The Seven Facts of Music

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Summary
Dr. Bob Lawrence explores the seven facts of music, providing a clear, logical framework to understand and improve your jazz playing. This episode emphasizes the importance of clarity, shapes, and rhythm in mastering music.

Keywords
music theory, jazz piano, seven facts of music, improvisation, harmony, melody, rhythm, music education

Key Topics
The seven facts of music: sound and silence, harmonic and melodic shapes, organization of chords and scales, movement and tension, rhythm as downbeats and upbeats

Titles
Master the Seven Facts of Music for Jazz Success
Unlocking Music's Secrets: The Seven Facts Explained

Sound Bites
"Music is organized sound, not fragments."
"Master the third, and you master music."
"Rhythm is ear and body, not math."

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Jazz Piano Skills and Reset Week
02:58 Exploring the Seven Facts of Music
05:55 Understanding Sound and Silence
09:06 The Importance of Harmonic and Melodic Shapes
11:55 The Role of Chords and Voicings
14:53 Practicing Silence and Internal Time Control
18:01 The Connection Between Harmony and Melody
21:07 The Finite System of Harmonic Shapes
24:02 Developing a Systematic Approach to Voicings
35:25 Organizing Harmonic Shapes for Practice
39:08 Understanding Melodic Construction
45:10 The Direction of Melody
49:54 Adding Interest with Tension
57:14 Mastering Rhythm in Music

