Lesson 10: Grace in Every Inversion

Welcome and the Limited Shirt

0:00:11 Hey, what's up? It's joEy from Eternal Crane. Welcome to Lesson 10 of 13 Weeks of Music and Spirit. Today we're going to do our triads and all of our triad inversions. This is going to strengthen us and make those muscles strong because the triad is the fiber of Western music. Thanks for staying this long. Before I get started, I want to show you this new shirt that I made. This is a limited edition, 13 Weeks of Music and Spirit t-shirt, October 6th to December 31st.

0:01:02 The back is the same with the, we call this the Lake Lotus Swan. Excuse me, crane. I still mix up swans and cranes. I'm such a good CEO for my brand. But this is a limited edition t-shirt to remember what we're doing. If you'd like a t-shirt, just go ahead and write me at joe at eternalcrane.com or go to the website. And we're going to do a limited press. I'm only doing one for me and that's it. So it's about as limited as it could possibly be. But if you'd like a second shirt, then go ahead and order and I'd be happy to ship one to you to remember.

A Grand Creation

0:01:58 So we're doing triads today. Oh, I need some grace right now. We love him because he first loved us. That's helpful for me to remember. I've really changed my conception of what life is. And the biggest thing for me is that life, I don't see it as mine. All the forces that had to have come together to make me who I am, to beat my heart, breathe my lungs, grow my fingernails and my hair, oil my skin. This body is too miraculous for me to understand.

0:02:45 It's not something I could create. And all the things in my life that support me, I could never create that. I can't even imagine how I would start to create that. I love learning about nature and I love learning about evolution. And for me, those all show such a grand creation. I am a grand creation and you are a grand creation. And all the pieces of music that you play is a grand creation. Whether it's your 20th year playing or your 20th minute.

0:03:20 This is the first time you ever sit down at a piano. Your compositions, they're right up there with Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff. And I'm serious about that. And I tell people that. I say you're a musical genius. There's no distinction between a child's drawing that hangs on a refrigerator and the Holy Bible. There's no difference. It's all part of the beautiful creation. And your music is a part of that. And we want to hear that.

0:03:53 So let that come out. Trust that. Be a genius your first week. I'm a genius every time I play. And I trust that. So trust that in yourself.

C Major, Four Ways

0:04:06 So we're going to do triads. Let's start with C. This is just one way to go. This is root position. First inversion. Second inversion. Back to first. So if you're learning, go like this. One hand at a time. And it's going to go as slow as you need it to go. It could even go five times, 20 times slower than I'm showing you. And that's okay. Just going all the way up.

0:04:49 What goes up must come down. Use some Newtonian physics. Back down. Take your time. Breathe. Enjoy. And then you're going to do the same thing with the other hand. You're going to go slower than I am. If you do these fast, just practice slowing them down, even if you know them. And then do you do them together.

0:05:22 And helpful to focus before you let the notes commit. Shoot for accuracy. Shoot for awareness and presence. And go through them.

The Majors Round the Circle

0:05:41 Through the circle of fifths. This is F. Just putting the bass on. You can put the bass on. You don't have to. I find it helpful. Go to B flat. And you can do a little bit of arpeggiation, which sounds nice. Build little patterns. These are very helpful. These little patterns for learning. Put the B flat on the top just to hear a wider palette of sound.

0:06:27 You're having a little roll. And you roll. It can be a great learning mnemonic. Not cheating. Keep breathing. Take your time. You'll get there. If you run out of notes on the right hand, because I have a 63 key, then just simply drop down an octave. How about that? Making good progress here. If you get confident, that's great to feel confident. Still breathe.

Name Your Happy Appearance

0:07:14 Happy appearance. The more happy appearances you make, it shows you how much you're learning. So when you make a happy appearance, name it. Don't stop playing. Name it. I see that I played a D flat. Name what it is in the key. I said D flat. That's the happy appearance of a happy appearance. I was playing B flat. That's the happy appearance. What is B flat in the key of D flat? You have to stop and think about that, right?

0:07:50 This is the six. So name your mistake and then fix it. Instead of playing the six, I'm going to play the fifth. Okay, now we're back. Keep going. You see how I named my happy appearance? Just a little roll. You can even do something like that. If you want to get a little bit of a march, we did bring up some Russian music. We brought up Stravinsky. They have the Russian march, of course.

