How Chopin Can Help Your Jazz Piano Playing! (Orchestrating the Melody to the A Section of "I'll Remember April" for Solo Piano)

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To keep the melody from sounding thin against the LH bassline, harmonizing in 3rds is a great way to add instant harmonic support. Though playing consecutive 3rds ("double 3rds") is a real technical challenge to pull off crisply due to the alternating fingerings, 1+3 & 2+4 is a hard enough pairing but especially when the weaker 2+4 & 3+5 are paired.

Chopin’s Double Thirds Etude is famous for this exact technique, basically a workout in rapid double 3rds.

After the first 8 bars the bassline is let go and the orchestration shifts to a broken style–a challenge at this faster tempo. Stay tuned for P.2 where we analyze this broken orchestration in the Bridge.

This excerpt is from my solo piano recording of "I'll Remember April" from Cactus Sessions. To watch the FULL cut, click HERE