Let's discover, learn, and play Harmonic Motion with Minor Arpeggios. Students often ask me, "what can I do with my left-hand voicing while I'm playing a melody or improvising?" It's an excellent question, one that needs to be explored. When listening to accomplished jazz pianists, one quickly notices that their left hand is not static, it's not merely functioning in a low-profile accompaniment role - it's roaming around! So, today, let's discover, learn, and play some left-hand shapes that we can move around under melodic lines. Let's create Harmonic Motion with Minor Arpeggios.

Time to discover Harmonic Motion with Arpeggios. Before we get too excited and rush off to begin trying to create harmonic motion with our left hand, we need to stop and determine what types of shapes are suitable for sliding around the keyboard. When beginning the discovery process, one quickly realizes that traditional chord voicings built around the major and minor third intervals are not conducive to easy mobility. Therefore, it's best to turn our attention to harmonic structures built around the interval of a fourth. They are incredibly comfy under our hands, much easier to slide around and give us a contemporary jazz sound. Let's learn some fourth-voicings that we can use to create Harmonic Motion with Minor Arpeggios.

Time to learn Harmonic Motion with Arpeggios. There are four common fourth-voicing shapes that jazz pianists like to use when playing minor chords. Here they are:
​

1. 1 - 4 - 7
2. 2 - 5 - 1
3. 5 - 1 - 4
4. 6 - 2 - 5

Notice that each voicing contains three notes that are each a fourth apart. Also, it's important to mention that each voicing is built using the C minor Dorian mode/scale (C D Eb F G A Bb). Here is what they look like using music notation.

Now that we have determined the voicings (shapes) we're going to use to create Harmonic Motion with Minor Arpeggios,  we're ready to play Harmonic Motion with Minor Arpeggios!

Time to play Harmonic Motion with Arpeggios. We have already determined the voicings we're going to use for this exercise so let's take a moment and do the same for the arpeggio. When practicing arpeggios I like to play the entire sound from the root to the 13th. A C minor arpeggio (built using the Dorian mode/scale) looks like this:

• C Eb G Bb D F A

So, we're going to use all seven notes of the sound with our right hand, while creating harmonic motion with our left hand using our four voicings/shapes explored above. Here is what it looks like using music notation:

Now, watch my video to hear how Harmonic Motion with Minor Arpeggios sounds.

Spend time studying the formulas for constructing minor voicings using the interval of a fourth. Likewise, spend time practicing minor arpeggios from the root to the 13th. When comfortable, put the two together as illustrated in the music above and as I demonstrated in my video. As always, put a plan in place to discover, learn, and play Harmonic Motion with Minor Arpeggios for all 12 keys.

If you wish to discover, learn, and play more Harmonic Motion with Minor Arpeggios and other essential jazz piano skills, you should join JazzPianoSkills.com. In addition to receiving free professional jazz piano lessons on a regular basis via Email, your membership grants you lifetime access to all of my instructional jazz courses and lessons which contain invaluable interactive exercises and videos (which you can access and study as often as you wish). Additionally, you can establish your own private Mavenlink Support Portal, hosted and maintained by The Dallas School of Music, which will allow you and me to personally interact with one another as often as needed each and every week. Likewise, you’ll receive tuition discounts if you ever choose to have private online jazz lessons with me through The Dallas School of Music.

I welcome the opportunity to answer any questions you may have regarding this blog so feel free to Email me drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com or call me 972-380-8050 Ext. 211. Please take a moment and listen to a few of my recordings or follow me at SoundCloud to get a feel for how I play and approach this wonderful art form we call jazz. I've included one of my recordings below for you to quickly check out.

I look forward to helping you discover, learn, and play jazz!

