Create Arrangements from Lead Sheets and Fakebooks.

Learn to take standards from the real book or fake book and play full arrangements from lead sheets, using five-step guidance.

Listen to how others sing or play the melody to learn interpretation. Practice the melody by singing or humming the notes, shaping phrasing, rhythm, and legato with mindful breathing.

Practice step one by playing the melody with roots and octaves in the left hand to lock in root motion. Master slash chords, alternate bass, and poly chords.

Master step one by coordinating left-hand roots and right-hand melody, using octave variation, legato fingering, and traditional crossovers to establish a basic, playable groove for mid-tempo songs.

Explore how to determine the root and seventh of chords, choose the seventh’s movement (half step, whole step, or minor third), and apply slash chords and various seventh chord types.

This lecture guides step two of R7 shells, teaching voicings, left-right hand coordination, and root-and-third chord tones to navigate dominant motion in progressions like C minor seven to F seven.

Step three, a game changer, adds the chord’s third in the right hand while the left-hand root seven stays, giving a song-like sound and urging quick recall of chord thirds.

Practice step three: play route seven with the left hand third and the melody in the right, refining fingering and rhythm for a smooth, coordinated performance.

Prepare for step four by adding tensions to chords—major seventh, minor seven, and dominant seven—using nine, sharp nine, flat nine, sharp eleven, and thirteen.

Step four adds tensions by introducing ninths and the eleventh over dominant seventh chords, guiding melody against diminished chords for richer color.

Explore step five of reharmonisations and tensions in lead-sheet arrangements, manipulating voicings with 7th, 9th, 11th, and sharp 11 variants, and employing tritone substitutions for variety and motion.

Explore ideas to loosen the left hand, using arpeggios, quarter-note to eighth-note rhythms, outer and inner voices, and varied endings; apply to other standards and preview Latin styles.