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"Overcome" may be my favorite Nevue piece. And I would be intrigued to hear what it sounds like with a latin American rhythm!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Monica Kern:
[QB] David Nevue is a favorite in the AB forum. His website (www.davidnevue.com) lets you listen to pieces, and you can buy single piece sheet music for $3.95. He lets you see a sample page so you can gauge the difficulty. I particularly like to play The Gift, Overcome, Home, and The Emerald Valley.

I bought "The Gift" yesterday, and today I can hardly stay awake. I couldn't get away from it, finally went to bed at 2:30 AM. The Eb almost scared me away but dove in anyway(time to get away from "C"). A lot of things I need to ask about the song but don't want to hyjack this thread. Thanks Monica...Ray

Start a new thread over in the AB forum with your questions, Ray... there's lots of us there who play The Gift and should be able to help. I love it... so pretty, and once you have it down, almost foolproof. It's the piece I always play first if I'm playing something for friends, because I know I have it down cold and won't mess it up.

Is anyone here familiar with Liszt's later piano works, say 1875 on? These are all extremely reminiscent without Liszt's chromaticism.

Phillip Aaberg plays some mighty fine piano. There is also a book of transcriptions available from Hal leonard. His style is a little more funky than the average new age piano player.
David Benoit-or is that smooth jazz?
A favorite of mine is Joe Hisaishi- he composes a lot of works for Japanese animtion. I have some of his sheet music from Japan that is not too difficult.
I transcribed Wedding rain by Liz Story way back in 1981. Her music stands the test of time. My students love to play Things with Wings.

Benoit is closer to smooth jazz. Out of the Bob James/CTI school, only with better chops.

Actually, Bob James would be an excellent starting point for pianists to emulate and get a feel for playing "new age jazz" piano. He plays a very tasteful, yet minimal type of piano (sort of like a Herbie Hancock in Cliff notes) that any one year piano student shouldn't have a problem transcribing and performing with the recordings. Though sparse, his comping and phrases are an excellent foundation as a point of departure:

http://www.amazon.com/Two-Bob-James.../002-9248904-9085649?ie=UTF8&s=music

http://www.amazon.com/One-Bob-James.../002-9248904-9085649?ie=UTF8&s=music

David Benoit IS Sooth Jazz. He has 3 books out. Go to www.benoit.com and take a look around. VERY versatile musician!

Yikes. I got my Jarrett Koln Concert book today. I don't want to say I'll never, ever be able to play it... but that's probably the truth.

I guess I can always leave it on my music desk open to one of the scariest looking pages when I have company over and impress them senseless, but even then I run the risk of them asking me to play it for them.

Any page with alot of notes can appear scary until you sit with it, away from the piano, and study it. Then it becomes much less mysterious and scary (unless we're talking about Sorabji, Ives, and Xenakis. That's some scary stuff no matter how long you look at it.) Since this is supposed to be an exact transcription, the advantage is all yours. You can choose a page, any page, put on your recording and analyze what he's playing before you even attempt it at the piano. This will familiarize you with it before you even attempt playing it or along with the recording, which eventually you will be able to do.
I transcribed most of the Koln Concert about 25 years ago, the parts that interested me anyway. Pianistically, it all lies easily within the hand, and Jarrett's runs, though at times extremely long (200+ note phrases) are not that difficult to execute once you know exactly what it is he's playing.
From my experience in teaching students who wanted to learn excerpts from this work, the rhythmic syncopations between hands is the most difficult aspect to conquer and once mastered, will give you great insight into Jarrett's playing.

thanks, virtuosic! You are very reassuring. Last night I played around with the sections I want to be able to play (the beginning of Part I and the absolutely sublime section in Part I that begins at about the 7:20 mark), and you're right, they don't seem insurmountable, especially if I consider some of the runs and ornamentations as 'optional.' Maybe I'll try to cobble together an abridgement that is feasible, or maybe I'll wait a couple of years until I've picked up enough technique to tackle it more meaningfully.

If you are able to play a Mozart Sonata, Bach Invention, Prelude, or Fugue, and certainly if you can play any of the Beethoven Sonatas, even if not up to prescribed tempo, you can play 99% of what Jarrett did at that Koln Concert unabridged, now, not later. Maybe some of it not quite up to tempo, but with enough certainty to do the music justice.

