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

TLT, as far as what notes to play on the pickup, the pickup note is from the prior bar so it could be a prior chord at that bar. You only have 1 note to practice here.

But the easier to approach this is to think of which note you are going to use on the new bar and then then figure an approach note to it (half step above or below) which will serve as the pickup.

Remember that this is just for practice. I'm just trying to break you away from a typical pattern that every beginner follows (including me when I started).

In real life playing, it is a good idea to always start a pickup note on any offbeat (1+,2+,3+,4+). For this exercise, just use 4+ as it will avoid having to think of multiple chords. As time goes by this becomes natural and you forget about this rule.

BTW - please note that I try to always limit what I tell you to the specific thing I want you to improve on, like a teacher would. I'm not overwhelming you with so much information. Some other person may tell you something new.

I would really advice that you practice this with live drums playing in the background. For this purpose, consider downloading a live drummer recording from

www.PaulCarmanMusic.com

This is much better than practicing with a keyboard drum sample. Drums are important in this exercise because you need to time those pickups and recognize where you are in the bar based on the hi hat sound. (Hi hat is heard on beats 2 and 4).

Tlt,

Listen to these 3 versions.
The first very close to the original, sung by Montand who first sang that song, as you probably know.
Listen to the feel and the time signature:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWfsp8kwJto

The same guy singing it 40 years later. He sings the verse here too, so you can skip to 1:20 or so for the chorus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLlBOmDpn1s
Interesting difference, huh ?

And now one of the best versions of all time, imho:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA3xkwcSJQ4

You should start by polishing the melody if you're going to play it.
So he you want to play it as a waltz that people can dance to, that's ok, go with version 1 and play in 3/4

Here I'm hearing you play right on 2-3-4, just like version one plays it on 1-2-3. I don't think that really works.

If you want to play it jazz, go with version 2 or 3, and swing those notes.
The very first 3 notes is what I'm talking about.

The best way to do this, again, is to sing along with either Montand (just sing the pitches), or sing it with Miles. Can you take that youtube video, record the melody on top of him, and stick as close as possible to the exact time, duration and velocity he plays those notes? If you want to do it on your cornet, that's cool. Piano is cool too, voice is cool. The instrument doesn't matter.

take care.

Jazzwee - the drummer CD is very interesting - also pricey. I have a number of things ahead of it on my shopping list (including an H2 so I can make decent recordings). Interesting.

Knotty - I had no idea where the song came from, I was only introduced to it on this thread. This is the first time I hear it in 3/4 - very interesting! Not quite sure what to do with it, though. I noticed Miles Davis also plays on beats 2, 3 and 4. I really have no idea how to 'polish' the melody because I don't have anything authoritative to try to copy. I've never seen it written down. I've just heard it lots of times lots of different ways. All I really try to do is play it different from how I played it last time.

As for swinging those 3 notes, I really have no idea what you mean by that. (I know which notes.) I'm just not sure I can bear another discussion on swing...

TLT, as an alternative to buying the drummer CD, play with the metronome clicking on 2 and 4 (instead of 1,2,3,4). You could tap your foot on 1 and 3 if you wish.

But for the long term, keep the CD in mind. Since you have many years of classical education, changing your rhythmic feel takes time (classical focuses on beats 1 and 3).

That I can do easily enough.

Well, you're doing Autumn Leaves by now, I'd like to join this study group and start to share my experiences with you. I was in a mini crisis about my playing but now I'm ready to move on.

Am I too late for discussing Autumn Leaves?

Hi Tavares,

Jump right in. There is no such thing as being "too late". This is an ongoing thread ... 56 pages of thread. Don't let that scare you though. Just take it easy and post your play for feedback.

Barb

Hi Tavares, it's wonderful to have you onboard!

Do you know Autumn Leaves already? I was about a week into this before I realised there was a tune to go along with the chords...

Tavares, this thread might go on forever...:) But feel free to discuss anything instructional and we will help where we can.

Just so you know that we are not professionals here. I've been studying Jazz with a teacher for 4.5 years who's well known in jazz circles. So hopefully, the information will be helpful.

