2 Turnaround Variations with Diminished Chords - Stride Piano Style
Clip from Performance & Practice, Episode #4.
The below text is a partial transcript of the video.
What we call turnaround is a sequence of chords, the most common is the I-VI-II-V. So if we are in the key of B flat, we'll have B flat major, Gmin7, Cmin7, F7. There are endless variations of that, but I'm going to focus on two variations.
In the key of B flat, the first variation is B flat major, B diminished, that pushes to Cmin7, to F7.
The second variation uses another diminished chord: B flat to D flat diminished to Cmin7 to F7. I bring this up because many students struggle with the diminished chord, although it is a fundamental chord. We find the diminished chord very often as a passing chord, from the I to the II.
You can practice these two turnarounds one after the other, in tempo, in every key. There is a beautiful way of doing it by implying the stride in the left hand. So this answers another question of a couple of friends that asked me more suggestions on how to practice stride piano style. You can use these two turnarounds in every key, trying to improvise in the right hand, or simply using the chord tones and doing the stride in the left hand. And then, you can improvise on top of that.
Once you master this in every key, you could make up an etude just by playing in time and going through every key. This can be hard, I know. What you can do: start in B flat, play the two turnarounds, and once you get to F7, you can have this F7 to resolve to A major. So F7, which is the dominant of B flat, to A major, and then you start the same two turnarounds in A major.
Once you are in A major, so the last chord of the two turnarounds is E7, you can have E7 to resolve to A flat. This way, you can keep going down half steps and practicing all those turnarounds in every key.
It's a lot of work, but if you can master that in every key, then your playing will acquire some more facility when you come across diminished chords and when you have to transpose; because that sequence of chords, it's found in so many tunes.