Victor Feldman Piano Lesson [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:48:12 Victor Feldman: Those were just playing chords that I played. Then, without any melodic line. And a cause in themselves can be very pretty, depending on how their voice and what register of the piano that played in. Chords are also necessary if you’re going to improvise. You should know what chords go into a tune in order to play around the chords and improvise on them.

00:00:48:14 - 00:01:23:28 Victor Feldman: Chords have a root as a rule that you can play chords without a root, but in order to learn course, you have to know about the roots of the chords. In other words, if it’s a C chord, you have to know the chord is built on a C, a very basic chords, which I’m going to talk about first, a course that I don’t often use and most jazz piano players don’t often use, although they might have done at one time, they have built upon these chords and added notes onto them and voiced them as such a ways to make them sounding full and rich.

00:01:24:01 - 00:02:09:01 Victor Feldman: I like to start off by talking about a very common chord. Its six major six chord. Before I do, I going to. I must tell you that when I talk about course, I’m going to, say things such as the root, the third and the fifth. So I assume that you, before you learn about this, that you know your scales in all the different keys and that you know, for instance, that if you’re playing the scale A, C, the C, the first note is the root, the D is the second, this is the third, the fourth note is F, the g is the fifth, the A is the sixth, the B is the seventh, the

00:02:09:01 - 00:02:33:24 Victor Feldman: c is the root again or the octave. I was stop there for a minute. now there’s one note I want to talk about. That’s a kind of a funny note in that scale. And that’s the seventh. And, so that you don’t get misled, further on, I want to tell you that the major seventh is a different note to the note referred to as just a seventh.

00:02:33:27 - 00:02:53:11 Victor Feldman: A seventh when you hear a seventh, it’s, in the case of, the scale of C, the seventh note you would automatically think would be a B. But actually, when you say a play a C seventh chord, you wouldn’t use the B in that chord, you’d use a B-flat.

00:02:53:13 - 00:03:15:22 Victor Feldman: The seventh note, which is B, is called a major seventh. It’s not just called a seventh, it’s a major seventh. When you refer to a seventh without saying major in front of it, it would be B-flat. In this case, we’re talking about a C. However, as far as course go, the first chord I really want to talk about to start with is a sixth chord.

00:03:15:25 - 00:03:32:08 Victor Feldman: I’ll illustrate this by playing each note in the sixth chord separately, as it’s an old standard boogie woogie figure. Like this.

00:03:32:10 - 00:03:46:12 Victor Feldman: Say AJC, AJC, AJC, AJC, and so on. If you play those notes up an octave like this.

00:03:46:15 - 00:04:03:02 Victor Feldman: And then you pick all those notes and write them together like this. That is a sixth chord. It’s called a major sixth chord, or usually musicians A, C, C six written and they play this chord.

00:04:03:05 - 00:04:30:29 Victor Feldman: This chord, although it’s the first one I’m talking about, it’s very useful because often melodies finish up, on the root note, which is playing that and you, you often use melodies and the first eight bars of a melody or the end of the very tune, usually, quite often end on the root note. And there’s not many calls you can play when a note, when a melody finishes up only on the tonic or the root note.

00:04:31:02 - 00:04:57:00 Victor Feldman: If you play a major seventh kind of clash is a bit. There’s nothing wrong with it, but you can always break the rules lightly. But but generally speaking, you play a C6, very various ways VI ways of voicing this call, but I’ll go into that later. The first of all, just, suffice to say, this is is a six chord.

00:04:57:02 - 00:05:18:12 Victor Feldman: Now, what I’d like to do is go back to the problem of the seventh chord and not the major seventh. Don’t forget, the major seventh would be this C, E, G, B, which is a major seventh. But first of all, let’s talk about a plain seventh chord, which is C, E, G, B flat.

00:05:18:14 - 00:05:29:10 Victor Feldman: And I’ll illustrate it by playing a bass figure like boogie woogie bass figure. It would sound like this.

00:05:29:13 - 00:05:55:03 Victor Feldman: C, g a B-flat in any G, C, b, a, B flat, and so on. And in other words, I’m breaking the notes up for you so you know which notes compose. However, I added, I added a six in there, and when you strike the notes together, you wouldn’t play the the A, which is a snub. You forget about that note and play just the B-flat instead of the as you play.

00:05:55:06 - 00:06:15:16 Victor Feldman: So that is a plain seventh chord. And quite frankly, I very rarely use it, nor do I know many people that do use this chord. And again later I’ll explain how to get away from this very plain sound.

