Piano Lesson #2: Peace Piece in 12 Keys

Just finished practicing Bill Evans' "Peace Piece"--not sure if it took more than an hour, but I didn't really notice the clock. The crucial, amazing thing is this: This is the first time I've ever played a song in all 12 keys!

This accomplishment was inspired by my second piano class. Our teacher gave us Peace Piece and suggested trying it in all the keys. "What a nice way to learn 12 major scales, huh?" she said. It's quite a simple, beautiful song, rather like a Satie Gymnopedie with the left hand alternating between a C major 7 chord and a G dominant 9 sus 4. Then the right hand can improvise on a C major scale over that. If you have trouble keeping the beat, start off playing quarter notes in the right hand. Another suggestion Debbie had was to play on beats 2 and 4 in the right hand for another way to train yourself to really know where in the measure you are.

The class began with reviewing last week's practice routine. I'm auditing the class so I don't get to play, but I'd really like to study privately with her. She maintained her emphasis on relaxed hands, neither flattened nor arched as if holding a ball (which was how I was taught to hold my hands). The force should come from the arm, not the fingertip pushing. The bottom of the arm should be roughly at the surface of the keys, with the elbow at a 90 degree angle. If the thumb must play a black key, the whole hand comes in, and the pinky should be even closer to the fallboard than the thumb: "You should not have a straight line, because that means you're twisting; it's a diagonal between little finger and thumb." Further, "I just move my hand around like a little paw. No stretching or reaching."

The routine is about getting to know the piano and really learning the 24 "pitch collections" (major and natural minor keys). "You need to know the minor as its own banana, not as being connected to anything else," Debbie said. Further, using new voicings and fingerings forces you to learn. "Take your time. It's really about your nervous system. This idea that you're teaching your fingers--it's crazy! The body should do the bidding of the mind."

When practicing seventh chords, she suggests coming up with your own voicings and then playing that voicing through the 12 keys. Going down by fifths is more practical than going up, as that's the most common movement in Western music. "See the root on the whole instrument--if you're in F, see Fs for days [so that the relationships between the chord tones are clear]." Think first before you play the voicing: say, root and fifth in the left hand, third and seventh in the right. If it's a dominant seventh, for example, explicitly think "down a half step from the major seventh."

She demonstrated some simple walking bass lines to practice (root, third, fifth, third) and how to embellish them with "approach notes"--a half step above or below the root of the next chord.

Finally, she emphasized learning the form first. "There are so many myths in jazz, and one of them is that you 'lose yourself in the music.' No! You become hyper-aware! It's your job to know exactly where you are at all times, so first memorize the form!"