The Road to Aqaba

Introduction

Part One: Provisions

• Chapter 1 – Getting Started
     Note Pattern and Shape of Keys, Posture, Half Steps and Whole Steps, Tactile Awareness
• Chapter 2 – the Major Scale
     Three Rules, Key Signatures, Scale and Fingerings,Exercises
• Chapter 3 – Intervals
     Part I – Melodic Intervals up to a Perfect Fourth
     Part II – Tritones, Fifths and the Circle of Fifths
     Part III – Harmonic Intervals, Combinations, Interval Maps
     Song – “Alien Interlude”
• Chapter 4 – Triads
     Part I – Chords & Symbols, Inversions
     Part II – Arpeggios
     Part III – Diatonic Triads
     Song – “Sixth Sense”
• Chapter 5 – Seventh Chords
     Part I – Chords & Symbols,Arpeggios, Inversions
     Part II – Diatonic Seventh Chords
     Song – “Doña Siete”
• Chapter 6 – Diatonic Circle of Fourths and Functional Harmony
     Diatonic Fourths, Tension-and-Release, Voice Leading and Inversions, Secondary Dominants, Relative Minor
     Song – “Summer Goes”

Part Two: Synthesis of Ideas

• Chapter 7 – Minor Scales, Modes, and Pentatonics
     Natural/Melodic/Harmonic Minor, Diatonic Modes,Modes of Melodic Minor, Pentatonic Patterns and Superposition
     Song – “Pentamodo”
• Chapter 8 – Chord Shapes, Voicings, and Turnarounds
     Interval Shapes, Left-Hand Shapes, ii-V Cadences, Solo-Style Shapes, Triad Superposition, and Dominant Extensions
     Song – “Pra Rarm”
• Chapter 9 – Song Forms
     Twelve- and Sixteen-Bar Blues, The Blues Scale, Standard Song Forms: AABA and ABAB, Rhythm Changes
     Songs – “Prairie Shuffle”, “Bluescat”, “z’Kittybop”, “Bagelman”, “Blue Bird”, “Standard Changes”, “RC’s”
• Chapter 10 – Bebop and Half-Whole Diminished Scale
     Bebop Octatonic, Three Scales, Symmetrical Intervals, One Shape: Eight Chords, Synthesis of Scales and Chords, Half-Whole Turnarounds, Diminished Whole-Half
     Song – “Half Gone”

Chapter 11 – Elements of Improvisation
   Part I – Elements: Note Choices, Variations on a Theme, Tension and Release, Expectation and Deception
   Part II – Comping
   Part III – Bass Lines
   Song – “F.Y.I.” (applications to improvisation)

• Chapter 12 – Practice
     Precepts, Routines, Daily D-I-D-S, Maintenance

Coda

Appendices

• I – Rudiments: Note Names, Rhythmic Values and Time Signature, Articulations, Interpreting “Swing” Eighth notes
• II – Working with the Metronome
• III – Applied Exercises
• IV – Condensed Concepts: Basic Chord Qualities and Symbols,12 Major Scales with Fingerings, Foundations of Diatonic Seventh-Chord Practice, Diatonic Circle of Fourths, “Rootless” Chord Voicings and Turnarounds
• V – On Listening
• VI – Exercise Answers

Glossary

©2007 Steve Snelling

Inspiration comes to us from many sources. One powerful source for me was the film “Lawrence of Arabia,” the 1962 desert epic starring Peter O’Toole. In my favorite scene, Lawrence is trying to convince Prince Ali (played by Omar Sharif) to perform a much needed miracle by capturing the Gulf city of Aqaba. The miraculous part would be that Ali and his troops would have to cross the great Nefud Desert and arrive in Aqaba still strong enough
to fight the Turks, who were garrisoned there and armed with modern weapons.

The Nefud, Ali protests, was a merciless wasteland without water or shade, relentlessly hostile to man and beast, and that to try to cross it would bring ruin and death to them all. Lawrence grabs Ali by the sleeve and drags him out of the tent into the open desert. Pointing at the horizon across the sand, he fixes Ali with a fierce glare and says, “Aqaba is over there. It is only a matter of going.”