Transcript

Introduction to Jazz Piano Skills and Reset Week

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Welcome to Jazz Piano Skills. I'm Dr. Bob Lawrence. It's time to discover, learn, and play jazz piano. Well, this week is going to be a little different. And honestly, special. We've got five weeks in the month, which gives us a rare opportunity to pause, step back, to reset. So instead of introducing new material, that comes next week with a new month. So instead of introducing new material, new skills, or another podcast packet to work through, we're going to do something, at least in my opinion, far more important. We're going to turn off our eyes and turn on our ears. Man, I haven't said that in a long time, since season one, but I love it. Turn off our eyes and turn on our ears. Today is a chance for us to sit back and to listen, to think, to reflect, and to deepen our understanding of how music actually works. Consider this a mental reset, a moment to connect the dots and tie up any loose ends from everything else we explored this month with Sweet Lorraine, from our harmonic analysis to our melodic study, improvisation development, and even our solo piano approaches that we looked at last week. So, yes, indeed, today is going to be a little different, and today is going to be a little special. Now, if you've been listening to jazz piano skills for any amount of time, you've heard me mention, I don't know, just on a few occasions, what I call the seven facts of music. In fact, I think I've mentioned them in every single episode. I reference them all the time. But today we're going to slow down, we're going to pump the brakes, and we're going to really explore them. What are they? Why do they matter? And more importantly, how do they simplify our understanding of music so that we can actually experience real consistent growth? Because the truth is this most students struggle not because they lack talent, not because they lack effort. It's because they lack clarity. They're trying to make sense of music through fragments. Chords here, scales over there, licks somewhere else, with all that without ever having a clear, unified way to think about how it all fits together. The seven facts of music eliminate that confusion. The seven facts of music give us a simple, logical framework for understanding everything we play. And that's why this fifth week is the perfect time to dig in. We've spent a month working on sweet Lorraine harmonically, melodically, improvisationally, and from a solo piano perspective. Now it's time to step back, connect the dots, and see the bigger picture. This is where everything we've studied comes together. So today we're not learning something new. Okay? Today is about truly understanding what we've been doing all along. So today you're going to discover that music is not complicated. In fact, everything you play can be understood through a simple logical framework, the seven facts of music. You're going to begin seeing that all music is just sound and silence organized into harmonic and melodic shapes, moving with direction, colored with tension, and brought to life with rhythm. You are going to learn how each of the seven facts connects and builds upon the next, creating a clear, unified way to think about music. You will begin to understand how chords, scales, arpeggios, direction, tension, and rhythm are not separate topics, but simply different expressions of the same musical truth. And finally, you are going to play with a new level of awareness from this day on. You know, as you sit at the piano, I want you to consciously be thinking about what you are doing. Are you producing sound or silence? Are you playing harmonically or melodically? Are you using shapes? What direction are you moving? Are you adding tension? Are you controlling rhythm? Yep. Today you're going to be playing from this moment on with a whole new level of awareness. In other words, from this day on, you're not just playing music. You're understanding it as you play it. So, as I always like to say, regardless of where you are in your jazz journey, a beginner, an intermediate player, an advanced player, or even if you are a seasoned and experienced professional, you're going to find this Jazz Piano Skills Podcast lesson exploring the seven facts of music to be very beneficial. But before we get started, I want to, as I always do, welcome all of you first-time listeners to Jazz Pian Skills. If you're new to the podcast, if you're new to jazz piano skills in general, I want to personally invite you to become a jazz pianel skills member. Your membership comes with many perks. Number one, as a jazz pianel skills member, you have access to premium podcast content, which means you get to listen to the entire podcast episode. The first half of every Jazz Panel Skills Podcast episode is free for everyone to enjoy. I deal with the question of the week, lay out the educational agenda and the lesson rationale. The second half of the podcast is for members only. We address the lesson content, we look at uh demonstrations and also the podcast packets, the illustrations, the lead sheets, and the backing tracks or the play-alongs that I develop for every single podcast episode. As a jazz panel skills member, you have access to the online courses, which are comprehensive, sound-based, self-paced, and sequential courses that focus on harmonic, melodic, and improvisation development. You also, as a jazz panel skills member, have a reserved seat in the weekly masterclass that I host every Thursday evening, 8 p.m. Central Time. And of course, I know this is not a great time for everyone around the world. However, the masterclasses are recorded, so members can watch and rewatch the master classes at their convenience and as often as they wish. As a Jazz Panel Skills member, you also have access to the private online jazz panel skills community, which hosts a variety of educational forums. There are podcast-specific forums, general jazz forums, and then it's also just a great place for members to meet one another and provide some feedback and assistance, get some feedback and assistance, and to always be able to enjoy and check out our listening list that goes along with every podcast episode. And finally, as a jazz panel skills member, you have access to educational support, private personal professional support. So, you know what? All of these privileges, these perks are waiting to help you discover, learn, and play jazz piano. So check it all out at jazzpianelskills.com and of course become a member. If you uh poke around on the site and you have some questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I'm always happy to spend some time with you, answer any questions that you may have and help you in any way that I can. And finally, if you are not receiving the Jazz Panel Skills blog post every weekend, please take time to join the Jazz Panel Skills email list, which you can do very easily at the Jazz Panel Skills website. Every weekend, I publish a blog that summarizes the podcast in writing. It's definitely worth checking