Stop practicing scales and arpeggios for awhile and use linear excerpts from the book for practice drills instead. You'll enrich your melodic language, be playing music instead of practicing scales, and gaining more and more insight into Jarrett's music which will allow you to master it and commit it to memory with that much more facility.

Jarrett's melodies are very simple, yet elegant. It's the way in which he embellishes these melodies, adding to their elegance, not distracting from them, that makes him Keith Jarrett. Believe me, there's as much to learn from Jarrett's musical performance here as there is from analyzing and playing any Classical piece, the music here is that good. Miss out on the embellishments, the totality, and you miss out on the entire point. Play it all. You can. Baby steps at first. Then eventually you'll be able to establish a flow and tempo, of course relying sometimes on as much tempo rubato as you need to fit all of the notes in that you can't at strict tempo being perfectly acceptible. Though now committed to paper, the nature of this music is improvisatory not compositional, right?

although not exactly 'new age'
i highly recommend "Ambient 1: Music for Airports" by Brian Eno
very soothing first track. ambient says it all.

Good morning, Monica,

'Never say Never' is a good motto. I firmly believe that there is a corollary between practice hour numbers and acheivement in piano playing.

Jarrett is not the simplest musician to copy in my view. But I would take a great deal of notice of that post above of Virtuosic1.

I have no Jarrett recordings I don't think. So must try and get a DVD or CD any suggestions please?

Alan

Alan, "The Koln Concert" is the closest thing to improvisitional piano perfection on earth, imo, and it's where I'd suggest you start. I'm not even all that much into jazz, but I love that CD and play Part I just about every day, and usually more than once. A lot of Jarrett's other stuff is much more frenetic and strikes me as random fast runs up and down the keyboard--not my cup of tea. But the Koln concert...

p.s. to Lungfish: Yes, I like that Eno album quite a bit.

Thanks for that tip Monica, will see about ordering one.
I do find some jazz piano is too abstract and full of embellishments and in so doing, looses the melody and rhythm and downbeat which is the baseline of jazz in my book. a la, Herbie Hancock style.

Alan,

ps; I guess I'm a touch old fashioned!

Excellent taste, Monica! Arbour Zena is a Jarrett album that you would also play non-stop, guaranteed. Jarrett and bassist Charlie Haden play as one mind with Jarrett's arrangements for strings in accompaniament. This is Jarrett's finest album in my opinion:

http://www.amazon.com/Arbour-Zena-K.../002-9248904-9085649?ie=UTF8&s=music

Give a listen to the three one minute examples. Incredible stuff, certainly on par with the finest of 20th century composers.

I second Pete the bean's recommendation of Philip Aaberg. I played one of his pieces, "Montana Half-Light," at a recital last December.

The piece is not very difficult from a technical perspective (early intermediate or Grade 3-4), but has a nice atmospheric quality. It lends itself well to improvisation.

In fact, my piano teacher liked this piece so much that he learned it (and embellished upon it) so he could play it on gigs! (Took him 15 minutes, took me six weeks, but I digress...) I think this is the one and only time I actually introduced a new piece of music to a piano teacher that he wanted to play!

Monica,

I have ordered the K J Koln Concert and think part two will take some memorising. We'll see. Thanks for the tips.

Thanks again will talk more later.

Best regards,

Alan.

Yes, this is a wonderful way to learn. I'm so heartened you think it possible to get this music down. Do you think it is possible or even worth memorising it? It seems even more spun out than a concerto.

But I think it would be better for students to study the theory and scales in tandem with work on the transcription.

There are also many more self contained transcriptions of Jarrett such as the standards available now. Whatever, it cannot be played like Czerny because it's jazz.

I've always worked on memorization not at, but away from the instrument. Jarret's lines are very melodic, memorable, and for the most part, all except for several, lengthy 16th note stretches, easily sung/hummed/scatted. Once you can divide up sections and scat them, the memorization process is nearly complete, especially if you have the accurate transcription, to correct any slight inconsistancies and illustrate the left hand accompaniament, which is not as crucial to this music as Jarrett's tapestry of melodic subjects, embellishments and variations on them. Memorizing away from the instrument engrains the music into your mind and ear rather than your fingers. The mind and ear are much better adept at memorizing music than merely relying on finger memory to get you through. Once engrained in the mind, Jarrett's music becomes a part of your musical experience, and can better serve as an influence for your playing. Learning music thusly has a much greater transfer/usability effect than merely playing it from muscular memory.