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Breaking Out of Broken Chords

Back in the 1990s, I bought Volumes 1, 2, and 3 of The New Real Book. These books are full of anything you could ever want to play in jazz, including all of the standards. I'd also bought Mark Levine's Jazz Piano Book, and I was ready to learn jazz.

Alas, a stack of books didn't cut it. I needed a teacher. Someone to show me the ropes. But I didn't know where to look, and besides, I was too shy to ask anyone. I mean, me? Middle-class, shy, cerebral little me, wanting to become a jazzer? Laughable. I didn't even smoke, and I looked silly in sunglasses.

Still, I Could Play Pretty Broken Chords

Every few years, I would dig out the Levine book and try to make progress, and I would dig out the New Real Book volumes and attempt to play songs. Whenever I saw the chord change, I would go to the root of the chord and proceed to arpeggiate, usually with the 1 and the 5. Thanks to my Mark Levine book, I did learn how to play the 3 and the 7 in the right hand with the melody, so that's what I did: lovely (if unimaginative) arpeggios in the left hand, and a somewhat harmonized melody in the right. And I came up with a few very pretty improvisations: there's this one of Over the Rainbow, and this one of All the Things You Are.

Yes, they're nice to listen to, and I love them both. But that's all I knew to do in the left hand: broken chords and arpeggios up and down the lower half of the keyboard, with two- and three-note chords in the upper half. And it wasn't just my habit with lead sheets; I played this way with everything. I played it with any song I tried to write. I played it with every single hymn I ever played from a hymnbook ... the same old broken chords. Here is something I played for my church during COVID.

Same old same old!

Anyway, this style worked fine with ballad-style songs, but I wanted to have some variety. I also wanted to be able to play things that were more upbeat. Instead, I was turning even the fast songs into ballads.

Enter PWJ

I'm currently taking a PWJ course on playing piano with lead sheets and seventh chords (as opposed to adding ninths, thirteenths, etc.). The course so far has been a great introduction (and, for me, a bit of review) to chord progressions, as well as some of the different things you can do in your left and right hands to take the song beyond mere melody notes and accompanying chords.

While it isn't a course on styles, I find that I'm learning what else I can do with the left hand! In this video, I'm playing short, syncopated(?) block chords with "Fly Me To the Moon." I'm not very good at the chords and the timing yet (I don't think there is any rhyme or reason to them), but I am so excited to be playing something other than broken chords!

And guess what! I can play this in whatever key I want! I don't even have to write the Roman numerals in (though it helps)!

Remember That Blog Post on the Rusty Lock and Key?

I am so happy. Even though jazz is no longer my primary area of interest, I am so thrilled to finally be breaking out of the (non-)creative prison that I've been in for so many years. The stubborn rust on the lock is finally beginning to chip off, and the key has begun to turn.

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