0:08:38 So make it fun. Make it beautiful. Make it musical. Don't recommend playing them straight. You'll never play them straight when you're performing.

I Always Swing

0:08:56 I once did a master's degree. I wanted to get a master's degree in jazz piano. I studied. Oh, I studied like a dog. I did everything on the exam and then I sat down to play. I won't even talk about the height of the piano stool. Let me take a slight detour. I will talk about the height of the piano stool. You should be comfortable in doing this. And if you're not comfortable, don't do it. The music's not going to come out if you're not comfortable.

0:09:42 So find another video about posture and how to sit comfortably. I'm going to D now. So the piano was not comfortable for me. And I was trying to adjust the chair and it wouldn't adjust. And they just sat and watched me. And they didn't help me. I couldn't even reach it. And then the piano was, to me, was a cold and dead piano. I'm sorry, whoever owned that piano. But you should take care of that piano. That's a piano that you're auditioning master's students on.

0:10:21 So anyways, I was in the room trying to go to their school. And I sat down to play. And one of the first things they said was, you're swinging them. You're swinging your scales. Play them straight. And I sort of said, no. That's the key of C. I hope you like that story. I said, I always swing. Why would I not? That whole concept, that world doesn't make any sense to me. Follow your path. Follow your musical rhythm. I believe that God, the universe, the creation, has put a clock inside your heart, inside your body, in your hands.

0:11:10 It's like already decided for you. And you want to find the clock that you are. Some people, they're a straighter clock. They might have grown up in the northeast of the United States. Some people are galloping. They may have grown up in Texas. You know what I mean? We all have different rhythms. We all have a different clock inside us.

0:11:34 So this is one way to go through the circle. I just went through fifths. There's too many for me to go through today.

The Minors

0:11:42 Let's go minor now. We're dropping the third. Minors feel very lovely. Take your time. Some of these black keys are tricky. You have to learn every single black key and white key. You have to learn every single stretch. This one has the B and the C. So you can easily make a happy appearance. I made a major. So that's okay. Just drop the third by a half step. Do a little bit of arpeggio. Whatever gets the medicine down.

0:12:33 Whatever gets the music out. That's how you should play them. Let go of all that perfection. Played it correct. This time my ear tricked me. I thought I played a six. But I didn't. So that's a good point. Is listen. This is ear training. Just as much as anything else.

0:13:07 Did I somehow. What did I do? If you don't know what you just did. Just go back to the beginning. It's something interesting. I'll find it on the video. E flat. Your time. Put the E flat in the root. A little more musical. This is more how I would actually play them. This way you can listen. Really let them ring. Not a competition. This being present. Put the bass on. Played flat seven to one.

0:14:09 Adornments you could call it. Take your time. Especially if it's like me. And it's the morning time. You haven't played yet. Sometimes you'll black out. If you black out just breathe. I played a little adornment. You don't have to adorn as you're learning. But it can make these enjoyable.

0:14:49 And it can loosen you up. And the hardest thing probably about these is trying to be too perfect. Trying to prove too much. You don't have to prove anything to anybody. Just enjoy the time. Nobody's asking you to do anything. A little adornment. That's joEy's style.

0:15:14 Nobody's asking you to take the trash out. You don't have to go to work yet. Blacked out here. If you totally black out just go back. Just be so happy. So happy to be alive. So that you can play these. What could be better? I mean think about how far we've gone with music as a civilization. As a people. You know as a world.

0:15:56 So we're going to go to E minor. So you can see this morning I'm taking them very, very calm and peaceful. And that's how they'll actually show up when you improvise. They'll show up relaxed. Playful, right? Spontaneous. They won't be labored. Any type of laboring I would let go of immediately. You won't make any gains by laboring. No gains. It's all about relaxation. Keep breathing. Don't forget to breathe. Be aware of your body.

0:16:46 Be aware of the whole room. Feel the keys. Ooh, a little happy appearance. Name it. Name it. I'm trying to play G. And in the left hand, I played a C. Which is the fourth of G. I'm going to drop that down. Oh, now we're fine. Oh, I had to sneeze. I got self-conscious of sneezing. Wow. Self-conscious with my sneezing that I am my playing. Oh, and we switched it. We went to G major. How long have we been doing that? I think we did D minor correctly.

