How to Read Lead Sheets: “Georgia”
Welcome to this beginner jazz piano tutorial on the tune “Georgia On My Mind”. In this lesson we will learn how to arrange lead sheets using spread voicings, we will then introduce a stride style in our left hand, and towards the end of the tutorial we will touch upon some more advanced arranging techniques and principles.
Georgia In The Key Of F Major
Georgia is written in the key of F Major and so we start with a quick recap of the diatonic 7th chords and the common chord progressions in the key of F such as the 251 and the 36251 progressions. The notation can be found in the Downloads section below.
Having an understanding of F major diatonic harmony is very useful when arranging Georgia and other tunes written in F major.
How To Play Spread Voicings
The most basic technique to arrange a lead sheets is to use spread voicings. To construct a spread voicing, we take the notes of the any 7th chord, we play the root note of the chord in our left hand in the lower registers of the piano, we play the melody with our right hand, and we ‘voice’ the 3rd and 7th of the chord in between.
The 3rd and 7th can be played in either hand, often this role will be shared between both hands to achieve an even spread of notes on the piano and balanced sound in our voicings.
How To Play Stride Piano For Georgia
Now that we understand the basics of the harmony we will introduce a stride left hand style. To play a stride style, the left hand plays the root in the lower registers of the piano. We then move our left hand up one octave to play a rootless voicing around the middle registers of the piano.
The simplest left hand voicing is to play just the 3rd and 7th of the chord which can be played in any inversion. We can also add the 5th for a stronger sound.
Stride Piano Exercises For Beginners
If you are new to the stride piano style it can be challenging to move between the chords whilst keeping a steady pulse. Here are some useful exercises:
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Start with a single chord type, then change inversion of rootless voicing.
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Next introduce the second chord A7 and cycle around – focus on accuracy.
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Next the 3625 progression, cycle around.
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Finally play stride through the whole A Section.
Adding Melodic Embellishment
By outlining both the harmony and the pulse in the left hand, it frees up our right hand for melodic embellishment and decoration.
One of the limitation of the piano is that we cannot bend and play in between the notes like a singer or horn player. The closest way that we can achieve this is to use grace notes which blurs the distinction between 2 tones to create a more human & soulful aspect.
Grace notes are usually very quick and brief and they are used as an ornamentation for the note that follows. Let’s play through the A Section and look at some examples.
So what I’ve covered so far will help you to understand the harmony of the tune, you know how to create a steady pulse with a stride left hand, and you know how to create melodic interest and decoration using grace, scale walkups, and blues licks.
Lesson Downloads
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F Major Diatonic Workbook File Type: pdf
Related Lessons
We examine the slight variations on the A Sections and we will then learn how to connect the A & B Sections together using turnarounds.
We add the B Section to “Georgia” so that we can play the whole tune in its entirety. We also discuss the modulation to the relative minor.
We take each bar of the A Section and apply licks, fills, and melodic ornamentation that we can use to create a soulful bluesy vibe.
Practice Tips
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To voice a chord with spread voicings, play the root in the lower register, the melody with your right hand, and then find the 3rd and 7th in between.
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Outline the quarter note pulse in your left hand to help to you transition to the stride left hand style.
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Understand that the tunes that we play are always in a fluid state and as we learn new theory and as we develop as musicians we are always enhancing and tweaking our arrangements.
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To learn the advanced voicings shown in this lesson, it may take a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years. Whatever it takes, enjoy the journey that you are taking.
Great foundations lesson to begin adding stride, spread voicing and grace noting in a step by step format. Fundamentals of arranging from a lead sheet. Very well done. Going to spend some time on this one.
Thanks for the feedback Rick, I’m glad you find the lesson useful.
I am building out a full course on this tune which further explores the topics covered in this video, find the course here: https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/bluesy-stride-piano-beginners/
Those lesson will follow on very nicely from this introduction so be sure to check them out.
As I mention we are playing these tunes all of our lives and so in these lessons I try to show the many different ways that we can interpret a tune so that we don’t have to play it the same way every time.
Cheers, Hayden
Thanks – this is great. I like the harmony visualization – would doing a Roman Numeral analysis help understanding the harmony as well – very helpful for example when you mentioned that the B section switches to the relative minor. I have tried to do some Roman numeral analysis with mixed success, particularly when there are key changes for a few bars in some tunes. I tried to do for Unforgettable and was totally lost. Have you ever thought about including on the lead sheet or in a harmonic analysis? Could you do it for Georgia? Started to try to do as well to help memorize standard.
Hi Rick,
Yes this is a great idea, I will add the numerical analysis lesson to the “Bluesy Stride Piano/Georgia course” – I agree it’s very helpful information and it will be a nice addition to the current lessons.
I will be able to get this lesson recorded this week.
Cheers, Hayden
This is great. I’ve practiced these voicings from Georgia a LOT and finally they are starting to come naturally which is a great feeling. I’m adding embellishments which is fun. For some reason I don’t like stride left hand. But you never know. It might grow on me. I may be getting somewhere. Thank you!!
Hey Elizabeth 👋
I’m really happy to hear of your progress! It’s exactly that; lots of repetition and then the voicings will come naturally.
I’m adding many more lessons to this course to show the many different ways that we can interpret the tune. The goal is to give students a little more freedom when playing so that we can make more spontaneous choices on how to play through the changes.
Nobody has asked for a transcription of the voicings, which I deem to be a great sign as what I’m trying to teach is how to memorise and internalise the tune and harmony so that we don’t need to rely on notation. This way we are playing jazz piano in its true form!
More lessons to follow so stay tuned!
