Jazz Singers’ Lab

By the end of this lecture you should be able to understand the difference between a lead sheet, a score and a chord chart. There are important differences in these types of sheet music that you need to appreciate in order to successfully navigate the world of jazz and to better communicate with your band.

In jazz the most common type of sheet music you will see is called a “lead sheet.” In this section you will learn how to deconstruct a lead sheet, what are it’s important elements. We will look at 3 different well known songs from the standard jazz repertoire. As always check out the resources section for downloadable files.

Have Fun!

A quick introduction to the theory section, which might be a bit overwhelming, but here I explain why so much information and how you should approach the lessons.

In this lecture we look at music notation paper and some of  the signs and symbols that you will find on it. Notes, clef signs, key signs, rests will be pointed out. A detailed study of keys is scheduled for another lecture.

Learn about the notes on both the treble and bass clef

This lecture is all about key signatures. There are 15 major keys and the same number of minor keys, therefore 30 in total! You will not have to learn to recognise all 30 right now. But you will have a basic understanding of how they are formed at the end of this and I will provide you with a  pdf with all the keys spelled so you can refer to it when you need. So don.t worry about memorising all of them. Concentrate on a couple and keep the handout to refer. With time you will learn more. It is more important to understand the logic behind keys.

Finally you are at the piano. In this lecture you are introduced to the keys of the piano and how they are arranged. We then talk about the major scale using the C major  and F major scales as a starting point. From your understanding of how a major scale is constructed you will be able to build a major scale from any note.

We look at the relative minor scale, the minor scale most useful for you at this stage and the easiest to understand because of its relationship to the major scale.

Chords! Chords! Chords! There are seemingingly so many, so many variations and alterations. But here we will concentrate on those skeletal chords that the others are built from. 4 different chord types. I will explain in simple language how to build and play them.

A full description of how to build minor triads and minor seventh chords.

The very important dominant chord. The mother chord for the blues the chord of transition and movement the chords of a hundred colors. In other words you need to know this one..

The diminished chord is distinguished by its flatted fifth -the diminished  fifth. It is often used in minor key songs and is naturally found on the chord built from the 7th note of the major scale.

This is just a quick look at the “Autumn Leaves” lead sheet to make sure you understand the key etc.

A video of the lead sheet of Autumn Leaves with piano keyboard visual

I give you the basics of playing close voicing chords, simple but giving all the information you need to sing along with. In the next video we will play together..

You will at some point have to transpose a song. You will be asked at gigs and jam sessions about the keys of your songs. Most songs in Real Books are not in singer keys. So you will need to know how to work out your key.  Here are some simple rules for knowing your key.