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Thanks, Dave.



Well, you know, I've not given up the day job. Or the night job, for that matter.

TLT, I haven't listened yet but Rootless voicings are essential to solo piano. It is played like a sort of Modern stride. Bass + Rootless. It's part of the "mixing" it up strategy. Most jazz teachers focus only on Rootless. I just think you have to master two handed voicings first before you get into rootless. Nevertheless it is quite important and needs to be memorized.

In my recital piece, I tried to use this (Bass + rootless) but it was a very difficult tune so I didn't master it yet at the time.

TLT, rootless voicings sound great! So practice a little bit of this every day so you can do any ii-V-I with it (12 keys). There's a couple of inversions. Once you internalize this, then continue with Charleston rhythm using this.

Arpeggio practice itself is great. Swing though needs by usual repetitive line about accents. My ears tell me the accents are in the wrong place (strong downbeat) but that could just be a time issue because I'm looking at the chord as beat 1 and you have a variable start to the arpeggio. Always focus on legato sound and soften downbeats. If you're playing legato and focusing on softening downbeats, there should be less percussiveness to it and a more singing tone. When in doubt try to play it straight (with a swinging left hand), seems to work in your case.

A lot for a week! I wish I were as productive. Some of the stuff I do takes more time to resolve...

So, for example, ii-V-I in C might be:
CEFA - BEFA - BDEA
Or:
FACE - FABE - EGAD
Working with the principles of moving my fingers as little as possible.

Meanwhile, practicing the scale/arpeggio we discussed in the other thread (C-E-G-B-D-F-A-C) ascending in all keys is going to help me visualise these extension? I think I'll just start out with the major ones.

We also discussed briefly in the other thread about sharpening or flattening these extensions, but I was never sure what the answer was. I'm still thinking I just need to the true to the key I'm in.

This stuff is beautiful.

There's nothing written down for that exercise. I was focussing far too hard on what key I was in, and what key I was going to, to think about accents!



It does? I'm afraid I have no idea what you mean. How can I swing the left hand? I need quavers to swing!

OK, got some more stuff here (it's amazing what I can do when the kids are at school!).

This is Hard Science (by Phil Peskett) from the ABRSM grade 2 jazz piano syllabus.

http://www.box.net/shared/p5jg4zl4dv

This one is a lot of fun. It's ABA and B consists of a written-out baseline and improvising on the D blues scale. I did try to get some accents in there. The baseline was just slightly more complex, so I found it hard to keep the rhythm going - I'm pushing against the metronome a couple of times.

And from Richard's jazz book, Co-incidence Calypso:

http://www.box.net/shared/ls0nl2b14k

Also lots of fun, again I did try to accent the offbeats. The middle section is *not* me improvising - instead, I listened to Richard's improvisation on the CD, transcribed it as best I could, and played it back (I missed out a couple of lines). Again, the rhythm was hard on this one - I started out with the metronoms on 2 and 4, and ended up with it on 1 and 3. In the end I just gave up and switched it off.

Left hand is swung by the oft repeated "Charleston Rhythm"

I'll catch up the rest in a little bit.

You will notice after awhile that these two inversions (some call them A & B voicings) tend to bias to one per key. This is because you need to keep it in the middle register to leave room for the RH.

So in the key of C, you will notice that you will use the FACE version more often. In fact, in C it's probably 90% for me.

Migration will be somewhere near middle C for the rootless voicings. This is not in any book but is just based on experience.

About the only time you use the higher registers for a rootless vocing is just for occasional variation in comping. For solo piano it's probably 100% in the middle register.

Is that all! duh!

OK, I'll do FACE in C till I'm comfortable with it. This feels very strange. No sense messing with it till it's more in my fingers.

Wow! The thread is still alive, wonderful!

Welcome back Chris! How's the baby? Your baby is practically as old as this thread. We'll never forget that.

TLT, Chris is the source of your arpeggio exercises...

TLT, listened to the 1st one and it sounded great. Yes you were pushing (more than a couple of times). The fact that you're aware of it is already a great sign. Of course we all have to work on pushing because it's just part of the tension.

On the Rootless, the best way to practice this is to first memorize by starting with Major7 and then do C and move it up a half step at at time until you get all 12 keys. Then see if you can do it using the circle of fifths.

Then do Dom7 the same way. and then Min 7 the same way.

After this, you do it in ii-V-I sets.

You can practice using these in ballads by doing bass followed quickly by the rootless (bass needs to be placed only occasionally - once per chord, and sometimes just once every couple of bars), while doing the melody on your RH. Try it with multiple tunes in the real book. You need to get away from relying in written music since you will be faced with a leadsheet and you have to figure out how to make it sound good by yourself.

Your goal should be to master two handed and rootless voicings so it is available to you at any time. Two-handed is harder IMO because it's not always a fixed thing to memorize. It's different per tune. Rootless is typically more black and white for typical chords (until you start doing Melodic minor stuff like ALT chords).

As you would expect, it takes a bit of time to accomplish this so it gets ingrained by doing a lot of different tunes this way. Personally, it is more productive than using written music as it forces you to think it out.

TLT, I heard accented swing lines in that Calypso tune

the calypso piece sounded great!

She's fine thanks. Just this day started at Kindergarten. Her current favorite music is an album with Cal Tjader and Eddie Palmieri. Here she is:

Chris, we've not met, but I've been playing your scales AL piece for a while now! Thanks!

Cute kid!

Why is the piano a wind instrument?

Kindergarten already? Wow that's early. Probably not potty trained yet. I have 4...

been busy with stuff, still monitoring things.

Tlt, I think you're totally on the right track. Keep learning voicings for individual tunes. Pick one progression, and learn it well. Do left hand only for as long as you need, until you can play without stumbling. For each new tune where you see c-7 F7, you can try experimenting with different voicings. But pick one, and stick to it until you know it. Write the notes on paper actually. You need to be sure to master these major and minor 251s. I think using the disciplined approach will work well. You don't need to know 50 voicings for F7, but you must be able to pull out at least one, for any chord in any tune. So learn them one at a time. You don't have time to think when you play.
Have you tried composition yet? This would be very good to help you put into practice all this theory you're learning. It will make you much more confident when you later have to improvise on same or similar progressions. This is a parallel exercise to the voicing exercise.

Jazzwee,
You have 4 kids?? Must be a lot of work !

++

well, at Kindergarten in Sweden kids can start when they're 1 year (or in some cases earlier) all to help - especially the mother to get back to work. Though it's a double-edged sword, we try to minimize her time there - its a small group of 10 kids and three full-time trained caretakers- but she loves it.

She's very cute Chris! I have a range. My youngest is 5 and my oldest is 15 and starting to drive (and play 'Death Metal ).