Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Jazz Study Group: Autumn Leaves, ATTYA, etc.

First of all I want to say that im very grateful for this thread!


Hey jazzwee. Im 19 and started piano playing 2 years ago. Before I played flute for 8 years

So I am a bloody beginner with classical -
and jazzpiano of course too !! Recently i discovered it for myself and I began to love it! But learning it is not as simple as that T_T.
It is a science

In order to learn more about Jazz i visit a Jazz Composition course to learn something about the theory at least. But I dont know how to improvise at all!! I'd love to take jazz piano lessons but my the tuition for my classical teacher is all I can afford. So I am accepting the challenge of becoming self-taught.


Im familiar with classical harmony. But when it comes to analyzing a Bach fugue i call it a day. haha. As for jazz, i can play most chords of the lead sheets and play em rather quickly. I learned the inversions of the triads too
I can play all minor and major scales. Thats about it. So you see that i havent got the slightest idea of jazz XD!

Im looking forward towards your next advices .
Do you use any books to learn jazz piano from ?

jazzprof, I occasionally added a note on my right hand below the melody out of habit. But my LH was playing purely 1/7's.

I wish I could play it better but I'm having to struggle to just like the rest of us here. Just don't ask me to give you advanced jazz technique tips

But as far as theory goes, I think I can hack that

Steve W, this will come in heavily when we get to learning how to solo. In order to solo over chord changes, you need to know what notes to pick and these are typically notes of a particular scale. So if you know what key you're in, you don't have to do it by trial and error.

For example in Autumn Leaves, the initial scale to use is "G" scale. You can play any note in G scale in a solo and it will sound correct ('Diatonic' is the formal term).

I'll explain this more in detail as we go along.

Hi ganymed, I probably have read ALL the jazz books . But most of them repeat the same story.

I learned from 3+ years of jazz lessons from jazz professionals and I'm still with a teacher. So I'm confident I'm not leading anyone astray here

But I'm still an amateur on the 'execution' side and I'm working hard on that front. Welcome to our little thread and keep asking questions.

Jeez, this thread took off !!!!

I turn my back for a second and there's 5 pages of stuff.

Ok, I just rushed over to the keyboard and recorded a quick simple version. LH 1,7 and 1,3 like others mentioned early in this thread (that's just what I'm used to doing right now). First time through played like I would normally, second time through tried to push the melody around a bit, not always with a lot of success.

Here\'s my simple version

jazzwee, how is this for this beginning stage of the thread ?

Now off to go read alot of this thread and try to catch up.

DeepElem, great job! I'm proud of all of you. You're all making music!

Don't worry that we've done anything different. We're still on 1/7's. The only additional exercise for pre-solo is to do 1/7's in the LH and 3rds on the RH. This is important to get to the solo stage.

And all your recordings sound great. My Zoom H4 is on the blink. It has a little 'Mic Gain' problem so it keeps going from Low to High and distorting my recordings. GRRRR! This is making it a little harder to provide recordings.

This took more effort than I thought, but I finally managed to get through it in ballad tempo without too many mistakes.

http://www.box.net/shared/9faokkyog0

I guess my next step should be to try for a swing rhythm, then I'll deal with some of the other theory stuff I see flying around.

I can see I've got a lot of reading to catch up on in this thread!

Awesome versions posted so far, everyone. Hope you don't mind if I stole shamelessly from a few.

And I agree with the medal thing for Jazzwee! Or maybe we could have an international Jazzwee Day where everyone wears zoot suits or 40's dresses and plays old bebop records. That'd be cool.

Sorry if I might have missed it, but could someone please clarify the relationship between Autumn Leaves and the Circle of Fifths/Fourths? I've always been a little confused about it..Thanks!

.

Well, in my folk-style reading of the circle of 5ths, of which rintincop has posted a handy graphic here, I mostly think of the root of the chord. The 5ths are read clockwise - from C "up" the keyboard (or the alphabet ) to G is a 5th, and the G is the V chord in the key of C. So, often, in other keys, one will find a G7, a V7, leading into a C chord, even if G7 isn't normally in that key. You might, for instance, find a G7 chord leading to a C7 chord which leads to the tonic F in the key of F.