00:06:15:18 - 00:06:48:09 Victor Feldman: Now let’s go back to the. Now let’s come to the major seventh chord. Remember the major seventh, not the seventh, which is C, A, G, B. You can take it up an octave. It sounds like this. Now I’m going to drop this C back down an octave. So you’ve got the root note which is a C, and then the E and the g and the b natural an octave higher.

00:06:48:12 - 00:07:27:21 Victor Feldman: There still sounds very plain to me. So I want to tell you that what I do is play a combination of a sixth chord and a major seventh chord together. In other words, I play the root, which is C, the third, which is A, the the big upon the sixth which is a. Then I play a note that we haven’t talked about the ninth, which is D then the fifth, which is G, and then the major seventh, which is B, random up again.

00:07:27:23 - 00:07:55:24 Victor Feldman: And struck together they sound like this. Which is much fuller. So in this just kind of puny after the sound is much fuller, you might notice that there’s a note has crept in here that we didn’t talk about yet. The ninth. And you might wonder, since it’s a D why it isn’t called a second note or the second, because after all, we’re talking about a C chord and I’m playing a D.

00:07:55:26 - 00:08:18:13 Victor Feldman: Well, the reason for that is that I’m playing the root of the call, the C down here. And if I count up the scale one, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight, nine, I’m at the ninth note from the bottom of the ninth, note from the root. That’s how come I call it a ninth instead of a second.

00:08:18:15 - 00:08:31:16 Victor Feldman: However, if I play this root note and then play the day here, it would be the second note. But since it’s up an octave, it’s called the ninth.

00:08:31:19 - 00:09:00:02 Victor Feldman: Now I just like to go back once again to the sixth chord and mention that often, rather than playing just a plain sixth chord such as this, I would, add a the ninth to it. We were speaking of the ninth just now. I’d add a ninth and a sixth chord to spread it out like this. And here’s the ninth note that spreads it out, and it gets a bit of a fuller sound and a bit more interesting sound.

00:09:00:04 - 00:09:29:14 Victor Feldman: And now we’re back at the sixth again. I think it would be appropriate to start on a minor sixth chord. the only difference in a minor chord to a regular sixth chord is that the third note is flattened. That is the prerequisite for any minor corner is that the third of the chord is flattened. So instead of having we have C, E flat, G, A, C.

00:09:29:16 - 00:10:01:27 Victor Feldman: That is a C minor sixth chord. Again, there’s various ways of playing that. We play it over two octaves. Again, you can add the ninth. Like so. Now I’d like to talk about that seventh chord, not the major seventh, but just the seventh chord. I like to talk about minor sevenths. remember, just a seventh chord would be a C, a G, B flat, a minor seventh would be the same thing.

00:10:01:27 - 00:10:18:12 Victor Feldman: Only the A, which is a third would be flattened. So you’d have c, e flat g, B flat up an octave, a sound like this. And I dropped the root down an octave. Keep it away from my right hand.

00:10:18:14 - 00:10:39:12 Victor Feldman: Of course, later on you’ll, you know, you’ll be getting into playing more than one note in your left hand. But for now, in order to explain this cause, it’s simpler. This way. And that is a minor seventh chord. again, let’s talk about the ninth in relationship to this called if you want to play a C minor ninth, you play the same call a C minor seven.

00:10:39:12 - 00:11:02:25 Victor Feldman: Just add the ninth on top, which would be here. Right there. That’s the ninth. In fact, if you want to go a step further, you can add the 11th, which would be the F. If you want to really get far out you can add the 13th. Sorry.

00:11:02:27 - 00:11:37:02 Victor Feldman: And so on. Those are sometimes referred to as harmonics. But for our purposes, I’d rather think of them as extensions of the chord and added notes as the ninth and the 11th and the 13th. So now that I’ve explained about the sixth chord, the minor sixth chord, the major seventh, and the plain seventh chord and the minor chord, I’d like to show you how these chords, in the simplest way, can work together.

00:11:37:05 - 00:12:11:23 Victor Feldman: And in order to talk about this, I’d like to, use a term called relative. this is used to when to play two different chords, but they’re relative to each other. In other words, they’re practically the same. Only 1 or 2 notes have been altered. Might set an entirely different chord. For instance, let’s talk about C minor seventh C in the bass, the third an octave higher, which is a 10th, the fifth, and the seventh.

00:12:11:25 - 00:12:35:17 Victor Feldman: If we want to go to a seventh chord, say f seventh, which incidentally is a relative seventh of C minor because it’s very close to a C minor seventh. So in order to play these two chords, what you do is you strike the C minor seventh first as we’ve discussed, and then you drop the C, I’d rather you to meet your fifth.