It was the winter of ’94, and I was living in a log cabin, about a mile off the main road that winds through the Rockies of southwest Colorado. It had snowed most of the previous day and, looking out the window, I saw my old Subaru wagon, a vaguely car-shaped bump in the winter landscape.

“Rats!” I thought, “I’ve got a gig this week.”

It was Sunday, and on Wednesday afternoon I was the solo pianist at The Peaks, a swanky resort hotel sixty miles and several icy mountain passes from my cabin. With my car bumper deep in snow, I thought of packing a bag, wading through the drifts to the main road and hitchhiking into town. Then I remembered Lawrence.

Twenty minutes later, bundled up in winter gear, my trusty grain shovel in hand, I started clearing a swath wide enough for the wagon. I knew I would have to be methodical, taking care not to hurt myself, but, with three days, and plenty of food and spring water, if I kept focused I could shovel my way out before another storm stranded me for the winter. With any luck, my neighbor a quarter mile up the road might use his tractor to plow from his cabin to the highway. Then, I’d have only five hundred yards of actual shoveling between me and freedom.

I found a smooth technique: scoop, rock back, fling over the shoulder, step… scoop, rock, fling, step… scoop, rock, fling, step… and kept at it. By the end of the first day I’d cleared only enough snow to turn the car around and make it out to the gate thirty yards away. Drained and doubting my chances, I called it a day – eager for some dinner and a good night’s sleep.

The next morning was cold, clear, and glaringly bright, the sun reflecting off the snow covered hillside – overhead, a dazzling, electric, Colorado-blue sky. I launched again into my Lawrencean (or so I fantasized) task with high spirits. I kept at it all day Monday – scoop, rock, fling, step – and on Tuesday afternoon I busted through the six-foot-high plow wall at the back of my neighbor’s property. Victory! High from endorphins and a sense of accomplishment, my upper body pumped like never before, I felt like a cartoon super-hero.With the shovel slung over my shoulder, I sauntered back up the road to the cabin.

“Aqaba is over there,” I reminded myself. “It’s only a matter of going.”

So what does this have to do with practicing piano? Everything. So much of what we think is out of our reach is really just a matter of knowing that we want to do it. It is do-able if you have the desire, and commit to making it happen. It’s only a matter of going.

©2007 Steve Snelling

Navigation Exercise #1 – Identifying Landmarks

Sit at the piano in a comfortable position and close your eyes. Imagine you are moving about in a dark room. At first, you go slowly to avoid catching a coffee table in the shin. As your eyes adjust to the shadows, you begin to make out identifiable shapes. Soon, you have explored the whole area. Even the black ottoman, still almost invisible in the dark, becomes part of the known territory.

Now imagine you have lived in this room for a while – long enough to know exactly where every piece of furniture, fixture, and rough spot on the flooring is. Even in the pitch-dark of night you can move around confidently, step effortlessly over the lamp cord, sidestep the armchair and duck the hanging lamp… With your eyes closed, place your hands on the keyboard and find the group of two black keys right in front of you. Then find the group of three black keys to the right of that. Move both hands up and down the keyboard finding all the groups of two and three black keys.

Navigation Exercise #2 – Using the Black Keys to Find the White Keys

With your eyes still closed, find all the c’s. (Heads up: the highest note on the piano is also c, hangin’ out there all by itself with no black notes to keep it company.) Then find all the d’s. Repeat for all the white keys, finding them by name in relation to the black keys. Notice that f is the white key just below and to the left of the three blacks, d is between the two blacks, and so on. Be patient and do this slowly a few times. It will really pay off when, even with the lights out, your fingers will confidently find their way around the keyboard.

©2007 Steve Snelling

(From Chapter 9: Song Forms)

Play this rudimentary exercise, using chord voicings in the left hand, and the blues scale in the right hand. Play in all twelve keys.

©2007 Steve Snelling

(from Appendix III: Applied Concepts)
Ex. #13 Solo-Style Voicings in Turnarounds

Some of these voicings have no 3rds, some have no 7ths. It is often a matter of personal taste. You are encouraged to explore voicings and combinations as your ear and your understanding guide you. Observing the shapes, triads, and inversions, transpose these ii-V’s to all twelve keys.

ii-V’s with Stretches Under One Octave per Hand

Minor ii-V’s with Stretches under One Octave Per Hand

©2007 Steve Snelling