

and identifies the target notes within those phrases that in other words, if you were just playing these notes, these target notes, you would hear tangerine. And then finally, lead sheet six applies the left hand block voicings from our harmonic analysis last week to the melody of tangerine. And then lead sheet seven applies the left hand shell voicings, the traditional and contemporary shell voicings that we discovered last week with our harmonic analysis.

we apply that to the melody of tangerine as well. So, wow, we have a ton to dissect today, so we need to get busy. So here we go. Grab lead sheet one, and let's take a look at how we are going to approach transcribing the melody of tangerine.

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