0:17:45 See, sometimes you just enjoy what you're doing so much. There's another happy appearance. So name it. See, take your time. Be patient with yourself. In this case, I played G. Which is the fourth of D. I'm going to play the fifth. See, now we found it. See, even I've been doing this a long time. And I'm still doing these really beautiful, happy appearances. It's so fun. And it's fun that I switched to G major. And that mysterious.

0:18:29 I love when I get pulled into detours. I love being lost when I play. I did a little embellishment. So that's the minors.

0:18:46 I'm going to leave my ice water in because it has a nice little ice tingling sound. A little ASMR ice action this morning. Okay, we did majors. We did minors. Majors. Minors.

The Diminished

0:19:09 Now we're going to do diminished. You can find a guide on how to construct the diminished. Or hopefully, the overlay shows you how. Watch this F diminished. As you can easily play a C instead of a B. So this one's a little trickier. You have to learn all of these stretches. Nobody's ever learned to do anything without learning every single little piece along the way. That's what your nervous system does. Your motor system.

0:19:57 This time you had to figure out is it an E or an F. See, you have to take your time. Happy appearance. I played on the top. In B flat, I played a minor 7 rather than the root. You'll get much quicker at naming your appearance. And it will help you so much. And you can look at them as exciting opportunities. I just don't remember where I am. I am in B flat.

0:20:40 It's been a while since I've done this formally. You can see I'm just slowing down when I need to. I'm not trying to impress anybody. Played a minor, but we're playing diminished. So I'm going to drop the fifth. You can see we're just allowing what's happening.

0:21:09 Now this time I was pretty far off. So I'm going to go all the way back. It's going to take a moment. Another moment here. Chordie can help while you're training your ear. Break it like this can be helpful. Come up a little bit. Play the sounds. Listening is going to help you the most. And then the next would be your mental mind. That says, I'm in D flat. I'm in D flat. I'm in D flat. We're playing diminished. Keep that mental activity going.

0:22:06 When you're improvising, you'll drop it. Any mental activity. But it's okay to have mental activity. As you're going through these and you're learning these. B flat is, I'm sorry, B natural is an interesting one. Because it's all white keys. But it's still its own challenge.

0:22:44 You're welcome to resolve it up a half step for each of these if you want to. Because the diminished is the seventh chord of the major scale. But you don't have to. You actually don't have to do anything. And that helps a lot to realize you don't have to be playing today. You're choosing to play. It's something you do because it makes you happy. That takes all the pressure off.

0:23:20 See how I can resolve a half step up on all of these? If you want to make it a little bit musical, it's a good idea to do that. A flat diminished, excuse me. I'm reaching for them. Taking my time to resolve it because I like how it sounds. So that was A flat diminished. As you're learning, being slow and simple.

0:24:20 I feel like I may have changed the circle or something. I felt like I did these before. If you go through them again, absolutely no harm. Confidence in yourself. Have a little confidence. Come on, you can do these. You can do them. But the funny thing is they're different every day. Okay, we had done these because we'd done them. B natural. So we go back to B.

Lots of Happy Appearances

0:25:04 Lots of happy appearances this morning. That's okay. I don't have to be an expert. I can have a YouTube channel and not be an expert. I'm going to be a teacher and struggle through all my triads and it's okay. It's a good opportunity to show people what it's really like. So I ended up repeating some of these. And my attitude towards that is I guess my body wanted double dose. There's a reason for every happy appearance.

0:25:48 Be gentle with it. Be gentle. Joy. Laugh at that. I have no idea how much I repeated. I find that interesting. I thought that was an appearance. It is because on the top I had a major six instead of a diminished fifth. So we fixed it. But I did it in the left hand too. So somehow, what's going on here?

0:26:34 Yeah, I did it in the left hand too. Interesting. You'll find these interesting things that you do. And if I play things that I don't catch, I would love for you to catch them. That's a great way to learn is to watch my mistakes. Okay. Close. But I played, I'm holding myself to the standard. I played something. If you don't know what it is, just go back in your other hand. And then do the proper inversion. And then compare.

0:27:20 So it's, I tend to be missing the top note of the diminished. And in this case, we are in D. C is the flat seven of D. So again, I played a flat seven. I think I did that for two keys now. I mean, here I moved a half step, which is a beautiful chord. If you have more time, I would stop here. I would play this exact chord in all 12 keys because it sounds wonderful. I'll take a happy appearance and dwell on it. But for today, we're going to actually correct and just keep moving.

