General Music Theory

Here are some brief basic music theory concepts of the common practice preiod, that everyone should know before starting developing in different directions.

See/download the all-in-one file, or choose pages from below:

1. Sound (in music)
2. Pitch
   1. Intervals
   2. Chords
   3. Tonality
      1. Scales
      2. Cadences
      3. Relationship between Keys
      4. the Circle of Fifths
   4. The Melodic Line
3. Form
4. Rhythm
   1. Classification of Measures

Jazz Level 1

My personal take of how one should approach Jazz at the piano from a practical stand point

Generalities about Jazz

1. Evolution of Jazz Styles
2. The Elements of Jazz
3. Chord notation

Jazz Harmony

1. Functional harmony (the 5 types of chords)
2. 60 Chords in root position (for piano)
3. 60 chords system in root position (Mehegan)
   
4. Random Chords
5. more Random Chords
   
6. ii - V - I in Major
   1. Aebersold chart
   2. iReal b chart
7. Chord Inversions
8. 60 Chords in 2nd inversion (for piano)
9. 60 chords chart - combination of Root positions with 2nd inversions - the One Choice chart
10. Lead Sheet changes adjustments

Performance

1. Generalities
2. Accompanying in a group
3. Playing the tune
4. Chord Voicings in Open/Mixed positions
5. Improvising
   1. Scales (the tones pool)
   2. 60 scales for 60 chords
   3. Alternate scales
   4. Non-Chord Tones (how scale tones relate to chords)
   5. Combyning the tones into Motives, Phrases and the ultimately the whole Solo
6. Practice workflow for pianists

Jazz Level 2

Files are in Adobe PDF format. Click your browser's Back button to come back here after opening them

HARMONIC STRUCTURES

1. Close voicings, rootless structures, Type 1 and Type 2
   1. 3-notes
   2. 4-notes
   3. 4-notes (Evans)
   4. the 60 chord system, ONE choice chart, for piano
   5. the 60 chords system, ONE choice, for guitar
2. Open voicings, Type 1 and Type 2
   1. 5-part 9th chords
   2. LH - rootless, RH - root and 5th
   3. Quartal voicings (tonal)
   4. Hybrid or Slash chord voicings
   5. Polychord voicings

PLAYING THE LEAD

1. Playing the Tune
   1. melody + 2
   2. block chords (Shearing)
   3. block chords - alternating the main chord with transitional diminished chords
   4. "fake" block chords
   5. octaves, double-octaves, etc
2. Improvising
   1. more scales
      • the 7 modes of the major scale
      • the 7 modes of the minor melodic scale
      • the 2 modes of the diminished scale
      • the whole-note scale
      • Bebop scales
      • pentatonic scales
      • exotic scales
      • modes of limited transposition
   2. 3rd-based vs. 4th-based improvisation
   3. motive's development - analyze Miles Davis solo on Blues by Five
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5qIaDsiFpo
   4. improvising "outside"
   5. other improvisation ideas:
      • unison solo several octaves apart
      • free (rhythmical) improvisation
   6. planning the improvisation

ACCOMPANYING

1. Left Hand styles
   1. LH arpeggiato 1-5-10
   2. Stride (swing piano)
   3. walking bass
   4. Fixed patterns (ex.: boogie-woogie)
2. Two-hands accompaniment styles
   1. open voicing chords (see "Harmonic Structures")
   2. applying a rhythm to the chords
   3. (ballroom) dancing patterns
      • European dance patterns
      • Latin dance patterns

MODAL JAZZ

1. a different type of harmonic progression
2. Triadic voicings
   1. non-tonal chord progressions
3. Quartal voicings

PREPARING FOR PERFORMANCE

1. Re-harmonizing a tune
   
   1. diatonic substitutions (secondary chords)
   2. chromatic substitutions (Lendvai's axis system)
   3. turn arounds and transition chords
2. re-harmonizing with a purpose:
   1. cleaning up the original chart
   2. making it improvisation-friendly
   3. chord beautification with added extensions
   4. changing the harmonic style of a piece
3. Re-arranging a tune
   1. changing the Time, Meter and/or Style of the original piece
   2. adding Intros, Interludes, Bridges, Special choruses and Endings

Miscelaneous

Click the file name in the "File(s)" column to view/print/download them.

Documents are in Adobe PDF format. Click your browser's Back button to come back here after opening them

Title	File(s)
Note Recognition Application download, unzip and run the application Screenshot	Mac version PC version
Manuscript paper - 12 staves	staff-12.pdf
Big Band scetch manuscript paper	BBand_sketch_paper.pdf