Twelfth 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
Lesson Goals
To deeply internalize the sound, feeling, and function of the “1-2-3-5” Digital Pattern played as a quadruplet cell through some standard chord progressions… using all four musical intelligences: ears, intellect, eyes, and muscles.
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 4 bar form in the key of C Major.
Jazz Piano Lick 012 (Etude #1)
Straight 1/8th notes played over left hand four-note block chords in the middle register, connected using voice-leading…
Notice that every chord root and 3rd falls on a down beat, while the passing tone (the scale tone that connects them) falls on an up beat, as the 5 of each chord which adds some tasty syncopation…
Listen to Frank demonstrate one way to play this at 108 beats per minute…
Music Theory Notes
Notice how the digital pattern changes to naturally suit the chord structure of each chord type: Dm7 = 1-2-b3-5, G7 = 1-2-3-5, C = 1-2-b3-5, and C#dim7 = 1-b2-b3-b5.
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Jazz Piano Lick 012 (Etude #2)
Now let’s spice things up by swinging the 1/8th notes and applying some tasty jazzifying syncopation in the left hand…
Listen to Frank demonstrate one way to play this at 132 beats per minute…
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Jazz Piano Lick 012 (Your Turn to Improvise)
Use what you know about form, meter, chords, chord voicings, chord progressions, left hand patterns to play the above in any other key you expect to play in and see what you discover.
Study & Practice Reminders
- You’re singing the Solfege aloud in order to internalize the sound-feelings, right?
- You practice with a metronome or rhythm track in order to instill good time, right?
- You record yourself, listen to the playback immediately, self evaluate, and respond accordingly, right?
The Open Secret…
The key to getting good isn’t “talent”; it’s the discipline to study and practice the right things the right way.
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