out. It's definitely worth reading. It's only about a four to five minute read. It will help keep you on track both conceptually and physically. Now, normally we would kick things off with the question of the week, but today we're going to hit the pause button on that because I want to give as much time and space to really digging into something so foundational, so important, the seven facts of music. These are not quick surface-level ideas, and rushing through them would actually defeat the purpose. So for this episode, we're setting the question of the week aside. Carlotta, I'll get to your question next week, I promise, so we can go deeper with these seven facts so that we can think more clearly and truly explore the concepts that shape everything we do as musicians. Okay, so let's let's begin by just presenting the seven facts of music as we typically do in every podcast episode. Fact number one, music is the production of sound and silence. And when I'm speaking about sound, I'm talking about the primary sounds of music: major, dominant, minor, half diminished, and diminished. Fact number two, sound is produced harmonically and melodically. There are harmonic shapes and melodic shapes that we use to produce sound. Fact number three, when sound is produced harmonically, we are playing what we call chords or often refer to them as voicings. Fact number four, when sound is produced melodically, we are playing scales, we're playing arpeggios. Fact number five, when playing scales and arpeggios, we are moving in one of two directions, up or down, that's it. In fact number six, we like to camouflage or decorate our scales and arpeggios with tension, or what we refer to as chromaticism. And finally, fact number seven, to make facts one through six interesting, we add rhythm. I always like to say this understanding of the seven facts of music, the seven musical facts, it allows us to easily validate what we study, why we study it, and therefore how we study it. And that's what we're going to be dissecting today. We're gonna take each one of these musical facts one by one, and we are going to dig deeper. Okay? So here we go. Okay, fact number one. Music is the production of sound and silence. But actually, I think I should say music is the intentional production of sound and silence. Now, when I say sound, I'm not talking about random notes. As I've already mentioned, I'm talking about the five primary sounds of music: major, dominant, minor, half, diminished, and diminished. Everything, every everything we play harmonically and melodic melodically, everything we play harmonically and melodically lives inside one of these five sounds. That's so important to understand. Everything lives inside one of these five sounds. So when you sit at the piano or with your instrument, you are producing a specific sound. Or you're producing silence. Now, why this matters to understand it uh it to think of it in this way, in this manner. Most people, most students focus when studying music, they focus primarily on only on sound. They think more notes equal better playing, more chords, equal better playing, and honestly give very little attention, if any, at all, to silence. And the truth is this silence is not the absence of music. It's so important to understand that. Silence is not the absence of music, silence is part of the music. Silence is part of phrasing, it's part of space, it's part of breath, it's part of clarity, it is part of music, part of the music. So if I use the language analogy for a second, music is language, we we hear that all the time. And and that's true, right? Because if I speak without pausing, you can't understand me. Silence is what allows the message to be understood, even in language. Now, there's really important time connection with all of this. Silence is also how you express time without sound. Think about that for a second. Silence is also, in addition to sound, silence is also how you express time without sound. You are still playing. You you are still playing, you're just plain silence, and it's so important to understand that. So here's the key. If you want to get good at practicing playing silence, then you have to practice plain silence. So the question is, well then how do I practice plain silence? How do I do that? Well, what I do with students is this I use a drum app, or it's called drumbit.app. Drumbit.app. It's simply a web page that you can pull up. It's a drum machine. But what's nice about this is that I can actually set the drum machine to play only count one of each measure. Unlike a metronome that's going to give you a click every pulse, every beat. With this drum machine, I can say just play count one of the measure. Then I have to track silence for counts two, three, and four, and then play on count one again. The idea is I should be in unison in sync with the drum machine. This is much more difficult than it sounds. So I'm gonna I'm gonna give it a try. Okay, I'm gonna have my drummer play count one of the measure, and then I'm gonna take a note. You can take a single note, or you can take a chord, whatever you prefer. Take that note or chord and try to play it in unison in sync with the drummer playing count one only. So you have to play silence on counts two, three, and four. So here we go. Check this out. Alright, so here's count one. I want to get the time. Not easy at all, but you have to play silence. And in practicing this in this kind of way, it it illuminates the importance of silence and the importance of being able to use silence to track time, as I just mentioned earlier. So important. Again, the goal is is simple, right? It's not simple, but it is simple. It's the goal is to be perfectly in unison with the drummer on count one. The exercise develops internal time, control, patience, right? And awareness, like I just mentioned, awareness of space, right? It teaches you that silence is something that you play. So if you want to get good at playing silence, you have to practice play silence. Before we talk about chords, before we talk about scales, before we talk about improvisation, we have to talk about sound and silence. You know, you hear it often expressed that music is not just what you play, it's also what you do not play. That's not quite right. What we really should be saying is music is not just what you play using sound, it is also what you play using silence. Okay, so let's move on to fact number two. Musical fact number two. Sound is produced harmonically and melodically. I refer to this as shapes. Sound is produced harmonically, it's melodically using shapes, sound is produced in only two ways, these two ways, harmonically and melodically. That's it. Now, why this matters? Again, most students think that music is made up of many, many different things chords, scales, licks, lines, patterns, and the list goes on. And it feels like a lot. And because it feels like a lot, it also feels complicated. But in reality, everything you play falls in falls into one of one of two categories, harmonic sound or melodic sound. That's it. That's it. So when you sit at the piano or with