Cheers, Hayden
I know you want us to not need a transcription of the voicings but at this stage I think it would be really helpful for me to have just that. So far the course has been excellent, but I now want to study the voicings of Georgia in detail and for me that means either watching the relevant parts of the video over and over or looking at the score. I find the video controls very frustrating as they are extremely hard to use on an iPad (setting up an AB loop almost impossible even with the ‘I’ and ‘o’ controls).
Hi Gill.
Yes I can certainly create a transcription for you if it would be helpful. One does already exist on this more advanced lesson for Georgia – https://www.pianogroove.com/blues-piano-lessons/georgia-on-my-mind-tutorial/ – look in the downloads section.
The problem with transcriptions is that the temptation is there to simply read the notes like a piece of classical music. With this course I try to show the many options that we have for voicing the chords so that we are not reliant on a transcription. But leave it with me and I will create some voicing charts that can be used for reference.
Thanks for letting me know about the video player. I know that the developer recently made some additions with the I and O controls. I have asked him to check over on iPad.
Another option is to connect a keyboard to your iPad either via the cable or via bluetooth and then you can press the I and O buttons on the keyboard.
I will get back to you shortly with an update from the developer and hopefully he can improve the on-screen buttons.
Cheers, Hayden
Thanks Hayden, that’s really helpful! I’ll look forward to the improved video controls and will take a look at the download you’ve suggested. I am very much still in ‘classical so need everything written down’ mode, and understand that I need to break out from that, but i do think that at this stage the voicings of the basic arrangements would help me to learn. Thanks again, I have done this course to compare against a rival online course that I’ve been working with for a while now and I can honestly say that I’ve got a much better understanding of the basics from your course. So much so that I plan to drop my subscription to the other course 👍
Thanks for looking at controls. Have had same difficulty and in general. The buttons are sensitive and many times end of advancing vs hiring relevant function.
Thanks for the feedback Rick – I have passed it onto the developer..
Last night I played around with the new ‘I’ and ‘O’ buttons on my iPhone and they are not responsive at all for me either.
I have asked the developer to look into this.
I had the idea of displaying to the default Vimeo embed for users on mobile/tablet. This would remove the A/B loop for these users completely, and we would just keep those settings for the users on laptop/desktop where the features work more reliably.
It’s a bit of work to change all of the embed codes for all lessons, but I think it would give more stability for users on touch screen devices so that they can play and pause the video reliably.
Cheers, Hayden
Thank you, this is just great. I thought the point of the lesson was to look at the changes, figure out whether the melody note is in the chord, and then doing a simple shell voicing (with or without adding the fifth)with good voice leading across both hands. That simple exercise alone is mentally exhausting! I find myself so focused on the chord at hand that I forget where my left hand was during the previous chord!
I think it’s easier to play rootless Bill Evans chords in the left hand while playing the melody in the right hand, – But not nearly as musical.
It would be fabulous if you could take us through the entire 8 bars of this or any other standard doing just that exercise out loud. One day (soon?) I will add stride, but at this stage, I’d love to see how to make my way through a tune doing just the exercise you started the lesson with. Baby steps! Wonderful course.
Thanks for the comment Jeremy and I’m glad to hear that you are enjoying the course.
I structured this course to show the many options that we have when playing solo piano. These exercises do take time but by revisiting them on a regular basis you will see rapid improvement.
Once we can visualise these chords in their basic positions, this sets strong foundations upon which we can introduce stride and many other left hand devices.
You might also like to start the “Misty Cocktail Improv” course which covers the same process for the tune “Misty” in the key of Eb Major, and we also introduce improvisational drills too: https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/cocktail-improvisation-for-beginners/
Enjoy the lessons and happy new year!
Cheers, Hayden
This progression is in F then why is there a D7. Why is there an F# sounds right but I don’t know why Also this lesson won’t let me play the last 3 sections. It keeps reverting to the beginning? Is it something I am doing wrong? Thanks
Hi Elizabeth,
The D7 is the VI7 chord in the key of F major, please see this lesson for more information: https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/diatonic-7th-chords-in-f-major/ – in major keys it’s common to plat the VI chord as a dominant chord and not a minor chord. This is where the F# comes from. Watch the lesson above and it should all make sense for you.
This chapter issue has now been fixed, apologies for the issue. The wrong video file was displaying. The correct video is now in place.
You might also like to start the course on “Georgia – Bluesy Stride Piano For Beginners” you can find that course here where we go through the harmony in more detail: https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/bluesy-stride-piano-beginners/
Let me know if I can help further and enjoy the lessons!
Cheers, Hayden
I’ve been doing a number of advanced lessons but circled back to this foundations course and found it enormously helpful. This lesson, in particular, was really fun. Thanks!
On another (rather trivial) matter, I changed my name in the account from “Gilbert’ to “Gib” but can’t get it to change in things like comments. How do I do that?
Gib
Hi Gib,
Thanks for the feedback and I’m glad you are enjoying this course. It’s a lovely tune to play. I plan to add some more harmony lessons and a full improvisation module to this course in the near future.
I have just changed your ‘username’ to Gib and this is now reflected on the website. Let me know if I can help further with this and enjoy the lessons!
Cheers, Hayden
Hi Hayden – This foundation lesson is motivating, I appreciate how well you explain the chords vocings and the learning process. I am making progress and feeling really good about it.
Cheers!
Hey Orlando 👋
Thanks for letting me know and I’m glad you enjoyed the lesson. This lesson is a shorter summary of the full course on “Bluesy Stride For Beginners” which you can find here:
https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/bluesy-stride-piano-beginners/
I recommend to get started with the course immediately and it will help you to see the many steps involved with learning to play a tune from a lead sheet.
I also recommend to get started with the cocktail improvisation course which follows a similar format but with a focus on improvisation: https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/cocktail-improvisation-for-beginners/
Spend a few weeks on those lessons and let me know how you get on.
Any questions just let me know.
Cheers, Hayden