Thirty-Fourth 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 “5-3-1-7 to 3-5-7-9” Chord Outline for a minor 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 Minor 2-5-1 (iiø7-V7-i) chord progression in the key of E Minor.
Jazz Piano Lick 034 (Etude #1)
A “5-3-1-7” chord outline on the iiø7 chord to a “3-5-7-9” chord outline for the V7 chord played in straight 1/8th notes. The musicality of this lick comes from a combination of strong harmonic outlining and strong voice leading…
Listen to Frank demonstrate one way to play this at 85 beats per minute…
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Jazz Piano Lick 034 (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 E Harmonic Minor Scale…
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Jazz Piano Lick 034 (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: F#ø7 = b5-b3-1-b7 and D7 = 3-5-b7-b9…
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Jazz Piano Lick 034 (Etude #2)
Now let’s spice things up by swinging the 1/8th notes, ending the line on an up beat, and applying some jazzifying syncopation in the left hand…
Listen to Frank demonstrate one way to play this at 123 beats per minute…
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Jazz Piano Lick 034 (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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A question, “Master” in your 2nd chart, the first note is Do, or C, right? (I’m confused…)
Thanks a bunch for asking, Brian…
I chose to play this particular lick in the key of E Minor. This means that the note E is the key center Do. That is the very definition of Do. Do is just a name given to the central pitch that all other pitches relate to. Do could be any pitch at all. I could just as easily played this lick in C Minor. In that case, the note C would be Do.
Anyway, for a good lesson for making all this clear and for illustrating how Solfege is used to analyze melodies and harmonies, please see: https://piano-ology.com/scales/melodic-analysis-ear-training-solfege/
Please let me know how it goes.
Cheers!
All right. I’m more confused than ever. (As far as I remember in the French system, Do=C, and that’s it. I’ll study your post…