your instrument, you are always doing one of two things. You're you're playing notes together or you're playing notes separately. As pianists, we under we get that, right? We're playing notes together, or we're playing notes separately. Now, harmonic sound is when you are playing notes at the same time. Playing notes together. And in doing so, you're producing what we call a chord. This is vertical, this is structure, right? This is support to m melody. Now, melodic sound is when you play notes one at a time, and that produces scales, arpeggios, melodic lines. And this is horizontal, this is movement, this is uh storytelling. We've talked about that. Now, the key insight here is this harmony and melody are not separate worlds, they are just simply two ways of producing the same sound. Right? I'm gonna say that again. Harmony and melody are not separate worlds, they are simply two ways of producing the same sound. Now, here's where this becomes very powerful. Both harmonic and melodic sound are built from shapes, right? Not notes, not theory, but shapes. And this is really important to understand. Because if you think in notes, which most people do when study music, it's like synonymous terms, music notes. Somebody wants to study music, they think they're gonna be studying notes. And if you think in Notes, I promise you, you will always be hesitating, you will always be overthinking, and you will always be stuck. That's the truth. And if you think in shapes, uh now you will begin to to produce, you will begin to move, you will begin to see patterns, you will play um with fluidity. That's entire entirely different way of thinking about and processing music. You know, I analogy I would give is that you you speak and read words all day long, and you do not think of one letter ever. Musicians play sound all day long, and they never think of notes. Okay, so examples of shapes, harmonic shapes, chords, chord voicings, shell structures, block structures, spread voicings. We're gonna talk about all that here uh shortly, but uh melodic shapes would be arpeggios or scales, motifs, melodic pathways. Okay. We've we've addressed all of those in previous podcast episodes. But here's the big mental shift, right? That you need to move from asking the question, what notes should I play, to really be thinking about what shape am I playing? Right? Move from what notes should I play to thinking about what shape am I playing? So now we have when we put facts number one and two together, we have what music is, the production of sound and silence. Fact number two, how sound is produced, harmonic and melodic shapes. Wow, that's huge already. We haven't even got to the other facts, but that's huge to understand this right out of the gate. Music is a production of sound and silence, and sound is produced using harmonic and melodic shapes. And just a quick side note, so important for improvisation because if you don't understand this, you mix everything together and you're trying to think notes, you're you're gonna get overwhelmed. You'll start guessing. And when when the opposite is true, and when you do understand this, how important shapes are, you can practice harmony separately, you can practice melodies separately, and then combine them intentionally. You can see those harmonic shapes and melodic shapes shaking hands. That's so important, especially for improvisation development. We'll talk about that later. Okay, so now let's take this idea and make it practical because understanding something conceptually is one thing, but we need to experience it physically. Okay. So we want to clearly see, we want to clearly hear that harmony and melody are the same sound, just expressed in different forms. So one of the things I have uh students do right away, uh, understanding that that the five primary sounds, all of music lives within the five primary sounds, major, dominant, minor, half diminished, and diminished. One of the things that I have students do right away is to play, to experience these sounds harmonically and melodically at the same time. Again, let me say that. I want them to experience harmony and melody, the same sound at the same time. Okay, so here's what I have students do. Left hand, I want them to play the sound as a chord, a harmonic shape. Right hand, I want them, I want them to play the sound as an arpeggio or a scale. And or a scale, right? Both uh as a melodic shape. And what this reveals is that you begin to see, you begin to hear something very, very important, that that you're not playing two different things, that you actually are playing the same thing, the the same sound, but in two different forms. And the analogy that I always give is I always say, think of sound like uh um harmony and melody like uh like ice and water. Harmony is like ice, it's solid, it's structured, it's fixed. Melody is like water, it's fluid, it's it's moving, it's flowing. All right, same, the exact same substance, two different forms. And that is exactly what harmony and melody are. And why this is so important to understand, because when you don't understand this, you treat chords and scales and arpeggios as completely separate topics, separate things, which of course is going to lead to confusion. But when you do understand it, everything connects, right? Chords become chords become lines, become melodies. Melodies outline chords, improvisation becomes logical, right? Practice becomes focused. So to just demonstrate very quickly, I'm not going to use any any backing track. I usually like to do this with a backing track with students because I want them to experience all of this, of course, in time. But like for instance, C major chord in the left hand, C major arpeggio in the right hand, or C major scale, dominant, chord in the left hand, arpeggio in the right, or the scale, minor sound, chord in the left hand, arpeggio in the right, scale, half diminish, chord in the left hand, arpeggio in the right hand or scale, uh diminish, chord in the left hand, arpeggio in the right or scale. So playing the primary sounds of music harmonically, melodically at the same time, chord in the left hand, arpeggio and scale in the right hand, seeing harmony and melody as one, which they are. Harmony and melody are not different, they are the same sound, either frozen as a chord or flowing as a melody, as a line. So music is not complicated. It's simply harmonic shapes and melodic shapes producing the same sound. That's pretty, pretty straightforward, I would say. So what we have so far, fact number one, music is the production of sound and silence. Fact number two, sound is produced harmonically and melodically using shapes. Using shapes. Okay, so let's take a look at fact number three. When sound is produced harmonically, we are playing chords or voicings. And of course, voicings are shapes. And understanding that harmony is produced using shapes, as we just discussed, is a huge revelation. However, if you think there are unlimited harmonic shapes, which is very common for a student to think, well, now that becomes musically devastating. Unlimited harmonic shapes. Just