0:28:07 Sometimes you can detour for the whole time. Sometimes you want to stay on the main highway. Here, I'm playing D diminished. I played a minor six instead of the fifth. So this is what you're learning will look like beginning these, is you're going to find all of these intervals you didn't mean to play. There's another one. Wow. I played a major six instead of a fifth. You can see it tends to be the fifth for me this morning.

0:28:53 So you can find your pattern and if you just need to go back, just go back. My ear is tricking me this morning. If it doesn't sound right, you do need to check it. You need to check it with, by looking at the keys that you're playing, or you can check it with Chordie. But it's about the confidence that you're playing the right color. I am lacking a little bit of confidence, so I might choose to start my improvisation on G diminished.

The Augmented

0:29:37 Okay, those were the diminished. Those were tricky. Later today, once again, I would spend more time improvising on the diminished to get them a little bit more comfortable. I'm not sure if I already did a lesson on all this. That would be interesting.

0:30:01 I didn't know if I did. I probably did this already. Let's see. It's okay to do it again. What's going to happen? And the duplication police are going to come after me. This is just another way to show you to enjoy sitting at the keys. It's independent of the results.

0:30:30 I'm an F. So if you forget the note, you can say I'm an F. I'm playing F augmented, and I'm missing an A, which is the third. Just another way to show people that we enjoy playing at the piano. That's the purpose of it. It's not about being perfect. It's not about being a strong player. Music is far too humbling to ever feel like you could rest in your status. You need to try to rest. Just keep growing.

0:31:24 I'm guessing between B and A. Rather than guess, if you're learning these, again, sort of go back to which you're doing. I think we're doing B diminished. I'm sorry, B augmented. So if you just go way off, you might actually want to pause. That's why it's nice to take a detour and now learn G7, raise five, and all 12 keys. Oh boy, I'm in an awkward spot now. The lesson is rolling. I'm trying to get through the augmenteds.

0:32:12 If you are trying to get somewhere, just let it go. You don't have to go anywhere. I'm going to let it go. And that's what it was today. And for you, you may only do three keys. You may do all 12. You may be able to do all 12 keys, four colors, major, minor, diminished, and augmented. You may be able to do them in 10 minutes. So allow yourself to be where you are. This is where joEy is today.

Giving Myself Grace

0:32:53 And to wrap up what I was talking about, giving myself grace. When I was in the master's program, they wanted me to improvise. I worked for three months on the improvisation. It was strong. I knew it better than any piece of music I'd ever known. But I was in a room and I didn't feel like they were listening to me. I didn't feel like they were appreciating my soul. The bench was too low. The piano was too tight. They didn't help me.

0:33:28 They didn't read my entrance papers. I was writing all these papers on Lydian, which I will be selling to you through the website. They weren't looking at my independent research. I couldn't process all of that at the time because my mind just wanted to impress another person. That was my entire university application experience. It's unusual for me because I tend to follow my own heart. But I wanted to join the university for connection with others.

0:33:59 I still do. I wish I could have gotten in. But I sat to play my improvisation. That was precise. You'll see precision is not necessarily what you're reaching for. Perhaps you may be, you may find more enjoyment out of fluidity, right? Because as I was going to play when I worked so hard for going to get past the first four measures. And I started playing it. And after three measures, it was gone. And I remember just looking at them.

0:34:34 And I had three professors in the room. And I had two teaching assistants. And they all started laughing. They started laughing. I'm applying for the master's program. I can't get through the first four measures. And I remember thinking, this is incredible. And I just turned my chair and I said, and this was the best thing that I did. And I hope you can learn to do this with yourself. I looked at all of them in the room and I said, it's not coming out.

0:35:04 I'm sorry. That's it. And they nodded. And I stood up and I walked out. And my whole audition was less than five minutes. That's what it was. And I was sitting in the car. I had changed my entire life to be ready for the next two years or three years of heavy master's study in jazz. I had cleared my calendar out. It was all going to happen. And I was sitting in the car thinking, it's gone. And what's the lesson there?

0:35:39 You can't force it to come out. This is not about achievement. This is about creativity. This is about emotion and feeling. It's about soul. You can't force your soul. If the music doesn't show up, it doesn't show up. Give yourself grace for that. It is what it is. So I hope you found that story interesting.

0:36:07 And that's it for today. Feel free to write me a question. You can join the Discord. Show me your progress on the circle, on the triads and inversions. And say hi. So thank you. I'll see you later.