Teach Me Tonight, Harmonic Analysis

Dr. Bob Lawrence: 00:32
Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Week one of a brand new month. It's hard to believe, but here we are once again beginning a brand new monthly tune study. And as we all know, week one of every month is when we dedicate ourselves to understanding the harmonic architecture of a tune. This month, our tune study is the wonderful standard Teach Me Tonight. As always, our study will begin with a harmonic analysis, followed in week two with a melodic analysis, week three with improvisation development, and week four, solo piano approaches. In other words, we will spend the entire month doing exactly what we should be doing: developing essential jazz piano skills. Now, last month we wrapped up our study of I've got the world on a string. We explored the harmony, the melody, improvisation, and solo piano application. And now we move forward. Not because the work is finished, but because growth requires movement, which leads me directly to my opening thoughts for today. You know, every month, every month as we wrap up our study of one tune and begin another, I receive several emails from jazz piano skills members expressing the exact same concern. They say things like, Dr. Bob, I still need to work on the voicings. My melody isn't solid yet. My improvisation still feels weak. I'm not sure I'm ready to move on. And honestly, I completely understand these thoughts, these sentiments. Because musicians, especially conscientious musicians, they want to feel complete. They want to feel finished. They want to feel confident. That's the big one. They want to feel confident before moving forward. But here's the reality: music doesn't work that way. And growth certainly doesn't work that way. You know, one of the biggest mistakes musicians make is allowing grass to grow under their feet. They stay in one place way too long. They keep polishing the same thing, refining the same thing, revisiting the same thing while forward motion stops. Progress requires movement. Progress requires new experiences. And progress requires new musical situations, which is exactly why at Jazz Piano Skills we move forward every month. New tune, same skills. Think about that. Because it is one of the most important truths in music education, in jazz education. The tune changes, the skills remain. Harmony remains harmony. Melody remains melody. Improvisation remains improvisation. The musical demands never ever change. Only the musical environment changes. Every new tune validates the importance of essential jazz piano skills. Every new tune reveals the commonality that exists from tune to tune to tune throughout music. The goal is not to complete a tune. The goal is to become a more complete musician. That's important. I'm going to say that again. The goal is not to complete a tune. The goal is to become a more complete musician. Nothing is lost when we move forward. Nothing is abandoned. Nothing is surrendered. Instead, your understanding expands. Your awareness deepens. And your skills become more transferable. And your musicianship becomes more complete. Eventually, you realize that the tune is not the destination. The tune is the vehicle. The tune exposes our weaknesses. It reveals our strengths and uncovers gaps in our thinking and playing. It exposes weaknesses. The tune reveals strengths as well. And the tune uncovers gaps in our thinking, in our playing. The tune illuminates opportunities for growth. And where does growth always lead us? Growth leads us back to the fundamentals, back to voicings, back to scales, back to arpeggios, right? Funny how that works, right? Growth always directs us back to the beginning. And eventually, when you go back to the beginning, you discover something even more important. You discover that the tune was never the goal. The musician is the goal. You stop collecting tunes and begin developing musicianship. You stop chasing information and begin discovering musical truth. The truth eventually leads you back to the seven facts of music. Not academically, not theoretically. Instead, musically. You begin hearing them, seeing them, feeling them, experiencing them. Harmony, melody, motion, tension, rhythm, everywhere, in every tune, in every phrase, in every improvisational idea, in every solo piano approach. Music begins to simplify because you realize there are not a thousand things happening. There are only a few musical truths being expressed in countless musical ways. And that's exactly why we study tunes at Jazz Piano Skills, not simply to learn tunes, but to actually discover musical truth, musical facts. So today we tackle harmonic analysis. Today we are going to discover the harmonic architecture of Teach Me Tonight. We are going to learn form, chord movement, harmonic function, voicings. We're going to organize sound and create musical structure. And we're going to play the essential harmonic structures of Teach Me Tonight using block voicings, traditional shell voicings, contemporary shell voicings, two-handed voicings. Wow, we have a lot to do. So as I always like to say, regardless of where you are on your jazz journey, whether you are a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you consider yourself a seasoned and experienced professional, you will find this Jazz Piano Skills podcast lesson, exploring Teach Me Tonight, harmonic analysis, to be very beneficial. But you know what? Before we get started, I want to, as I always do, welcome all of you first-time listeners to Jazz Piano Skills. If you are indeed new to the Jazz Piano Skills podcast or new to Jazz Piano Skills, welcome. I'm very glad that you are here and joining us today. I want to encourage you to explore becoming a Jazz Piano Skills member because everything we discuss here, the structure, the clarity, the organization, it's fully supported inside the Jazz Piano Skills