Let's discover, learn, and play Polychord Voicings. The word polychord can sound intimidating when we first hear the term, but it is actually a simple way to approach learning altered dominant sounds. When looking at a standard jazz lead sheet for a song, it is more than likely to contain some "fancy chords" like C7#11, or C7b9#5. Of course when seeing these "fancy chords," one typically asks the obvious question, "How in the world do I play that chord?". Today, we are going to explore various Polychord Voicings to demystify the playing of "fancy chords," so let's get to it and discover, learn, and play Polychord Voicings. ​

Time to discover Polychord Voicings. The stacking of one chord on top of another chord to produce a specific sound is a standard technique used by professional jazz pianists. So, for example, if you play C Dominant 7 in your left hand while at the same time you play the D Major Triad in your right hand you have a Polychord Voicing; you would be playing a C7#11 sound.  Polychord Voicings are used primarily to handle the altered dominant sounds that are so frequently used in jazz and society standards. You have probably come across many of these chords in the music you play - b9#5, #9b5, b9b5, #9#5, #11, b9, b13. Let's take a look at some Polychord Voicings used by jazz pianists to handle these ordinary (and  "fancy") chords.

Time to learn Polychord Voicings. Take a look at the music below that illustrates the most common Polychord Voicings used in standard jazz repertoire. Here are the formulas for each of the Polychord Voicings illustrated:
​

• #11 = "II Major Triad" over "I Dominant 7"
• b9#5 = "#I Minor Triad" over "I Dominant 7"
• #9b5 = "bIII Minor Triad" over "I Dominant 7"
• b9b5 = "bV Major Triad" over "I Dominant 7"
• #9#5 = "bVI Major Triad" over "I Dominant 7"
• b9 = "VI Major Triad" over I Dominant 7"
• ​b13 = "I Augmented Triad" over "I Dominant 7"

Spend time studying the formulas and how they are notated in the illustration. When comfortable, try applying the formulas to the other 11 dominant chords. Time to hear how these Polychord Voicings sound, time to play!

Time to play Polychord Voicings. ​In my video below I demonstrate how to play the Polychord Voicings by placing them into a musical context. In the video I play at a tempo of 85; however, I can not stress enough how important it is to play a tempo that allows you to perform each of the Polychord Voicings comfortably. After you have a command of the shapes and sounds of these Polychord Voicings, you can begin to challenge yourself with faster tempos.

Once you play the Polychord Voicings for "C7", put a plan in place to play the Polychord Voicings for the remaining eleven dominant chords. I strongly recommend using an app like iRealPro or software like Band In a Box to help you play Polychord Voicings and all jazz piano skills you set out to discover, learn, and play.

If you wish to discover, learn, and play more Polychord Voicings and other essential jazz piano skills, you should join JazzPianoSkills.com. In addition to receiving free professional jazz piano lessons on a regular basis via Email, your membership grants you lifetime access to all of my instructional jazz courses and lessons which contain invaluable interactive exercises and videos (which you can access and study as often as you wish). Additionally, you can establish your own private Mavenlink Support Portal, hosted and maintained by The Dallas School of Music, which will allow you and me to personally interact with one another as often as needed each and every week. Likewise, you’ll receive tuition discounts if you ever choose to have private online jazz lessons with me through The Dallas School of Music.

I welcome the opportunity to answer any questions you may have regarding this blog so feel free to Email me drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com or call me 972-380-8050 Ext. 211. Please take a moment and listen to a few of my recordings or follow me at SoundCloud to get a feel for how I play and approach this wonderful art form we call jazz. I've included one of my recordings below for you to quickly check out.

I look forward to helping you discover, learn, and play jazz!

Let's discover, learn, and play Half Diminished Arpeggios. It's a reality that arpeggio study and practice is rarely discussed and explored for half-diminished sounds (chords). I'm not sure why this is the case but surmise that because of its rare occurrence in music, when compared to the major, dominant, and minor sounds, the half-diminished sound is merely overlooked. The neglect of the half-diminished sound is unfortunate because it is gorgeous -  especially when expressed from the root through the 13th. So, today we resist the temptation to overlook the half-diminished sound and instead set out to discover, learn, and play Half Diminished Arpeggios from the root to the 13th. 