00:12:35:17 - 00:13:00:11 Victor Feldman: Let’s let’s just talk about a C minor seventh without the fifth just C playing c c, E-flat, and the B-flat, which is the seventh, B-flat. All you have to do is drop two notes. You naturally drop the root down to an F and drop the top. Note the B-flat down on A, and you’ve got the basic making of a F seventh chord.

00:13:00:14 - 00:13:24:29 Victor Feldman: Now, if you want to keep that G in C, we’ll go back to C minor, seventh again C, A-flat, G, B-flat, and you want to go to F seventh. You’ll actually have an F ninth. Let’s drop the B-flat down again to an A and the C down to an F. You’ve got the G in it. Still, the G in relationship to F is the ninth.

00:13:24:29 - 00:13:48:22 Victor Feldman: It’s an octave higher. If it was next to the F, it would be the second. But it’s up here. You’ve got an F seventh chord. this is the first example of course working together and a B very, very simple and kind of corny. Just to illustrate the point, I’ll play for you. t for two. First. The first part.

00:13:48:25 - 00:13:55:02 Victor Feldman: And so now these chords can be used in different ways. I can keep going down and progression.

00:13:55:04 - 00:14:00:23 Unknown Yeah.

00:14:00:26 - 00:14:04:28 Unknown So on.

00:14:05:00 - 00:14:35:14 Victor Feldman: We’ve already mentioned about minor sevenths and how you can play a C minor seventh and at least the ninth on top, and then the 11th and the 13th, etc.. Let’s talk just about plain 13th chords. The prerequisite of it of a 13th chord is that it has has to have the seventh, and it has to have the root, the third has a row and some not the fifth.

00:14:35:14 - 00:14:58:08 Victor Feldman: So much you don’t need the fifth, but you need say for an f 13th you need the root, which is f, you need the seventh, which is E-flat. I’m playing the E-flat an octave higher, the B-flat and playing the ninth and the third, which is an octave higher to. You can call it the 10th if you want to.

00:14:58:11 - 00:15:05:23 Victor Feldman: And at the top I’m using a D, which is a 13th.

00:15:05:25 - 00:15:37:18 Victor Feldman: That’s a 13th chord. Now if we have a C minor ninth, which is. And you want to go to a f 13th, which is relative to it, all you have to do again is change the B-flat to an I. I can’t for two and change the root to F. So I played a C minor ninth first, and now the F 13th.

00:15:37:21 - 00:16:10:14 Victor Feldman: Now let’s talk about the diminished chord. Diminished chord is composed of intervals of minor thirds. In other words, A, C, E-flat, which is a minor third away or a flattened third if you want to call it so. And F-sharp. And a. Those are all minor thirds.

00:16:10:16 - 00:16:18:09 Victor Feldman: The three kind of diminished cause. I mean, you can keep going up like this.

00:16:18:11 - 00:16:44:15 Victor Feldman: But they’re basically C diminished chords. The only difference is the first one. I’ve got the C at the bottom. The second one I make, take the C up an octave to here and leave the E-flat on the bottom. And then I go up to the F-sharp on the bottom and put the E-flat at the top. So now that’s all the let’s say that’s all the C diminished the all the different inversions of C diminished.

00:16:44:18 - 00:17:21:03 Victor Feldman: Then this C-sharp diminished, let’s say D-flat diminished, which is D-flat A, G, B-flat, and all the. Different versions. And then the diminished the F G-sharp b natural. So there you have three kinds of diminished, which is all there are really. Now let’s talk about the augmented chord. You know how many chord is composed of and C would be the root.

00:17:21:06 - 00:17:33:19 Victor Feldman: The third and the augmented refers to the augmented fifth. Or if you want to call it to understand it better, call it the sharpened fifth. That’s what it is. So it’s C.

00:17:33:22 - 00:18:11:08 Victor Feldman: A sharpened first which is G sharp. And say if you want to repeat the C again that’s a plain Coke mallet. There are four kinds of augmented chords. The other three, D-flat augmented, which is the same thing up a half step and then D augmented up a half step again, an E-flat augmented.

00:18:11:10 - 00:18:47:11 Victor Feldman: Now I like to play, as an example, a well known standard to dancing in the dark. And I’d like you to try and figure out, which chords I’m going to, which chords I’m going to play. So let’s to, I’ll just play the first few bars of the melody.

00:18:47:14 - 00:19:07:16 Victor Feldman: Before you try to figure this out, I like to mention that you don’t have to pick out a chord for every note I play. some of the notes are just two notes in the right hand. minor, consisting of minor thirds. If you just figure out the chords that are sustaining behind it. But basic chords, that’s good enough.