We are all in the jazz learning journey in various phases. I'm in a little more advanced phase but still continuing to learn. And I get quite frustrated too with limitations as I try to conquer something new. So join the party!

As a sort of blog, I've been working on Jazz Waltzes lately, and these have been terribly difficult for me as the goal is to make them really swing. I'm working on 'Windows' (Chick Corea) and 'Very Early' (Bill Evans).

I haven't really focused on Waltzes before and I do them rather poorly. And my teacher's expectations aren't for any amateurish sound. So that's my challenge for now.

Welcome to the gang. There's a lot of info hidden in this thread, lessons, examples, exercises.

Probably your best best is to pick an exercise, record and share.

take care

Right, I've ventured into lesson 3. Here's a reminder what it says:



Now, I can't honestly say I understood that, so I've done some recordings anyway (without too much practice) so if I've not got it right, you can direct me further.

For Style A I alternated 1/7's with 1/3's, except where it somehow didn't make sense, so I just stuck with 1/7's. RH simple melody. Recorded to 'nome on 2 and 4, but it's so quiet you can't hear it:
http://www.box.net/shared/s5qze8g12s

Style B I alternated 1/5/7 with 1/3/7, again, except where it didn't make sense:
http://www.box.net/shared/0y60c38rmm

For the arpeggio option, are you thinking simple beats 1, 2, 3 and 4? Can anything be that simple in jazz?

Funny how accustomed I've got to LH 7ths, anything else takes concentration. I couldn't hope to improvise to anything else just now.
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You pass that with flying colors TLT! Sounds great to me. This is the way to rough out a new tune that you're learning in jazz. Now somewhere in the lessons, you move on to 2+2 or 2+3 voicings where the melody is the top note and you almost always include the 9th.

So in typical playing, solo piano style, we play the 2+3 voicings to play the "head" (or melody). Then when we actually improvise, the LH is doing a combination of 1/7's, 1/3's, 1/5's and rootless voicings with occasional filler extension notes using the thumb and finger of the RH. The idea here is to mix "jazzy tension chords" while balancing it with orchestration. The 1/7's allow you to fill in a good solid bass sound. That's the general principle of the lessons.

Where you play (the register) of the LH parts depends on solo piano style vs. combo. In combo, you can still use the same shell voicings but usually in the middle registers.

Regarding arpeggios, no nothing is ever simple in jazz. It's not in the lessons, but typically one should be able to play continuous eighth notes up the scale using inversions of the same chord. I don't remember quite what was in the lessons but to get a solid feel of the chords, you can do 1,2,3,4 to start with. I'll let you read up first before I discuss anything so I don't confuse.

Copy that.

Edit: OK, so now I know I understood you, I'll give just a few observations.

First, the 2+3 voicings is lesson 6. Before that I've got lesson 4 (ballad) and lesson 5 (walking bass line) to go. I only mention this because the 2+3 has come up several times, but I think it's probably worth while doing it in the order you orinigally intended, and letting each lesson sink in before moving on? Unless, looking back, you would change the order?

Anyway, these new LH strategies.
1/7 alternate with 1/3 is pretty easy because the LH jumps about a lot less. I think you lose a lot when you don't hear the 7th. But what you gain is that falling line in the LH thumb - the alternating 7th and 3rd in the circle of 5ths, and it's almost melodic in its own right.

1/5/7 alternate with 1/3/7 takes a bit more thought, but you get the benefit of the harmonies. I especially like hearing the diminished 5th in the F# - that's nice.

Arpeggios. Now I just tried 1-7-10-7 (on beats 1, 2, 3 and 4). That's a stretch for me because I have small hands, but they'll get used to it. But doing that as quavers? At speed? No, I don't think so. Perhaps you mean broken chords as quavers?

The only excpetion I made was in the F# I played 1-5-7-5 because I wanted to hear the flattened 5th.

TLT, you can skip the Walking Bass lesson for now as it was just the timing of the thread action at the time. It is not in order.

Let's talk about LH strategies for a moment. The approach when playing is to always think in terms of orchestration (which in plainspeak is the balance of tones from multiple registers.)

Generally speaking, one could get away with a bass note only once a bar or even once every two bars in solo piano, particularly during a solo. So keeping that in mind, you have generally two categories of choices of voicings when playing a tune. (a) Rooted voicings, (b) Rootless voicings. In solo piano, mixing these up sound the best.