membership. As a member, you'll have access to the complete weekly podcast episodes, including all the demonstrations and the lesson content, the downloadable educational podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, and the play-alongs. You'll also, as a Jazz Piano Skills member, have access to a sequential library of courses designed to be very practical, organized, sequential, and sound based. You also have a reserved seat in my weekly masterclass that I host every Thursday evening. In those master classes, if you're unable to make the masterclass each week, they are recorded so you can watch the video archives at your convenience. As a Jazz Piano Skills member, you also have access to the private Jazz Piano Skills community for discussion, questions, support. And you also have direct access to me whenever you need guidance. So everything at Jazz Piano Skills is designed from bottom to top, is designed with one goal in mind to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano in a very clear, very structured, very meaningful way. So you can learn more about all of this at jazzpianelskills.com. And uh once you get to the website, if you have any questions after you poke around, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm always happy to spend time with you and answer any uh questions that you may have. Also, if you are not already receiving the weekly Jazz Piano Skills blog, I encourage you to join the email list, which you can do on the homepage at the Jazz Piano Skills website. Every weekend, I publish a written recap of the week's lesson designed to reinforce what you're learning, help you stay organized, and keep you moving forward in your musical development. All right, let's uh move on to the question of the week. And this week's question comes from David McCarthy, living in Springfield, Illinois. Springfield, Illinois. And David, I selected his question because of course it just fits in beautifully with today's episode. David writes, Dr. Bob, how do I know when I have finished a tune? How do I know when I'm ready to move on to another tune? I always feel like there is still more work to be done with every tune I learn, which makes it difficult for me to leave the tune behind and move on to a new one. Any advice and guidance you can give is appreciated. Well, David, yeah, it's a perfect question for this week. And uh, and honestly, I as I mentioned, I think, I think every serious musician wrestles with this question ongoing, right? Because musicians we all want to improve. We want to get things right, we want to master what we're studying. And because of that, we often convince ourselves that we need to completely, whatever that means, completely finish one tune before moving on to another. But here's the problem: tunes are never really finished. Not if you're growing and not if you're learning, not if you're becoming a better musician. If I asked you to revisit a tune that you studied five years ago, you you would hear things today that you never heard then, and you would play things today that you could not play then. Why? Well, because you've changed. Growth changes your relationship with every tune you study, which means the goal is not to completely finish a tune. The goal is to develop skills through the study of a tune. I have preached this from day one. Many students think I'm leaving the tune behind, but that's not that's not what's happening. You're actually carrying your skills forward. Remember, I mentioned it earlier: harmony remains harmony, melody remains melody, improvisation remains improvisation. The tunes change, the skills remain. So, you know, how do you know when you're ready to move on? Well, I think actually that's a pretty simple question to answer. You're ready to move on when you've honestly engaged with the material, when you've studied the harmony, you've studied the melody, you've practiced improvisation, you've explored even solo piano approaches, everything that we do every month with every tune that we study. And most importantly, when you learn, when you've learned something you didn't know before, which you will do with every tune that you study, that's when you know it's ready, you're ready to move on. Because progress is not measured by perfection, it's really it's measured by growth. And growth, as I mentioned, requires movement, forward motion, new tunes, new challenges, new musical environments, which again is exactly why at Jazz Piano Skills, we need we move on. We we do not let grass grow under our feet. We keep moving, we keep learning, we keep connecting musical ideas, we keep expanding our understanding. And you know what? There is one more thing that is incredibly important to understand. If you're studying a tune correctly, harmonically, melodically, improvisationally, then something very interesting happens. The tune doesn't actually point you to another tune. The tune actually if you're studying it correctly, the tune actually points you back to the fundamentals, back to your chord work, voicings, back to scales, back to arpeggios, back to rhythm. Right? It's funny how that works. Growth always directs us back to the beginning. And honestly, uh that may be the greatest indicator, David. That that I think that is the greatest indicator that you are ready to move on to another tune. Not because you've mastered the tune, not because you've perfected the tune, not because you've exhausted every possibility with the tune, but because the tune has done its job. It has revealed what it needs, it has revealed to you, right, what needs to be strengthened, what needs to be refined, what fundamentals need more attention. And when you find yourself excited to return to voicings, to return to scales, return to arpeggios, excited to focus on rhythmic development, right, that's a very, very good sign. Because that's when you realize the tune was never the goal. The