How Insensitive: Journey Through The Real Book

A jazz piano lesson to demonstrate how Jobim's bossa nova "How Insensitive" is based on Chopin's Prelude in Em, along with a solo jazz piano performance of the tune.

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Playing Chopin’s Famous Prelude in Em 0:00
Chopin’s use of the 5th and flat-6th scale degrees of the natural minor scale in his Prelude in Em 0:53
Transposing Chopin’s Prelude in Em down a whole step to Dm, to match the key of Jobim’s “How Insensitive” 1:24
The harmony in Chopin’s Prelude in Em 1:48
Playing Jobim’s “How Insensitive” in the style of Chopin’s Em Prelude 2:50
Playing the left hand part of Chopin’s Prelude in Em under Jobim’s melody of “How Insensitive” 3:07
Antonio Carlos Jobim as composer of “The Girl From Ipanema,” “Corcovado,” and “How Insensitive” 3:40
Jobim’s “How Insensitive” as based on Chopin’s Prelude in Em 4:22
The emotional mood of Jobim’s “How Insensitive” 4:29
The descending bass line and harmonic journey in “How Insensitive” 5:17
Which scale to use on tonic minor chords: Natural minor or Dorian? 5:52
The characteristic sound of the Natural Minor Scale 6:26
How the Dorian Mode differs in sound from the Natural Minor Scale 6:39
Clearing up one of the biggest myths about playing jazz: We don’t always have to define a scale or mode for every chord! 7:20
Learning to improvise by studying how Chopin used neighboring tones 8:57
Improvising in the style of Chopin 9:34
Letting the emotional feeling of a tune come through us while we play jazz piano 10:02
Beginning by improvising with the “Chopin neighboring-tone concept” 10:13
Using the interval of the 7ths as a motif 10:58
Developing the motif melodically 11:09
Playing the “How Insensitive” melody, with an improvised part above it 11:43
Harmonizing the melody with parallel 6ths above 12:19
A more lyrical “descant” above the main melody 12:29
Improvising in parallel 6ths 13:11
A single-note melodic line13:24
Improvising with parallel 3rds 13:34
Quarter-note triplets 13:47
Improvising on the tune’s melody 13:56
Further developing the 3rds motifs during the solo 14:14
Bringing in the “How Insensitive” melody with the left hand, under the 3rds 14:33
Continuing with the melody, with the right hand 15:00
Improvising an independent alto voice under the melody 15:45
Playing one more chorus, with Impressionistic textures 16:05
Improvising an ending, on a D minor chord 17:29
The many recordings of “How Insensitive,” by artists as diverse as jazz musicians, Judy Garland, and even The Monkees! 17:53


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Enjoy the journey, and "let the music flow!"
Ron