The rootless voicings speak for themselves and are described in the lesson. There are multiple rooted voicing strategies you are aware of now. 1/7, 1/3, 1/3/7, 1/5/7, and in some cases, 5/1 is another one commonly used. Which you use is up to you and depends on the tempo as well.

1/3/7 and 1/5/7 could actually be arpeggiated in a ballad.

Beyond that, remember that the LH does not play alone. If I will play 1/7 or 1/5/7 in my left hand, I'm obligated to play 9, and 3 in my RH. Either in the solo line or as a voicing.

If I play 1/3 in my LH, then I'm obligated to fill in with a 7 (or 13) and 9 in my RH. These give the minimal jazz sound that one hears.

Then you progress from here because in Jazz, you can substitute chords (Reharmonization) so it sounds even more tense. But realize that the voicings are still the same as I say here or additional extension notes are implied in the music. There are many rules here and I could play AL in a way that you wouldn't recognize without the melody. That's just part of the creativity of jazz. But that's for a later discussion.

Anyway these basic rules are the foundation and one should be able to apply them in ever changing fashion. The hardest to learn are the rootless voicings. And you can start learning that any time you want. They are all equally important so the order doesn't matter.

There are more lessons to be given on voicings and chords and reharmonizations but no one got that far so I didn't go any further. Suffice it to say, it would take years to run out of material. And these are all ingrained in me.

On arpeggiating the chord, start with the pattern 3, 5, 7, 9 as the arpeggio. Very common sound popularized by Bill Evans.

BTW - a great amount of what we know about Jazz Piano came from Bill Evans (for example rootless voicings). So whether or not you like his style, he's important in history.

Be aware of the fingering in arpeggios. They are just all seventh chords so standard fingering applies which means usually no thumbs on black notes when arpeggiating. (many reasons to have thumbs on black notes but not when arpeggiating).

Right, well, that was a fair bit, so - just a couple of questions.

1. We seem (by which I mean, you seem) to be talking about 9ths a fair bit now. In the chords I wrote down, there is only 1 9th. Do I just generally start putting 9ths in?

2. Arpeggios. Does the same rule about detached crotchets apply? At one point I was almost tempted to use my sustain pedal.

I did notice, where I did 1/3 in the LH that I felt obliged to put the 7th in the RH. This threw me, so I thought I'd leave it for another day.

the 9th (which could also be #9 or b9 depending on the chord), is the minimum 'color' to a jazz chords. So typically is played next to the 3rd on the RH if you're doing a 1/7 LH voicing. Or it could be the highest note if you're not playing a melody note.

If you are playing the melody though, you likely will have to stick to 1/7 voicings on the LH since the melody is on top and the 9th will get in the way. Lots of melodies are based on 3rds.

I hope this is putting everything in context since this was missing in the discussion of lessons. The point of the lessons is to provide the toolbox.

In many jazz books, all that is taught is rootless voicings, which is not a good solo piano strategy.

Arpeggios - yes same rules always apply.

Now one other thing you should return to is your AL Melody. At the moment you're playing it more like the written music. If you listen to how I play the melody, I've altered the length of the notes to be more swingy. I did this by changing the 1st quarter note to an eighth. If you listen to Keith Jarrett, he changed the notes 2-4 to eighths. I recommend that you copy some masters's version of the melody. I'm sure I copied someone too. It's a test of your ears as well and a stylistic study and typical in jazz (which is based on listening and emulating).

TLT - You are doing great here. I wish I had time to join you.

Jazzwee - Jarrett is my favorite playing Autumn Leaves. Below is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io1o1Hwpo8Y

Thanks Barb. My memory is wrong here. The 1st time Jarrett does it is all quarter notes. Then he changes it several ways after...

Barb, question for you. The Sudnow method does pretty much the same type of thing with two handed voicings right?

Do you stick to 2 handed voicings or there's also use of rootless or is that jazz specific?

BTW - One thing I never covered here is that when I play standards like AL, I may use the same voicings but use completely different chords on the fly. So it will still sound different. I never got around to explaining that.