Stop Memorising Jazz Chord Changes (Do This Instead)

[00:00:00]In a recent video, we looked at three jazz standards and discovered that what looked like three completely different tunes full of complicated chord changes was actually just a handful of common harmonic building blocks used in different combinations. Now, that's great, but it raises an obvious question. Once you recognize those patterns, now what? How do you turn those building blocks into something you can actually hear, practice, and improvise with? In this video, we'll take one of the tunes from the last video, The Way You Look Tonight, and I'll show you a simple but powerful practice process that will help you internalize those building blocks and start making music with them straight away. The best part is that once you've learned this process, you can use it on almost any jazz standard.

[00:00:44]Here's the chart we ended up with last time. We've used colors to identify the common harmonic building blocks. Blue represents 2-5-1's, green represents 1-6-2-5 turnarounds, and the slightly lighter green in bar five and bar six, and again further down the page, is a slight variation on the same turnaround.

[00:01:03]Instead of 1-6-2-5, it's 3-6-2-5 with a secondary dominant on chord six, adding a little extra color. You don't need to have seen the previous video to follow what I'm about to show you today.

[00:01:15]But if you'd like to understand where those building blocks came from and how we identified them, feel free to watch that video first and then come back.

[00:01:22]I'll put a link to it on screen now. So, let's get straight into making some music with these building blocks. I've put everything I'm about to show you today into a free PDF, so you can practice this yourself later. In this video, I'll be working in concert pitch, but the PDF also includes transposed notation for B flat, E flat, F, and bass clef instruments. There's a link below in the description. We'll start at the top of the chart with the first line.

[00:01:46]This whole line is built around a 1-6-2-5 turnaround in the key of E flat major.

[00:01:52]So, we've got four chords here. E flat major seven, >> [music] >> C minor 7, F minor 7, and B [music] flat 7.

[00:02:04]But rather than treat every chord as a separate challenge, we're going to start with just one note and see if we can follow it through the harmony. Let's begin with the tonic, E flat.

[00:02:13]>> [music] >> We know that note's going to work on the first chord because it's the root.

[00:02:19]Each time the harmony changes, we'll ask ourselves one question. Can I stay on this note or do I need to move?

[00:02:26]On the C minor 7 chord, can we keep our E flat?

[00:02:29]>> [music] >> Well, C minor 7 contains C, E flat, G, and B flat. So, yeah, we can stay [music] exactly where we are.

[00:02:38]Then we get to F minor 7, which contains F, A flat, [music] C, and E flat.

[00:02:45]Again, our E flat is still part of the chord, so there's no need to move.

[00:02:49]And finally, we arrive on B flat 7.

[00:02:53]B flat 7 contains B flat, D, >> [music] >> F, and A flat.

[00:02:59]There's no E flat in the chord anymore, so we do need to move. Rather than making a big leap, let's just look for the closest chord note. D is only a semitone away, so we'll move [music] down from E flat to D.

[00:03:12]So, our pathway is E flat, >> [music] >> E flat, E flat, D.

[00:03:20]To begin with, I'm just going to loop that four-bar turnaround and I'm going to hold those notes as the harmony moves underneath. The goal isn't to make music yet. The goal is just to hear how those notes sound against the changing chords and to become really familiar with that little movement from E flat down to D when we reach the B flat chord.

[00:03:40]>> [music] [music] >> Spend a while with that, probably longer than you think. This isn't really a technical exercise, it's an ear training exercise. You're giving your ears and your fingers enough time to connect, so that eventually you can hear those notes and find them automatically without having to stop and think. Once that feels comfortable, we can start adding some rhythm. We're still using exactly the same pathway, we're still changing from E flat to D in exactly the same place. The only thing we're changing is we're just improvising some simple rhythms with our notes as we loop the turnaround. Like this.

[00:04:27]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> This might seem almost too simple, but don't underestimate it. Good improvisation isn't about squeezing in as many notes as possible. It's about making a few notes sound convincing.

[00:05:06]Strong rhythm combined with notes that move smoothly through the harmony is exactly the same foundation that much more sophisticated lines are built on.

