LJS 105: Analyzing Jazz Standards With Roman Numerals for Max Results

Welcome to episode105 of the LJS Podcast where today we are jumping head first into "Jazz Standards Month." This month on the podcast we will be focusing on learning jazz standards and extracting everything we can out of them. To kick it off, we talk about analyzing jazz standards with Roman Numerals for max results. Listen in!
Listen to episode 105







In today's episode, I'm happy to announce we are jumping into "Jazz Standards Month" here on the LJS Podcast. Jazz Standards Month is all about learning jazz standards and then digging deep into them to extract as much info as we can.
It goes without saying, learning jazz standards is pivotal to all of our jazz studies. Regardless of whether you compose your own music or not, jazz standards are the foundations that we need to build our jazz education on. They embody the tradition of the music and the language that has continued to present times.
To launch this series, we are starting by learning how to analyze jazz standards with Roman Numerals. This practice isn't new or ground-breaking, but it's an important one for understanding how the harmony within a tune works.
Here are some of the things I go over in this episode:
1. 3 preliminary questions to ask when analyzing a jazz standard.
2. Understanding Roman Numerals in chord progressions by harmonizing major and minor scales with 7th chords.
3. 2 main harmonic lessons "Autumn Leaves" teaches us.
4. A full Roman Numeral chords analysis of Autumn Leaves.
To help you as a visual aid throughout this episode, take a look at some of the resources below. You will find several examples that I mention in the show that may be of use to you.
The Major and Minor Diatonic Series of 7th Chords

Chords Analysis of Autumn Leaves
Autumn Leaves Chords Analysis 1
Autumn Leaves Chords Analysis 2
Note that these examples come from our upcoming eBook The Jazz Standards Playbook which will be coming out in April 2018. This is an eBook and companion course that goes through 10 jazz standards studies that will level-up your jazz playing.
Enjoy the episode!
Important Links
The Jazz Standards Playbook







Read the Transcript
Brent: Hey hey, what's up? My name is Brent. I'm the jazz musician behind the website learnjazzstandards.com, which is a blog, a podcast, and videos all geared towards helping you become a better jazz musician. That's right, I just said videos. Now we're coming out with weekly videos on YouTube and on our blog, so if you have not subscribed to our YouTube channel, go to youtube.com/learnjazzstandards.
Every Thursday, we're coming out with a new video, jazz tutorials, tips and advice, so if you ... this podcast is obviously not going anywhere, but if you want to enjoy a little bit of that content too, you can.
All right, hey listen. I'm so excited that you're here. I'm really amped up. I'm really thankful that you're spending part of your day listening to me talk, and I hope that in return, I can give you as much value as possible and help you become a better jazz musician, even if it's in just some small way. So thank you so much for listening.
Now, last week we had our two year birthday episode, episode 104, which we had 11 special guest listeners, like you, on the show to give us their tips and advice, and I really enjoyed that show.