Thirty-First 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 “3-2-1-7 to 3-5-7-9” Chord Outline for a major 2 5 1 chord progression.
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 (ii7-V7-I) chord progression in the key of G Major.
Jazz Piano Lick 031 (Etude #1)
A “3-2-1-7” chord outline on the ii7 chord to a 3-5-7-9 chord outline for the V7 chord played in straight 1/8th notes. Two features make this lick sound and feel musical: Strong harmonic outlining and strong voice leading…
Listen to Frank demonstrate one way to play this at 105 beats per minute…
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Jazz Piano Lick 031 (Solfege View of the Melody)
A musically useful way to understand and internalize the melody is to notice that all the notes are derived from the G Major Scale…
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Jazz Piano Lick 031 (Chord Structure View of the Melody)
A musically useful way to understand and internalize the melody is to notice how the lick clearly outlines the chord structure for each chord type: Am7 = b3-2-1-b7 and D7 = 3-5-b7-9…
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Jazz Piano Lick 031 (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 127 beats per minute…
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Jazz Piano Lick 031 (Your Homework)
Use what you know about form, meter, scales, chords, chord progressions, chord voicings, and left hand patterns to play these etudes 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.
Study & Practice Reminders
- You’re singing the Solfege or scatting 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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