think about that for a second. Right? Most aspiring jazz pianists actually think that, that there are endless voicings. I hear it all the time. And they're trying to figure out how am I going to learn them all. And that mindset, that mindset, like I said, is devastating. It leads to uh becoming overwhelmed, uh, confusion, inconsistency, and ultimately no real progress. Here is the truth, and this is so important to know that we operate within a finite system. Our tuning system is finite, it produces 12 notes, 12 notes only. And guess what? Finiteness cannot produce infinity. Okay, it's just that's just fact. So because music is finite, it means there is a system, there is an approach, there is a manageable, if you will, library of voicings. And here is the library that I teach. For all of you regular jazz piano skills listeners, you know. Number one, traditional block chords and inversions, right? Both played in both hands, and this is critical. And here's why this is critical, because these shapes, these block shapes, become your improvisational vocabulary. You will eventually convert these harmonic shapes into melodic lines. This is what we call chord tone improvisation. So it's important with the block chords and inversions to be practicing those in both hands, left hand and right hand, root position and inversions. Number two, traditional left-hand shells, 379 and 735 shapes. They're simple, functional, essential, standard, iconic, classic voicings, right? They defined harmony with clarity and provide for great voice lighting. Uh number three, I teach contemporary left-hand shells, chordal voicings. These are fabulous shapes. They give you a modern sound. It's kind of an open texture, very flexible to move these shapes around to create uh color, tension, and release. And then finally, two-handed structures, uh, voicing, spread, spread voicings, right, spread across both hands. These shapes provide a fuller texture, uh, allow you to orchestrate at the piano, uh, and are used in both uh ensemble and solo application. So that's my library. That's my voicing library, my finite voicing library, traditional blocks, traditional left-hand shells, contemporary left-hand shells, and two-hand struck two-handed structures. So the the big shift really that everybody needs to experience is instead of be thinking um what voicing should I use? You really want to get to the point where you're really kind of thinking, which system am I drawing from? Blocks, traditional shells, contemporary shells, two-handed voicings, right? Which system am I drawing from? So now why this matters, this is um because without a system you're trying to just collect random shapes and you kind of guess, and you stay really inconsistent. And with a system it allows you to finally organize voices that you can actually develop and you can actually um uh gain muscle memory and be able to utilize them when you play. You know, a very quick side uh uh side story. I remember in college I I took a um a ream of paper into the practice uh into the practice rooms one day and I and I sat down and I and I w started to write out every conceivable way that I could possibly voice a major chord. And I was I I I went in with great intentions. I was not gonna leave any stone unturned, I was going to um map out every conceivable voicing. And I took it to a very accomplished jazz pianist when I was done, very, very proud of the work that I did. Had all these stacks of paper with all these different voicings, different ways that I could come up with with with uh playing a major sound, and took it to an accomplished jazz pianist and and handed it to him with great pride, and he uh looked with looked at it with great confusion and said, What what is this? And I said, What is this? I'll tell you what this is. You're holding in your hands every conceivable way to play a major a major sound voice in the in the world, every conceivable way in the world to play a major chord. And um he took a cigar out of his mouth and he said, uh he goes, you know, we only use a few. You know that, right? And it just took the air out of my balloon, man, like really fast. Like, what? And in other words, what he was saying is that you know there's a system and there's a there's a a way to approach voicings that you this silliness of trying to write down or uh grab every conceivable way to play a chord is is um is not gonna be very fruitful. And it's gonna and lead to confusion and frustration and uh surrender eventually. So this is why it's so important that um you have a way to organize, you have a system to organize uh harmonic shapes uh that you can practice, your blocks, your traditional shells, contemporary shells, two-handed structures, so that you uh don't end up like I said, voicings can become like fishing line very quickly, tangled up. So you want to keep things clean and tidy, you want to keep things organized so that you can develop and you can grow as a pianist. So, okay, all of this is great, but how do you practice it? Okay, I have I have uh four ways in which I have students practice chords, learning voicings, getting familiar with these shapes. The very first way is I have them play chords grouped by family. So, in other words, C major, C dominant, C minor, C half diminish, C diminish. And of course, I'm playing blocks right there. Um you would do this with any of the voicing types with traditional shells, contemporary shells, two-handed voicings. Okay, group them first and get familiar with them first by family. So your five C sounds, your five F sounds, your five B flat sounds, and so on. Then uh I have students practice chords by type. So we group all our major chords together, all our dominant chords together, all our minors. We use a pattern, maybe uh move through your chords using chromaticism. C major, D flat major, D major, E flat major, and so on. Maybe use the circle of fifths, C major, F major, B flap major, E flat major, and so on. So any kind of pattern will do, but the the the objective is to group all of your majors together, all your dominants, minors, and so on. Another way I like to have students practice chords is um these voicings, they're voicing types by key. So if I'm in the key of C, I want to practice C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G dominant, A minor, B half diminished. And then I want to do that uh using all four, again, all four types of voicings, blocks, traditional shells, contemporary shells, two-handed structures, and practice the chords by key, all 12 keys. And then finally, the fourth way I like to have students practice chords uh by progression. So two, five, one, or maybe three, six, two, five, one, right, or one, six, two, five, one. There are many, many different patterns that you could use, harmonic patterns, progressions that you can use to practice the chords. So those are my four staples that I utilize in teaching the four types of voicings: blocks, traditional shells, contemporary shells, and two-handed structures. That is a very organized, clean, and tidy way to practice these shapes and these sounds. Remember, this is most