musician is the goal. And David, here's the real cherry on top of all of this. When a tune has done its job, when it has exposed your weaknesses, it's revealed your strengths, it's pointed you back toward the fundamentals, something very, very special begins to happen. You begin discovering, you begin learning, you begin playing. Here we go. The seven facts of music. Not theoretically, not academically, like I mentioned earlier, but musically. You begin hearing them, you begin seeing them, you begin feeling them, you begin experiencing them. Harmony, melody, motion, tension, rhythm. Everywhere, in every tune, in every phrase, and in every improvisational idea, you hear the seven facts of music. Music begins to simplify because you realize there aren't a thousand things happening. There are only a few musical truths, the musical facts being expressed in countless musical ways. So, what are those musical facts? This is a great time to bring these into the discussion. Here are the seven facts of music that tune study should always be pointing you back to. Fact number one, music is the production of sound and silence. And again, our primary sounds major, dominant, minor, half diminished, and diminished. Fact number two, harmonic sound equals chords and voicings, right? Or harmonic shapes. Fact number three, melodic sound equals scales and arpeggios, melodic shapes. Fact number four, harmonic sound moves one of three directions. Circle motion, chromatic motion, diatonic motion. Fact number five, melodic sound moves in one of two directions, up or down, that's it. Fact number six, we decorate melodic movement using tension or notes outside of the harmony, or what we refer to as chromaticism. And finally, fact number seven, we give everything life by adding rhythm. Rhythm organizes time. Without rhythm, there is no music, only notes. Right? So, David, think about this. We just spent the entire month studying I've got the world on a string, and today we begin studying teach me tonight. It's a new tune, different melody, different harmonic environment, but the facts, yeah, the facts remain exactly the same. And that's why growth always directs us back to the fundamentals, ultimately back to the seven facts of music. David, I'll leave you with this uh thought as well. Okay, when in your journey, when learning a tune, right, there there's uh there's like basically four levels, okay? Level one, level one thinking, right? Study tune, learn tune, move on. Right? Pretty shallow. Study tune, learn tune, move on. Level two, study the tune, develop skills, move on. Now that's much better, right? Just study the tune, develop skills, move on. Level three, I would say, is like study the tune, develop skills, return to the fundamentals, deepening our understanding, deepening our understanding of musical truth. Now we're getting somewhere. With this kind of thinking, we're getting somewhere. Study the tune, develop skills, return to the fundamentals, deep deepen our understanding of musical truth. And then I think the top level, the top level, study the tune, which I uh level four. Top level, study the tune, develop skills, return to the fundamentals, discover the seven facts of music operating everywhere. Wow. Now that's the ultimate realization. Study the tune, develop skills, return to fundamentals, discover the seven facts of music everywhere. And that's why at jazz piano skills we never study tunes simply to study tunes. We study tunes to discover musical truth. Because the tune changes, but the skills remain. And keep this in mind, David, the tune is never the goal, the musician is. And growth always directs us back to the fundamentals, it always directs us back to the seven facts of music. So, David, I don't know, I kind of went on a little rampage there. I hope, I hope that that gives you some direction and guidance with regards, or comfort, I should say. I hope it gives you some comfort with moving on, with moving on. Okay. If uh we need to explore this a little bit further, more clarification is needed, by all means, please let me know. I'm happy to jump on a call with you and discuss it further. So all right. So speaking of discovering musical truth, let's take a moment to review the rationale behind the jazz piano skills monthly uh tune study approach. When studying a tune, any tune, right, we always approach it the same way. And again, I always mention this every week. Genre makes no difference. I know we study jazz here, but if we were studying rock, pop, country, folk, R&B, whatever, our process would remain exactly 100% the same. Number one, we always listen and listen to as many artists as we possibly can. Vocalists, instrumentalists, pianists, professionals, amateurs. You know, because listening is where musical awareness begins. You know, before we analyze, before we practice, before we play, we must listen. And that's why we have a killer listening list every single week that goes along with every single podcast that's posted in our community, in our forums, so that we can spend time, crucial time, listening. Then after we listen, harmonic analysis that we're going to do today. We always look at the form, changes, harmonic function, common harmonic movement, our voicings, right? Because harmony, as I say, organizes sound. And if harmony is unclear, you know what? No need to move on. Because everything that follows will be unclear, right? So having a harmonic foundation in place of any tune and understanding of that harmonic foundation, absolutely essential. Then we always turn our attention to a melodic analysis. We look at the melody, we transcribe it, we look at phrases, entry points, destination points, target notes. We explore various treatments with the melody, ballad, basa, swing, right? Because melody organizes motion. Harmony organizes sound, melody organizes motion. And then finally, uh we always in week three spend time devoted