Let's discover Half Diminished Arpeggios. As with any musical sound we need to understand its origin in order to determine an appropriate scale and arpeggio; the half diminished sound originates from the major scale. When arranging the notes of any major scale into modes we discover the half diminished scale in the 7th mode. Let's take a look at the Eb major scale and its modes:

1. Eb F G Ab Bb C D (Ionian)
2. F G Ab Bb C D Eb (Dorian)
3. G Ab Bb C D Eb F (Phrygian)
4. Ab Bb C Db Eb F G (Lydian)
5. Bb C D Eb F G Ab (Mixolydian)
6. C D Eb F G Ab Bb (Aeolian)
7. D Eb F G Ab Bb C (Locrian)

Mode VII gives us the notes D F Ab C which is the D half diminished sound (chord). We know this because of our understanding of interval relationships, especially the 3rd, that formulates the all the harmonic structures/sounds of music. Knowing a major 3rd equals four half steps and a minor third equals three half steps, we discover the following combinations when exploring the modes of a major scale:

• Maj 3rd + Min 3rd + Maj 3rd = Major Sound
• Min 3rd + Maj 3rd + Min 3rd = Minor Sound
• Maj 3rd +  Min 3rd + Min 3rd = Dominant Sound
• Min 3rd + Min 3rd + Maj 3rd = Half Diminished Sound
• Min 3rd + Min 3rd + Min 3rd = Diminished Sound

DO NOT PANIC! Modes and interval study is a ton of math to sort out which I present in this blog only as a way of illustrating the legitimacy of determining the origins of a musical sound like the half diminished. You do not need to fully grasp this theory at this point to learn Half Diminished Arpeggios.

Let's learn Half Diminished Arpeggios. Today we're going use the D Half Diminished Arpeggios to learn how to approach and explore the half diminished sound. As illustrated above, the D half diminished sound comes from the Eb major scale. So, let's begin by formatting the seventh mode of the Eb major scale as an arpeggio:

• 7th Mode of Eb Major Scale
  • D F Ab C Eb G Bb

Now that we have our D half diminished sound in an arpeggio format starting on root (D) and going to the 13th (Bb), we can establish four "D" Half Diminished Arpeggios with each having a different destination point:

• Half Diminished Arpeggios
  • Arpeggio 1: D F Ab C (Root to 7th)
  • Arpeggio 2: D F Ab C Eb (Root to 9th)
  • Arpeggios 3: D F Ab C Eb G (Root to 11th)
  • Arpeggio 4: D F Ab C Eb G Bb (Root to 13th)

Using this approach is not only great for your technique development, it is phenomenal ear-training. Here are what the "D" Half Diminished Arpeggios look like using traditional music notation:

Now that you now have an organized way to learn Half Diminished Arpeggios, it's "paper-practice" time. Create the above illustrations for each half diminished sound (C, F, Bb, Eb, etc.). ​The more "paper practice" the better when you're trying to learn a jazz piano skill.

Let's play Half Diminished Arpeggios. In my video below I demonstrate how to play "D" Half Diminished Arpeggios by placing them into a musical context. In the video I play at a tempo of 110; however, I can not stress enough of how important it is to play a tempo that allows you to comfortably perform each of the Half Diminished Arpeggios. After you have a command of the notes, fingerings, and articulations you can begin to challenge yourself with faster tempos.

Once you play the Half Diminished Arpeggios for "D", put a plan in place to play the Half Diminished Arpeggios for the remaining eleven keys. I strongly recommend using an app like iRealPro or software like Band In a Box to help you play Half DIminished Arpeggios and all jazz piano skills.

If you wish to discover, learn, and play more Half Diminished Arpeggios and other essential jazz piano skills, you should join JazzPianoSkills.com. In addition to receiving free professional jazz piano lessons on a regular basis via Email, your membership grants you lifetime access to all of my instructional jazz videos (which you can access and study as often as you wish). Additionally, your own private Mavenlink Support Portal is established, hosted, and maintained by The Dallas School of Music allowing you and me to easily interact with one another as often as needed each and every week. Likewise, you’ll receive tuition discounts if you ever choose to have private online jazz lessons with me through The Dallas School of Music.

I welcome the opportunity to answer any questions you may have regarding this blog so feel free to Email me drlawrence@jazzpianoskills.com or call me 972-380-8050 Ext. 211. Please take a moment and listen to a few of my recordings or follow me at SoundCloud to get a feel for how I play and approach this wonderful art form we call jazz. I've included one of my recordings below for you to quickly check out.

I look forward to helping you discover, learn, and play jazz!