important. Voicings are not infinite, they are organized, and mastery comes from having a system. A system. Okay? Alright, so let's move on to fact number four. When sound is produced melodically, we are playing scales and arpeggios. All right. No such thing as a random melodic line. Every melody, every melodic line is built from arpeggios, chord tones, scales, pass arpeggios with passing tones. That's what a scale is. It's an arpeggio with passing tones. Right? So every melody is built from arpeggios and scales. So the big mental shift here that I want to have happen for you is that instead of thinking what scale do I use, which is very, very common thinking, chord scale relationships, instead I want you to think what chord tone am I targeting and how do I get there? How do I get there? Right now, here's the part that m most folks never learn, most students never learn. There are only three ways to approach a chord tone or a target tone, right? There's only three three ways to do it. Number one, you can approach a chord tone with another chord tone. Number two, you can approach a chord tone with a scale tone. Number three, you can approach a chord tone with a non-scale tone, or chromaticism, tension. That's it. Three ways to approach any note that you're trying to get to with another chord tone, with a scale tone, or with a non-scale tone. That's it. So think of this improvisation is not about choosing what notes, it's about choosing the note that you're going to approach, uh, your target note, and then how are you going to approach it? And so instead of thinking, again, instead of thinking what scale, what note, I want you to start thinking in terms of where am I going and and how am I going to get there? How am I going to get to that note? And what this does, when you start thinking that way, you start thinking in terms of direction, intention, phrasing, right? Musical logic, as I like to call it. So we have to talk about before we leave fact number four here, we have to talk about how students practice scales and arpeggios because this is where this is where everything really breaks down. We are all taught, typically, we are all taught play C major scale, start on the note C, play an F major arpeggio, start on the note F every time. This is what this is how we are taught to play scales and arpeggios. And again, it's musically devastating because it's conditioning a one-dimensional approach to playing music. Right? If you only have if you only know one way to enter a sound or to play a sound, I I'm telling you right now, you are in trouble. Because music doesn't always begin on the root. It doesn't always begin on beat one, right? The obvious place. It just doesn't work that way. So you must practice melody. You must much you must practice scales and arpeggios in a multidimensional way. And when I speak, when I'm talking about a multidimensional approach, I'm talking about playing a sound from various what I call entry points, the root, the third, the fifth, the seventh. And this changes everything when you do this because now your lines don't always sound the same. Your phrasing improves, your flexibility increases, your improvisation becomes musical because you're multidimensional. You're not, you're not a one-trick pony. Right? You're beyond C major scale, starting on the note C. Now, when I practice my scales and arpeggios from various entry points, I really have two ways in which I approach it. I either I either approach it um playing the scale and arpeggio to mirror the in the shape, harmonic shape, meaning the root position, root position uh from first inversion, second inversion, third inversion, or I approach playing the scale and the arpeggio using the the full uh the full sound. So to give you an example, if I took uh C minor, root entry, root to the seven. Now maybe I'll are I'll enter from the third, but I'll play it in first inversion or second inversion or third inversion. So I would do that with if I'm doing the scale, I would do the scale. The same way. Or I would do root to seven. I like doing that. Or third to the nine. Or fifth to the eleventh. Or the seventh to the thirteenth. Right, so those are two different ways in which I practice uh melodic uh motion, the melodic sound using arpeggio and scale motion, various entry points from the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. You know, I could I could be as bold and I can be bold and say this. If you only know one way into a sound, you don't know that sound. So, okay, so here's what we have so far. Number one, music, what music is, it's it's the production of sound and silence. Number two, how sound is produced harmonically and melodically. Number three, how harmony is organized, shapes, voicings. Number four, how how is melody constructed and approached? Again, shapes, arpeggios, and scales. This obviously then leads to the very next question. Well, how does melody actually move? Hmm. That's fact number five. When playing scales and arpeggios, we are moving in one of two directions. Up or down. Every melodic line, every phrase, every idea is moving in one of two directions, up or down, that's it. That's it. But here's the problem practicing up and down in isolation, again, how we're taught to play scales and arpeggios, up and down. Um that does not sound like music. Right? So to make direction musical, that's the challenge, right? We have to make direction musical. We must place it into harmony. That's how we do it. And what do I mean by that? Well, what I like to have students do is practice direction, intentional direction, um, uh using harmonic movement. So, for instance, like with the two, five, one progression, I may have uh a student say, okay, we're gonna arpeggiate up the two chord, we're going to descend down the five chord, ascend up the one chord, right? So maybe we get something like this up our two, down our five, up our one. So I get this nice this nice shape of ascending and descending melodic motion, right? Or we could do we could go upscale, downscale, upscale. We can mix and match our peggio and scale motion, we can begin with down uh descending motion, then ascending. Again, you we can mix and match this however we want, but what we're doing is we are uh consciously aware of direction, and we're placing that direction within a musical context by playing it through harmony. So what we're controlling in essence, we're intentionally controlling direction up or down. We're intentionally controlling content, scalar arpeggio motion, and we're intentionally playing it through harmonic movement, two, five, one. That's that's pretty good. And when you do that, when you actually control direction and content and harmony, guess what? It should sound pretty familiar. Yep, it should sound like music. Pretty cool. Bottom line, what it develops when you practice this way. It develops melodic control, harmonic awareness, phrasing, improvisational vocabulary, biggie. Right? So there's a lot going on here. There's a lot. So again, pointing all this pointing toward improvisation in a way, it's it proves that improvisation is not random.

