Jazz Piano Lesson: Jazz Piano Lick 011

Eleventh in Frank’s HUGE collection of bread and butter jazz piano licks to add to your bag… by ear, intellect, eye, and muscle…

Table of Contents

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Lesson Goals

To deeply internalize the sound, feeling, and function of the Diatonic Modes of the Major 2 5 1 Chord Progression.

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Benefits of Internalizing the Diatonic Modes of the Major 2 5 1 Chord Progression

If you internalize the diatonic modes of the Major 2 5 1 chord progression (using all four musical intelligences):

1. You will understand how scales and chords are inseparable, interrelated views of the same musical stuff.
2. You will appreciate how knowing your scales helps your know your chords and how knowing your chords helps you know your scales.
3. You will really start to “know your way around the piano”.
4. You will internalize a musical framework for attaching more complex comping and soloing ideas.
5. You will develop an intuition about what makes good melodies tick.
6. You will develop the ability to recognize a major 2 5 1 by ear.
7. You will develop the ability to recognize a major 2 5 1 when you see the chord symbols in a chart.
8. You will develop the skill to play a variety of major 2 5 1 chord voicings and rhythms (comping).
9. You will develop the skill to improvise melodic lines over a major 2 5 1 in a variety of styles and rhythms (soloing).
10. You will build a huge vocabulary of musical patterns that enable you to “speak” the major 2 5 1 chord progression in a wide variety of contexts.

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Preparatory Study for Jazz Piano Lick 011

One way to conceive of the Major 2 5 1 (ii7-V7-IM7) chord progression in the key of C Major is as three sets of “chord/mode” or “mode/chord” pairings as follows…

Dm7 (Dorian) Mode in C Major

The Dm7 chord is paired with the D (Dorian) mode of the C Major Scale…

Functional Ear Training: The placement of the notes within the meter is no accident. Notice that the chord tones all fall on down beats, while the passing tones all fall on up beats… in this case creating a strong outline of the pre-dominant harmony ii7 that craves resolution to the dominant V7 chord.

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G7 (Mixolydian) Mode in C Major

The G7 chord is paired with the G (Mixolydian) mode of the C major scale…

Functional Ear Training: Again, the placement of the notes within the meter is no accident. Notice that the chord tones all fall on down beats, while the passing tones all fall on up beats… in this case creating a strong outline of the dominant harmony V7 that craves resolution to the tonic I chord.

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CM7 (Ionian) Mode in C Major

And the CM7 chord is paired with the C (Ionian) mode of the C major scale…

Functional Ear Training: Again, the placement of the notes within the meter is no accident. Notice that the chord tones all fall on down beats, while the passing tones all fall on up beats… in this case creating a strong sense of the tonic major harmony.

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Major 2 5 1 Diatonic Modes in C Major

Now let’s put it all together with voice leading in the left hand chords…

Functional Ear Training: THIS is what a major ii7-V7-IM7 chord progression sounds and feels like. Such is nothing more than ear training by experience and association. And it won’t take long for you to recognize a ii7-V7-IM7 chord progression when you hear it!

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Special Note about the Design of these Studies

An extremely effective way to internalize any new lick and to simultaneously develop your comping and soloing chops is to play it “in context”: within an established form over a set of standard chord changes. In this lesson the context is a Major 2-5-1-#1°7 (ii7-V7-I-#I°7) turnaround chord progression in an 8 bar form in the key of C Major.

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Jazz Piano Lick 011 (Etude #1)

Your left hand plays four-note block chords in the middle register, connected using voice-leading… while your right hand plays the mode that corresponds to each chord. Again, notice that every chord tone falls on a down beat, while each passing tone (the scale tone that connects them) falls on an up beat…

Special Note about the #1dim7 chord: While not the main topic for this lesson, Frank chose to include this secondary dominant (vii°7/ii) because doing so is common practice in this context in order to keep the music flowing both rhythmically and harmonically. Being able to hear and play these kinds of musical building blocks is fundamental to your development as a jazz player.

Listen to Frank demonstrate one way to play this at 100 beats per minute…

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Jazz Piano Lick 011 (Your Homework)

Use what you know about form, meter, scales, chords, chord progressions, chord voicings, and left hand patterns to play this etude in other keys you expect to play in and see what you discover.

Special Note from Frank: If there’s interest, I’d be happy to write this out in a few other keys.

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Study & Practice Reminders

1. You’re singing the Solfege or scatting aloud in order to internalize the sound-feelings, right?
2. You practice with a metronome or rhythm track in order to instill good time, right?
3. You record yourself, listen to the playback immediately, self evaluate, and respond accordingly, right?

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