there's a lesson and a workout in every key each workout is five minutes long you're gonna play the
same progression several times and as we mentioned before the progression is two five one 4 and then
2 of 6 5 of 6 6 and then the sub 5 of 2. so go to the lesson index and choose one of the keys
let's choose the key of d flat major you'll see an info card with all the information relevant
to that key and if you tap on the video icon or use the qr code with some other device
you'll have access to the lesson for that key in which we explain it in detail
and the complete workout to play along with make sure you know the key signature and the scale
play it a couple times if you need to and then next practice the progression using the seventh
chords in root position provided here now it's a good time to view the lesson we'll explain the
substitutions on each chord for their current key and consider special cases on each key if you're
familiar with music notation you can practice the substitutions shown here play each seventh
chord followed by the rootless voicing and play it understanding the substitutions that are involved
for example on the e flat minor seven we substitute the root for the ninth so the e
flat turns in to an f if you're not familiar with standard music notation don't worry you can access
the snapshots of the chords from the score on the next page as we mentioned before some inversions
are more effective than others since we are always starting on the two chord which is a minor seventh
we will only use one of the two inversions labeled as good and once we've chosen the starting voicing
the rest of the voicings in the progression will be determined by the voice leading rule so we can
play this progression two different ways in the info card you're gonna find the two starting two
minor seven inversions for example in the key of d flat major the first chord is e flat minor seven
the two minor the voicing one sequence starts using this inversion of e flat minor seven where
the flat seven of e flat minor seven d flat is the bottom note and the voicing two sequence starts
with this inversion of e flat minor 7 in which g flat the third is the bottom note in other words
in the key of d flat major you're going to start either with this voicing or this one let's look
at the score as we said before if you're not used to reading music notation just tap on any chord
and it will show you a picture and you can go back and forth with the back to score button or
you can go chord by chord in the progression by going on to the next page in the book
let's talk about the workout we have two sequences for the same progression the voicing one sequence
and the voicing two sequence also we can play these chords on both hands as written where
the left hand plays the root while the right hand plays the voicing or with only the left
hand playing the voicing note that the octave where we play the voicings will stay the same
regardless if we are playing with both hands or only the left hand so here's the workouts form
four times both hands voicing one 32 bars four times both hands voicing two
another 32 bars and then two times with both hands voicing one followed by voicing two 32 bars and
then we repeat the entire form only with the left hand four times left hand voicing one and then
four times left hand voicing two two times left hand voicing one followed
by voicing two it's only five minutes long but it is an intense five minutes if you're not
used to these voicings a very important attribute of this workout is that you're not
only practicing rootless voicings but also form or bar length awareness when you play jazz standards
you need several pulse levels not only do you need to feel the beat and measures
but also sections of four bars or eight bars or an entire 32 bar phrase we've designed these workouts
so that they can help you improve your perception of these different lengths every four bars you
have a two five one one in major followed by one in minor every eight bars you repeat the sequence
and then every 32 bars you change to a new sequence so be aware of that property soon enough
you'll start feeling these lengths as one really long beat this is going to significantly help you
with your song form perception which is essential when you're improvising let's do a workout
walkthrough so you can see how it works and i can give you some tips the video shows you where
you are in the workout at all times first you're going to play the voicing one sequence four times
in a row play the voicings on your right hand and the root on your left if you're just starting with
this key consider just watching the first couple of loops around instead of playing right away
notice how you don't move much between consecutive chords thanks to the voice looting rule make sure
you pay attention to which notes stay fixed and which ones move from chord to chord
on the last repeat you're going to see a last time warning
and a what's next caption which will be the voicing 2 sequence with both hands
do
here's the last time you can use several inversions of the sub 5 of
2 to get back to the voicing 1 range now we play the progression using the voicing 1
followed by the voicing 2 sequence exactly as written in the score and we do this two times
next we will switch to the left hand only and repeat the entire exercise four
times
so now the challenge is not having any context provided by the root and only using your left hand
in the book we've provided you with options on how to best handle or tackle this workout there
are eight different levels and depending on your proficiency or understanding of the content you
can choose the level that best suits you and then just go from there at the end of the book
we have included a few jazz standards with the rootless voicings written out for your left hand
a demo video for each standard is also provided
in this demo the piano player first plays over the entire form using only the left hand
and then introduces the right hand playing independent lines and or chord extensions
well what are you waiting for get the essential voicings for jazz piano
volume one start practicing today and take your playing to the next level
you