Tag: II-V-I

Piano day (1h)

  • Improvisation
  • Major & minor ii — V — I / ii — V — i’s in format 2 (Dan Haerle)

A pretty relaxed & short session due to some production work that’s forcing me to bail on practising sometimes 😃). But I’m still playing piano while producting tracks, right? Does that count? Lol.

Piano day (1h morning & 20m real quick in the evening)

  • Jazz voicings (Dan Haerle)
    • Major ii — V — I’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 1 (skill 40) at 90bpm — 20m
    • Major ii — V — I’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 2 (skill 41) at 70bpm — 20m
    • Minor ii⊘ — V — i’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 1 (skill 42) w/o click — 20m
    • Major ii⊘ — V — i’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 2 (skill 43) w/o click — 20m

Piano day (1h 40m)

Jazz voicings (Dan Haerle)

  • Major ii — V — I’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 1 (skill 40) at 84bpm — 20m
  • Major ii — V — I’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 2 (skill 41) at 84bpm — 20m
  • Minor ii — V — i’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 1 (skill 42), without click, then at 70bpm — 30m
  • Minor ii — V — i’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 2 (skill 43), analysis + playing without click — 30m

Observations

Man, minor is hard! 😵 But I’m also getting better at recognising 3 -7-9, 3-7-6 and 7-3-6 shell voicings (that are harder than 7-3-5 where you just need to see the 7th, and the rest of the chord is already there). Also, m7b5 — 7b9 — m9 is the an incredibly beautiful way to voice minor ii — V — i!

Piano day (1h 20m)

  • Major ii — V — I, format 2 (Dan Haerle, skill 41 both pages) — without click, slowly several times (50m)
  • Shell voicings (7-3-5, 3-7-9) + inversions over walking bass line & drums for Autumn Leaves in Bb- (30m)

Observations

Shell voicings (chord inversions with some intervals removed or added) are probably the best thing I’ve learned during my jazz piano practice. They are fun to play (make you sound jazzy immediately) and at the same time they are an endless source of excercises! Like, you thing you’re cool playing all chords in 3-7-9 through the cycle? Then play ii — V — I based on each chord! Easy? Voice them as b6-3-b7, 7-3-5 and 3-7-11! Cool? How about playing chords instead of roots with the left hand and make your ii — V — I polychordal? Mastered that? Play the jazz standard now and feel like shit again! LOL. It’s so much fun and I can’t thank Mr. Haerle and Mr. Aebersold enough.