00:19:07:18 - 00:19:11:29 Victor Feldman: So a good test.

00:19:12:01 - 00:19:47:04 Victor Feldman: Now I like to talk about rhythm for a while. rhythm is, so a certain extent, natural, natural feeling that you have to have. But you can also learn quite a bit about it by listening. For instance, I’m going to play, very plain tune called John Brown’s Body. play it first in a very straight manner, play a few bars of it, and then I’ll play it and I hope, a much more interesting manner, especially rhythmically and harmonically.

00:19:47:04 - 00:21:00:23 Victor Feldman: I’ll make some embellishments and change the chords around to illustrate my point.

00:21:00:25 - 00:21:08:03 Victor Feldman: But.

00:21:08:05 - 00:21:42:20 Victor Feldman: The song. You’ll notice in the second version, which I hope you like better than the first one, that I broke the rhythmical content up. I just didn’t play half notes and whole notes and everything on the beat. I played it in syncopation. For instance, in the first phrase.

00:21:42:23 - 00:21:55:27 Victor Feldman: I played it like one, two, three, four, one.

00:21:55:29 - 00:22:13:09 Victor Feldman: Which is referred to as syncopation. Actually, syncopation playing syncopation would sound something like this.

00:22:13:11 - 00:22:56:14 Victor Feldman: Which is kind of a stiff way. And it’s just playing syncopation, which is how a classical musician would interpret a jazz, phrasing, which is very stilted, but natural syncopation comes out much more relaxed.

00:22:56:17 - 00:23:01:12 Victor Feldman: And.

00:23:01:14 - 00:23:26:28 Victor Feldman: I started to improvise in a very simple way. I think on that to show you what can be done against a melody or a given set of chords. First, I’d like to talk about the first and second bar. The first bar is actually the pickup bar. Let’s break it down. let’s talk about the left hand first. If I play the left hand by itself, that’s the first two bar.

00:23:26:28 - 00:23:39:12 Victor Feldman: It’s just the left hand alone. It sounds pretty bad because the rest of the chord is missing. It will sound like this.

00:23:39:14 - 00:23:47:20 Victor Feldman: Now I play the right hand by itself.

00:23:47:22 - 00:23:57:20 Victor Feldman: Now, if I put them both together, this is how it sounds.

00:23:57:23 - 00:24:24:03 Victor Feldman: I’d also like to make a point about embellishments in playing jazz. For instance, on the very first melody, very first note or chord I played, I used a grace note in the middle of the chord, plus. I’ll try and accent that note on. Leave the top note out so you can hear better. What I did.

00:24:24:05 - 00:24:33:11 Victor Feldman: Now on the, Also on a second, by the Grace note, I’ll start from the beginning again. I’ll.

00:24:33:14 - 00:24:49:25 Victor Feldman: Those first two notes. and the grace notes. So. And together they sound.

00:24:49:27 - 00:24:55:00 Victor Feldman: Now, on that last bar. This bar.

00:24:55:03 - 00:25:02:17 Victor Feldman: I also added a little grace note. I just touched this note. Now, this is what I did.

00:25:02:20 - 00:25:09:01 Victor Feldman: accented the note, which is that note to show you to point it out.

00:25:09:04 - 00:25:20:13 Victor Feldman: But the way I played it, you hardly noticed that. It just gave it a certain feeling.

00:25:20:16 - 00:25:47:17 Victor Feldman: While we’re talking about embellishments and grace notes and things like that, I’d like to mention that, my personal philosophy of music, and I think that, many musicians that I admire would probably go along with this, and that is that you can overdo grace notes and blue notes and embellishments to where it becomes purely ornamental. And, some players use it so much that they’re just not thinking anymore.

00:25:47:17 - 00:26:41:11 Victor Feldman: It’s just everything’s an embellishment. There isn’t any lyrical line or compositional hardly to it. also, in all honesty, I like to point out that I find myself doing this quite frequently. But I’m glad. At least I know. And I try to correct it. I’ll show you what I mean. I’ll play the tune. Maybe a whole chorus.

00:26:41:13 - 00:26:54:07 Victor Feldman: I used a whole lot of blue notes there, and I was hardly thinking at all. I could probably been talking to somebody and play that. I wasn’t hardly any thought in that it was all this kind.

00:26:54:09 - 00:27:24:00 Victor Feldman: I’m exaggerating, of course, but just to make a point. Whereas somebody like, Well, because now I’m talking about a horn player like Charlie Parker would use these, but he wouldn’t abuse them. And in other words, he wouldn’t use grace notes or embellishments as an entity within themselves, but rather to add now and again to the line that he’s composing as he improvises.