[00:05:14]Once you can hear and play that without thinking, you've learned your first pathway through this progression. Now, let's give ourselves a more little material to work with. Our target note is still E flat, that hasn't changed.

[00:05:26]But now we're going to add the next two notes from the E flat major scale above it. So, we'll have E flat, F, and G.

[00:05:34]>> [music] >> Those aren't new target notes, they're simply nearby notes that we can use around the target note for some embellishment and some movement. We can do exactly the same thing everywhere our target note is E flat. So, we got E flat and we add F and G.

[00:05:49]Then, when we arrive at D on that final chord, we'll use the same idea again, adding the next two notes above D. So, we'll have D, E flat, and [music] F.

[00:06:00]We're still aiming for exactly the same pathway through the harmony. We're just decorating it with a few nearby notes.

[00:06:06]Here's what that sounds like.

[00:06:11]>> [music] [music] >> Now, let's find another pathway. This time, let's begin on G, which is the third of the E flat major 7 chord.

[00:06:34]On C minor 7, we can stay exactly where we are, because G is still part of the chord. [music] When we move to F minor 7, we'll have to adjust. F minor 7 contains F, A flat, [music] C, and E flat. There's no G. So, again, let's move to the nearest chord note to keep things as smooth as possible. A flat is just a semitone above G, so we'll move there.

[00:06:57]Then, when we reach the B flat 7 chord, we can stay on A flat, as there's an A flat >> [music] >> in the chord.

[00:07:05]So, our second pathway is G, >> [music] >> G, A flat, A flat.

[00:07:14]Now, we'll follow exactly the same process. First, practice just playing and hearing the pathway, then improvising rhythmically, and then adding a couple of nearby notes from the scale to decorate those target notes.

[00:07:33]>> [music] [music] [music] >> So now we've got another option through the turnaround, and you can use exactly the same process to find others. Just pick any note from the E flat major 7 chord and see how far you can carry it through the progression, only adjusting it when you need to, and always looking for the smoothest movement possible.

[00:08:12]Spend time with each pathway on its own, and don't worry about trying to use all of them at once. Just really get to know how each one sounds and feels. Every time you do this, you're training your ears to recognize another smooth melodic route through the harmony, and eventually, you won't need the stabilizers anymore. You can start introducing more notes from the key, or even chromatic notes. Let your ears guide you. The important thing is that each line is still built around one of those smooth melodic pathways, with all the other notes simply decorating that underlying path.

[00:08:47]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> There are several more potential pathways included in the free PDF, and this whole practice process is laid out step-by-step. There are lots of other places in this tune where we can use exactly the same process. For example, these bars use exactly the same 1625 turnaround in exactly the same key. The only difference is that now the chords change every two beats instead of every bar.

[00:09:35]So, nothing about our process changes.

[00:09:37]We simply have to react a little more quickly.

[00:09:40]So, let's loop that section now, and we'll follow the same process. We'll start by choosing a pathway, and then just getting used to placing and hearing the notes over the chords. Then, we'll add some rhythm. Then, we'll embellish with other notes, and we can gradually start to explore other pathways. I'll demonstrate the process quickly here, but make sure you spend plenty of time with it later.

[00:10:05]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Exactly the same thing happens in the bridge. It's another 1625 turnaround.

[00:10:51]This time though, it's in G flat major [music] instead of E flat. But, the process is exactly the same. We can look for the same kinds of pathways in a new key. So, for example, if we started on the tonic, G flat, and then we stay there for the E flat minor chord, >> [music] >> and then again for A flat minor 7, and then move down to F for the D [music] flat 7 chord. Exactly the same line as we used in E flat, but now just shifted into a new key.

[00:11:20]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> So that gives us lots to work with for almost all of the green sections. But what about the second line with the lighter green?

[00:12:02]In the previous video, we saw how this is really just a variation on exactly the same turnaround. So let's apply the same process and ask ourselves the same question as before. Can I stay on this note or do I need to move? Let's take the first pathway we used. E flat, E flat, E flat, D.

[00:12:20]And see if it fits the 3-6-2-5 turnaround. The first chord is G-7, which contains G, B flat, [music] D, and F.