But if you read the circle of "5ths" counterclockwise what you are reading is the chord progression of V-I in each pair - G to C, C to F, F to B, etc (yeah, Bb, but for me that's a refinement of the concept). So, in much old 40's popular music you'll find a string of those chord progressions in a piece of music - following the "circle of 4ths" - C "up" to F) - A to D to G to C to F - only they'll all be V7 chords, and not part of the "key" in which the piece is written.

So I've gotten to thinking of *any* A chord, whether it's A7, or Amaj7 or Amin or Adim, or Ab, or whatever, as a "flavor" of a dominant 5th that can lead to some "flavor" of D, and similarly for any of the other progressions.

So the chord progression for the A part of Autumn Leaves features roots from the circle of 4ths - A-D-G-C-F-B-E - counterclockwise around the circle from A, which leads right back to the A again. The B section starts on an F(#) root, and follows the circle of 4ths around again, eventually going far enuf to end on the Em.

That may or may not clarify anything , but it's the way I think of it.

EDIT: LOL - rintincop changed the particular graphic of the circle of 5ths while I was writing my tome, and added a very succinct explanation. Well done, rtc.

Cathy

My friend ritincop is one of our resident jazz pros on Pianoworld so thanks for stepping in!

This is a simplified melody of Autumn Leaves.

http://www.box.net/shared/7fjofyaogk

This will just allow all of you to get the timing of the chords and melody right. I do a poor job of phrasing but this is not really jazzy, it serves a utilitarian purpose. Time your melody to the rhythm. I'm playing half notes in the LH, so you can count through it. It's important when playing get the base rhythm down. I know it takes awhile to get there but I will help you. Don't worry if it takes longer than you thought.

Elssa, such beautiful ballad playing. You have excellent piano technique! I thoroughly enjoyed this and I'm sure everyone else did. Even in ballad form it will be a good for getting the timing of the melody with the chords down. Thanks for sharing that.

jazzwee, thanks for the Scale Degree lesson. i kept this site open in another window

http://www.telacommunications.com/nutshell/music/keyboard.htm

and could follow along on the keyboard. helped me with the visual sense of it all.

westarm, I didn't expect everyone to try to understand the Scale Degree Lesson. I'm mixing theory and practice here. I'm glad you invested the time to do that though, because it will enhance your understanding later.

Bluekeys, your music post got buried in there. Sorry I didn't comment. Good job!

Now all of us who have posted music should try with future attempts to making sure the melody is correctly lined up with the chords and keeping the LH Rhythm constant at your desired tempo. Let's not be too happy with what we've done. Shoot for the next level. We'll all vote to give a virtual Medal for 'Most Improved'.

Thanks all for your nice comments..Everyone sounds terrific!

So the chord progression for the A part of Autumn Leaves features roots from the circle of 4ths - A-D-G-C-F-B-E - counterclockwise around the circle from A, which leads right back to the A again.

Yes, I see what you mean about using some form or "flavor" of the root chord. I thought I had read somewhere sometime that Autumn Leaves used a full Circle of 5th/4ths, so that confused me about the F# chord, but they must have just meant using some form of "F", as you say.

Thanks for the chart Rintincop

I'll post my "swung" version when I can get it to sound half decent.

That's not how I would think of it because it's... wrong.

The trip around the circle is A-D-G-C ---> jump ---> F#-B-E (repeat).

F# is NOT some form of F even though they both have an "F" in their name.

That's why it makes sense to think of it as two 2-5-1's. Am-D7-G is a 2-5-1 in the key of G, F#m7b5-B7(b9)-Em is a 2-5-1 in the key of Em (which is the relative minor of G). With a C chord to connect the two.

What is the point of that? Isn't that the opposite of swinging?

Isn't swinging also "correctly" aligned with the chords, just differently than straight time?

After hearing Jazz's simple melody, I for one have decided to do more work on straight rhythm before grabbing a vine and letting loose a Tarzan yell. But I don't think the intention was to stop anyone from swinging.

So I'm currently learning the 1-7 left hand with the single-note melody, straight time, not really atempting any swing-type rhythm yet, since I want to be able to play the 1-7 in the left hand without having to think about it so much. And I'm happy to say that I can read some of the theory-related posts (over and over) and it's beginning to make a little bit of sense, as long as I just take it slowly and not get inpatient with myself.

If all goes well today, I'll post a recording this evening. I love all the recordings I've listened to so far. Very inspiring.