Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Jazz Study Group: Autumn Leaves, ATTYA, etc.

RH Phrasing in Jazz

I think that the issue of how to phrase is common to everyone now so let's emphasize the points once again.

Part of the purpose of swing is to remove the stiffness in the sound and relax the feel. So this can be used to varying degrees even in a non-jazz tune so these suggestions apply even when playing slow.

1. Eighth Notes are Legato/Slurred. Accent on Upbeats. Except for the last eighth note followed by a rest. This is played short.

2. Quarter notes are played short, or detached. Basically if there's a series of quarter notes, there should be a short rest in between each one. Bouncy Feel is exactly what I would use to describe it.

3. Half and Whole notes are played at full value with no alteration.

4. Sixteenth notes are not swung. They are played evenly and with no accent (at Medium swing tempo).

So as you can see, you really have to only look at Eighth Notes and Quarter Notes and phrasing them. When reading a leadsheet, these are assumed in Jazz and not written into the music. Even when using Serge's leadsheet, you can almost pre-write these rules on it. I did at the beginning of my studies. I marked which ones I should play short or slurred.


LH Phrasing

When playing quarter bass notes on the LH, these are always slurred/legato. No swing applied. Accent beat 2 and 4. The reason for this is that you are emulating the bass player.

.

Elssa, That was great! I'm completely blown away by how fast the people on this forum are progressing. While I enjoyed your earlier "cocktail" version, this new one has a crisper, professional sound that I think is much more appealing. Thanks for posting. You're setting a good example for where I hope to be in, oh, five or ten years!

I agree with you Ritincop. I don't always accent 2 and 4, although I was specifically taught to do that. I think good taste would dictate when it applies.

We haven't discussed Latin/Bossa here even which is not accented at all.

Very nice Elssa, with a little bit of improvisation even!

Some things to watch, in addition to what Ritincop said. I liked your walking bass. The note selection was perfect. Now if you listen to it as you changed chords, the walking bass did not slur to the next chord. Be careful with that. I think the reason for that is probably a fingering issue. Think carefully about how you're going to finger the bass lines to connect from chord to chord.

I'm going to add some more to these comments in a moment as I listen to your melody more. You're more advanced so we can probably set a higher standard for you to reach.

EDIT - I think Ritincop was right on. The significant issue is the quarter note and accenting the 1st eighth note. I would mark up on the music how you phrase the melody (since most of us don't follow the music exactly), but specifically check the phrasing rules to see if you're using eighth notes and where it lands on the beat, as well as when to detach the quarter notes.

In my early jazz studies, I would be given sheet music of jazz lines and I had to interpret the phrasing which is never written in. It has to come automatically. Now I don't even think of these issues as it's ingrained in me.

This is a piece of cake for you bluekeys. This is within short term reach.

I was wondering, Serge, how did you figure out that you could substitute and Em6 in there? Was that just trial and error? That is actually quite a valid substution when the Em7 is a tonic chord, which it is in this instance.

When we get to an advanced level on this tune much later on, it would be fun to play with various substitutions on Autumn Leaves. I normally do a lot of substutitions when I play this myself.

Ellsa, bravo! What an inspiration to us all.

Here's a basic question:

Is there a convention in jazz lingo to refer to eighth notes as "eight" notes? It looks like sixteenth notes are referred to by that name - is there a rationale for the eighth/eight switcheroo?

Yes, there's just a convention for bad English Thanks for catching. I was getting dyslexic looking at them probably.

Jazzwee:

Fantastic Thread!!! I logged onto the forums for the first time yesterday so I got a late start. I hope you don't mind if I back you up a bit. I'm on the second lesson (playing the 3rds) and I have a bit of a problem with playing the melody while hitting the 1/7/3. Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to drop down an octive?

Hi Woody, the 3rd playing is not with the melody. That's instead of the melody and is a practice to get used to doing a solo.

For melody playing, just use 1/7. And also in a later lesson, you can insert the 5 as in 1/5/7.

What you are referring to as 1/7/3 is playing in tenths which I discussed later (1/10) and is difficult to do unless you have ultra-large hands. I would save that for later when you've mastered everything else.

Have fun!

I found a version where at the last two bar it's Em7 follow by Em6. I tried that on the left hand (going from 1/7 to 1/6 was easy), it was nice so I decided to change every Em7 chord by Em7 on beat 1 and Em6 on beat 3.

Serge

It always works to turn a Im7 into a Im6 if the progression is IIm7b5-V7b9-Im7. Just note that it doesn't work on a minor functioning as a ii chord (like Am7 in AL), or iii chord.

You're pretty sharp to notice this. You can also play Em6 completely and skip the Em7.

Really ??? I thought we were supposed to practice 1/7 left hand and 3rd + the melody with the right hand.

Why did you choose Autumn leaves if we don't play the melody ?

Serge

The standard thing I was teaching was to play 1/7 in LH and Melody in the RH. That's the starting point. As I said at the beginning, if you took a fresh song out of a leadsheet like 'As Time Goes By' or 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' or 'Misty', this approach is used to get a good understanding of the tune. It is something I myself do all the time.

Now beyond that is now to thicken the harmony and inner voices so later on in the lessons, we discussed using 1/7 or 1/3, and even later than that we discussed 1/5/7.

As a separate discussion I discussed practicing doing a 3rd on the RH as a solo exercise. Not connected to the melody.

Sometimes the 3rd is the melody. Sometimes the 3rd is in the way or above the melody so you can't always play it on the RH (in which case you play it on the LH and the 7th is played on the RH instead). If you can play the 3rd while the melody is higher up it's a good thing because we'll be talking about that later. However, I wasn't specifically asking everyone to do this since it doesn't always work.

I'm trying to introduce everyone to the improvisation side and thus I was giving everyone the exercise of listening to the 3rd on the RH. And that can become a 'home base' sound for a solo.

Jazz is played as:
1. Head (Melody)
2. Solo
3. Repeat Head.

Serge, I still need to do a separate lesson discussing additional inner voices on RH and LH, both when playing the melody and just comping.

I haven't explained that yet because I wanted to make sure everyone knew what the extension references were (9,11,13, etc.) which I did a few days ago.

Ok thanks,

by the way I ordered P.Degreg Keyboard Jazz harmony. It looks like a good book on voicing and practicing jazz chords.

Serge

Excellent Serge. Do you have the book 'Metaphors for the Musician'? I recommend that too. Especially useful is the solo piano/comping discussion which is clearly stated.

Especially useful is the solo piano/comping discussion which is clearly stated.

Thanks again all. This is such a great site/thread for learning and inspiration! My main bugaboo now is still the soloing, but I'm going to check out everything listed on that here again and I'm sure eventually I'll "get it" (might take a while though).