Jazz Piano Lesson: Jazz Piano Lick 037

Thirty-Seventh 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 ascending “Major Bebop Scale” played over the tonic chord in a major key.

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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 (ii7-V7-I) chord progression in the key of C Major.

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Jazz Piano Lick 037 (Etude #1)

The musicality of this lick, played in straight 1/8th notes, comes from a combination of strong harmonic outlining of the tonic I chord, clear sense of direction, and the satisfying feeling of arrival on the target note Do…

Listen to Frank demonstrate one way to play this at 104 beats per minute…

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Jazz Piano Lick 037 (Solfege View of the Melody)

A musically useful way to understand and internalize this lick is to think about, see, hear, and feel it as the C Major Scale with a chromatic passing tone (Si) inserted between So and La…

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Jazz Piano Lick 037 (Etude #2)

Now let’s spice things up by swinging the 1/8th notes, adding some syncopation, and capping things off with a crisp ending…

Listen to Frank demonstrate one way to play this at 142 beats per minute…

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Jazz Piano Lick 037 (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.

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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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