[00:12:31]There's no E flat in there. E flat wouldn't sound too bad actually. As I mentioned in the last video, this chord is really just standing in for chord one. So we could play E flat over it.

[00:12:40]But I think it would be nice to really bring out the slightly different color of this variation. So let's change to a chord tone. Let's use F, the seventh.

[00:12:51]Then in the next bar, we've got C7, which contains C, E, G, and B flat.

[00:12:58]There's no F in there, so let's move down to E.

[00:13:02]>> [music] >> Then we reach F-7 and B flat 7, which are the same chords as in the other turnaround. So just like before, let's use E flat and D.

[00:13:11]>> [music] >> So here's our new pathway. F, E, >> [music] >> E flat, and D.

[00:13:20]There's a little bit more going on here because the notes are changing on every chord. So we'll need to spend a little bit more time hearing it and getting it under our fingers. Just like before, we'll place the notes first, then improvise rhythmically and gradually embellish them with nearby notes.

[00:13:47]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Once we've got that under our fingers, let's try the first eight bars of the tune. Now we've got the original 1625 turnaround followed by the 3625 variation. Notice where we've got to already. We haven't memorized eight bars of chord changes. We've recognized two familiar building blocks and learned a reliable pathway through each of them.

[00:14:25]Now all we have to do is switch cleanly from one to the other. So let's make sure we can find both and make sure we can switch back and forth cleanly.

[00:14:33]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Just like with the 1625 turnaround, you can find other pathways through this 3625 turnaround by following this process. Starting with a chord note and seeing how far you can take it, making small, smooth adjustments to fit the chords where necessary. I've laid out some other pathways in the free PDF. So, now we've got pathways through every green building block in the tune. And we didn't get there by memorizing 32 bars of harmony. We got there by recognizing a small number of familiar ideas and learning to hear our way through each one. So far, we've only worked on the green building blocks. But the nice thing is that this process isn't specific to 1625 turnarounds. Exactly the same idea works on those blue 251 sections, too. Let's look at the first 251 in the tune in bar nine. B flat minor [music] seven, E flat seven, and A flat major seven.

[00:15:56]Let's start on the third of B flat minor seven, D flat.

[00:16:00]>> [music] >> Can we stay on that note when the harmony changes?

[00:16:05]Yes, D flat is still part of the E flat seven chord.

[00:16:08]>> [music] >> So, we don't need to move.

[00:16:11]Then, when we arrive on A flat major seven, there's no D flat. So, we'll need to move down a semitone to C.

[00:16:19]So, we get D flat, [music] D flat, C.

[00:16:28]And from here, the process is exactly the same. Loop the progression, learn the pathway, add some rhythm, decorate it with nearby notes, and then gradually let the stabilizers come off as you learn more pathways and get more comfortable.

[00:16:46]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> I won't work through every blue section in this video because by now you know the process. I've laid the pathways out for all of them in the free PDF, so you can work through the rest yourself. I've got another video where I go into this idea in more depth on 2-5-1 specifically. So, if you want to dig into that in more detail, check that video out next. I've linked it in the description. So, eventually we can find pathways through the whole sequence.

[00:17:34]Practice each building block on its own, and then work on short sections of the tune. Four bars, eight bars, eventually 16 bars, and then finally the whole form. You can keep discovering new pathways, and over time you'll find yourself naturally moving between them as your ears become more familiar with the harmony. Eventually, you stop thinking about individual notes, you stop thinking about individual chords, and instead you begin hearing these smooth melodic pathways through the harmony, and your fingers naturally start following what your ears are hearing.

[00:18:05]When that happens, improvising over the progression starts to feel much more relaxed and much more musical.

[00:18:15]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Download the free PDF and try this for yourself. And let me know in the comments how you get on. If you found this helpful, don't forget to like the video and subscribe for more ideas like this. Today, we've concentrated on finding smooth pathways through the harmony. But, there's another side to this, learning to make the most of a small number of notes. Miles Davis was a master of this. And in this next video, I'll show you one of the biggest lessons we can learn from his playing. I'll see you over there. Thanks for watching.