unknown 48:32

Right?

Adding Interest with Tension

Mastering Rhythm in Music

SPEAKER_00 48:33

It's just not it's really organized movement. Uh organized movement through harmony using direction using shapes. Wow. So I guess we could actually say music is simply direction and shape moving through harmony. Music is simply direction and shape moving through harmony. Direction and shapes moving through harmony. I like it. I like it, it makes perfect sense. So now we understand this. What music is sound and silence. How is sound produced? Harmonically and melodically. How is harmony organized? Shapes, chords and voicings. How is melody constructed and approached? Again, shapes, arpeggios, and scales. How melody moves up or down through harmony using scale and arpeggio motion. Wow. This is some pretty, pretty organized thinking indeed. But you know what? All of this literally begs begs the question how do we make all of this movement interesting? Well, welcome fact number six. To make all of this interesting, all of this harmonic uh this arpeggio and scale movement, ascending and descending through harmonic uh movement, well, we we camouflage our scales and arpeggio with arpeggios with tension or what we call chromaticism. And why does this matter? Well, I'll tell you why, because everything that we've discussed up until this point has been very clear, very structured, very logical. But you know what? If you play only chord tones, arpeggios, scale tones, in a very logical, structured, and clear way, your playing will sound correct, but it will sound very plain. It's correct, but it will be very plain. So, you know, students often think that if I play the right notes, I'll sound like jazz. If I can just play the right notes, I'll sound it will sound like jazz. But you know what? Playing only the right notes or the correct notes does not create jazz language. What makes jazz sound like jazz? One word. Tension. Jazz is filled with tension. And what is tension? Well, tension is any note that is outside the basic scale or chord. And we often refer to that, that note that's outside the scale or chord as chromaticism. So here's the big insight. And remember this from fact number four that there are only three ways to approach a chord tone. Number one with another chord tone, two with a scale tone, three with a non-scale tone. Well, fact number six is the intentional use of that third option, the approaching of a chord tone with a non-scale tone. So why do we use why do we use tension? Well, to make things interesting, first and foremost, we add it adds color, it adds movement, it's there's personality, there's expression that comes with that tension. And without that tension, everything sounds uh, I always say it sounds like elevator music. It's very, it's very safe, it's very bland. So uh tension is not is not random either, right? It it must tension is intentional and it must be resolved. That's what makes music so enjoyable. It's always a balance of tension and resolution, tension and resolution. So our goal is to add tension to direction. We're moving up and down, we're using shapes, melodic shapes, scales and arpeggios. We're moving through harmony two, five, one, and so we want to add tension. So the big shift that I want for all my students, you know, most students come initially start studying lessons with me, and they have the idea that I just I help me find the right notes, the correct notes. And what I'm really wanting them to get to is how can I how can I utilize tension to make my melodic playing, the lines that I play interesting. That's really where I'm trying to get every single student that I work with to the to this point. Now here's the key. If you understand shapes, honestly, if you understand shapes, you understand music. But if you don't, everything else feels complicated. And I'm gonna tell you the most important shape of all is the third. And we've talked about this in previous podcast episodes, I've mentioned it in previous podcast episodes. I know we've talked about it in great length in the master classes, but that third is the key to learning how to play arpeggio, scale, motion, and tension. The the major and the minor third is the key. For example, if you just take C to E, that third, major third, if I put the passing tone between the D in there, now I have scale motion. So the third itself is arpeggio motion, the D, the passing tone placed in between the C and the E, scale motion, the C sharp and the D sharp, tension. So we have everything right there: arpeggio, scale, and tension. You should practice improvising, you should practice improvising using arpeggio, scale motion, and tension using the third and the third alone. And the same applies with the minor third. C to E flat. C if we put the passing tone, the D, our scale, and then the C sharp is our tension. So taking just any major third, any minor third, you want to get to the point where you quickly recognize the third as arpeggio motion, scale motion, and tension, all in one. Now here's why this is a big deal. Um, because every sound in music, from the root to the thirteenth, every sound, major, dominant, minor, half diminished, and diminished, every sound is constructed, is built stacking major and minor thirds. I'm gonna say that again. Every sound, major, dominant, minor, half diminished and diminished from the root to the thirteenth is built, is constructed by stacking major and minor thirds together. So if you can easily improvise with major and minor thirds using arpeggio scale and tension, you are accomplishing a great deal. In fact, let me be bold again and simply say this. If you master the third, you master music. That right there is a mic drop moment. If you master the third, you master music. So here's what we understand now what music is sound and silence, how sound is produced harmonically and melodically, how harmony is organized in shapes, chords and voicings, how melody is constructed and approached, again with shapes, arpeggios and scales, how melody moves up or down through harmony using scale and arpeggio motion, and how melody is enhanced with tension, revealed through our understanding of the third. Again, if you understand shapes, you understand music. If you don't, everything else, well, everything will feel complicated. All right, so now this leads us to fact number seven. To make everything that we've discussed up to this point, sound, shapes, direction, tension, to make all of that interesting, we add rhythm. And to really get a handle on rhythm, if we really want to master rhythm, we need to take it out of math. We need to take rhythm out of notation, we need to take rhythm out of visual grids, and we need to put rhythm back where it belongs. In the ear, in the body. That's where rhythm is mastered. Most rhythm is taught mathematically, theoretically, visually. We do it all the time. I'm guilty of it too. We map it out, we count it out, we explain it. Very interesting, right? Because music is not a visual art form, but boy, we like to make it a visual art form. We map it out, we count it out, we explain it. And the problem with this approach, it makes rhythm eye-driven, not