to improvisation. We will look at uh chord scale relationships, melodic motifs, melodic pathways, rhythmic placement, phrase organization, because rhythm organizes time. And improvisation is not, as I've mentioned before, not it's not spontaneous creation. It is organized musical thought in motion. You need to begin practicing harmonic shapes with targets, melodic shapes with direction, rhythmic shapes with placement, organized in the musical phrases because improvisation, again, is not the creation of random ideas, it is the organization of musical ideas, right? These ideas are discovered, they're learned, they're played over and over and over again. And finally, we always devote time to solo piano application or solo piano approaches, bringing our harmony, our melody, our improvisation, rhythm together simultaneously, and organized independently, yet functioning musically as one complete sound, right? So, you know, our whole approach every month, very thorough, it's a very complete approach, but notice something. Every stage, right? Harmony, melody, improv, solo, piano approaches, every stage points us back to the fundamentals. Every stage points us back to the seven facts of music, which is exactly why this approach works. Tune after tune, month after month, year after month, year after year. So this month, where we begin our study of Teach Me Tonight, which means today we begin exactly where we should begin, with harmony, with understanding the architecture of the tune. Because before you can play a tune, you must understand what makes the tune work. So today's educational agenda is as follows. First, we are going to listen to several definitive recordings of Teach Me Tonight. Because before we study a tune, we should hear the tune. Makes sense. We should experience the tune. We should become familiar with its personality, its character, its emotional identity, it's how different musicians present it. Second, we are going to analyze the form, understand the architecture of the tune is always the first step toward understanding how the tune works. Third, we are going to identify the unique chord changes, right? Fourth, we are going to explore harmonic function. As I stress continually, your ears don't hear chord names, your ears hear relationships. So understanding harmonic function is essential for developing musical clarity and hearing movement within a tune. And then fifth, uh, we are going to examine common harmonic progressions. So the goal is never simply to learn a tune, the goal is to discover the musical truths hidden within that tune. So we will identify the common harmonic movements and progressions that appear as we as we have discovered, appear tune after tune after tune after tune. Six, we are going to study the voicings. We will, of course, look at our traditional block voicings, traditional shell voicings, contemporary shell voicings, and two-handed structures because harmony, right, must eventually become physical. We got to be able to play it. It must move from understanding to execution. So we'll spend some time with our voicings. And then finally, number seven, we're going to apply everything directly to the tune, right? So knowledge, again, without application, is what? It's pointless. It's useless. So understanding must lead to playing. So we will be doing playing. We will be working and playing our voicings this week. All right, so everything we discussed today will be applied directly to Teach Me tonight, so that again, understanding your understanding becomes very practical, very musical. Now, if you are a jazz piano skills member, I want you to take a few minutes, hit the pause button. I want you to access, download, and print your podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, the play-alongs. Again, your membership grants you access to all of this material that's developed for every weekly podcast episode. So you want to have this material in your hands when listening to the episode to get the most out of it. And of course, you want this material sitting on your music stand when practicing throughout the week. Okay, so now that you have your podcast packets, I want you to grab, as always, I want you to grab your lead sheets. And uh today, again, we we begin with where every great tune study should begin, with harmony, with understanding the architecture, the movement, the function, the sound of Teach Me Tonight. Remember, as we move through today and throughout the week, the goal is never simply to learn a tune. The goal is to discover the musical truths hidden within the tune. So you should have eight lead sheets in your podcast packet, eight lead sheets, and I just want to walk you through them quickly before we dig in. So lead sheet number one outlines the form of Teach Me Tonight. Lead sheet number two identifies the unique chord changes found within this beautiful standard. Lead sheet three and four, we pair up. Lead sheet three is a uh a nice clean lead sheet of the changes for Teach Me Tonight, lead sheet four, the harmonic function of those chord changes. Lead sheet five, we identify the common harmonic movement that is found not only in Teach Me Tonight, but in tune after tune after tune. Then lead sheets six, seven, and eight all deal with our voicings. Lead sheet six are block voicings and inverted shapes. Lead sheet seven are shells, traditional and contemporary shells, and then lead sheet eight are two-handed voicings. So we have a lot to get through because we're going to walk through each one of these lead sheets. So let's dig in. Grab lead sheet one and let's look at the form of Teach Me Tonight. Thank you for listening to Jazz Piano Skills. The remaining premium content of this episode is available to Jazz Piano Skills members at Jazz Piano Skills Podcast.com. Visit jazzpianoskills.com to learn more about membership privileges and become a Jazz Piano Skills member. Thank you.