ear-driven. And again, music is not visual, music is aural. The truth is this if you want to develop rhythmic skill, you must train your ears, you must train your body. It's a feel. And every pulse, every pulse in music, here's a huge revelation. You that every pulse in music has two parts. It has a downbeat and it has an upbeat. All rhythm, every rhythm is simply a combination of downbeats and upbeats. Think about that for a second. Every rhythm is a combination of downbeats, downbeats, and upbeats. So the goal then must be to hear downbeats, hear upbeats, feel downbeats, feel upbeats, play downbeats, play upbeats, and be able to control both. And if you can't, it's gonna be very difficult to play music. If you can't, you won't be playing rhythmically. So let's talk about how do we practice rhythm? How do we take rhythm, take the math out of rhythm? How do we take notation or rhythm out of notation and visual grids? How do we do that? Well, what I like to do, again, going back to this drum bit app or web page that I mentioned earlier in the podcast, I like to take that same drum application and establish uh a drum beat on now, not just on all four beats. You know, earlier I set it up to where you're just hearing count one. Well, now I want to hear count two, three, and four as well. I want to hear all the downbeats of the measure. So you can hear that, right? One, two, three, four. So take any note, take a chord or take a note, play it on the downbeats. All right, so we get just like that. Okay, so now what's interesting there is I always have students play a measure of downbeats followed by a measure of silence, just like you heard me do there. A measure of downbeats followed by a measure of silence. Again, this is a great way to practice silence because you have to track time when playing silence. Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start the drummer again and I'm gonna play uh four beats on the down. I'm gonna play four downbeats followed by a measure of rest, followed by four upbeats, four downbeats, four upbeats, always with silence in between. So check this out. Two, three, four. So down, rest, upbeats, rest. Let's do it again. Down, rest, now upbeats just like that. Playing downbeats, playing upbeats with a measure of rest in between. What a great exercise. Now, what I'll start doing after that, once somebody has a command of downbeats, upbeats, then we will start mixing and matching the uh the downbeats and upbeats. So we might do something where we play three downbeats and then on count four, play an upbeat. On count uh maybe switch the upbeat to count three, then switch the upbeat to count two, switch the upbeat to count one. So um let me just demonstrate that real quick. So down on the end of four. Let's do it again. How about move it to upbeat to count three? Count two. So you can just move the upbeat around. Count four, count three, count two, count one, count three and four, count one and two, count two and four, count one and three. You get the idea, right? It's a great way to practice downbeats, upbeats, use a single note, use a chord. Eventually, what you want to do is use an arpeggio. So play a C major arpeggio, upbeat on count four. So uh it's just a fabulous way of practicing rhythm without getting mathematically wrapped around the axle, as I like to say. And instead, you start developing time, control, rhythmic awareness, which is going to lead to better phrasing, your feel. So if again, if you if you cannot hear and control downbeats and upbeats, you can't play rhythmically. I mean, that's just that's just the brutal fact. And if you cannot play rhythmically, you uh you cannot be musically expressive. Impossible. So again, all rhythms, all rhythms, no matter how complex, are simply combinations of downbeats and upbeats. So your rhythmic mastery must begin with a control of downbeats and upbeats. Master the downbeat and the upbeat, and you're on your way to mastering rhythm. So now, after today, we now understand this. What music is sound and silence, how sound is produced harmonically and melodically, how harmony is organized, with shapes called chords and voicings, how melody is constructed and approached, again with shapes called arpeggios and scales, how melody moves up or down through harmony using scale and arpeggio motion, how melody is enhanced with tension, chromaticism, and how everything becomes music through rhythm. So you see, music is not complicated. It's organized sound, shaped, directed, colored, and brought to life by rhythm. And here's the truth everything you have ever struggled with in music, every bit of confusion, every moment of frustration, every feeling of being overwhelmed, it doesn't come from a lack of talent. It comes from a lack of clarity. Because when music is presented as isolated fragment fragments Which it often is, chords over here, scales over there, licks somewhere else. It feels disconnected. It feels impossible, quite honestly. But today hopefully you've seen something very different. You've seen that music is not a collection of random ideas. It is indeed a system. A simple, logical, beautifully organized system. Sound and silence, harmony and melody, shapes, direction, tension, rhythm. That's it. So from this point forward, I want you to stop chasing more information. So important. Stop chasing more information and start deepening your understanding of what you already know. Because everything you need to know, everything you need to grow as a musician is already, honestly, it's already in front of you. You don't need more. You need clarity. And once you truly see these seven facts in the music you play, once you hear them, once you recognize them, once you feel them, music will never look complicated again. Instead, it will feel natural, it will feel connected, it will feel inevitable. And that's the moment when you stop chasing information and you finally begin to understand it. You finally begin to understand music. You truly begin at that moment to discover, learn, and play. Well, I hope you have found this marathon covering the seven facts of music to be insightful, and of course, I hope you have found it to be extremely beneficial. Don't forget, I will see everyone online Thursday evening at the Jazz Piano Skills Masterclass. That will be 8 p.m. Central time to discuss this podcast episode, to discuss the seven facts of music, and to explore and discuss any questions that you may have about jazz in general. And remember, if you cannot make the class, it's no big deal because you, as members of Jazz Piano Skills, can access the video and watch the class at your convenience and watch it as often as you wish. If you have questions for me before the masterclass on Thursday, feel free to uh reach out to me. My number here at the Dallas School of Music is 972-380-8050. And then uh, if you prefer me, email Dr. Lawrence, drlawrence at jazzpianoskills.com, or you can use the speakpipe widget that is found on the home page of the Jazz Piano Skills website. Well, there is my cue. That's it for now. And until next week, enjoy the seven facts of music, and most of all, have fun as you discover, learn, and play jazz piano.