What a nice touch, Glen. That sounded really great! And your lines are really interesting. How can I have influence on you? Obviously you've been playing longer than I have Quick fingers too.

Get that metronome out and you'll be fantastic and you'll just have to tell us where your next gig is!

Jazzwee,
Thanks for the feedback - much appreciated!

You speak knowledgeably regarding phrasing, lines, bars etc. I don't have that in my vocabulary, so your opinion matters - as I have lots to learn.

If you have the time, check this link and let me know your thoughts.

Last Night's Practice Session

Glen

Glen, you seem to have mastered playing the slow tunes and it seems I have a lot to learn from you too. Perhaps you can talk about your voicing strategy for these tunes. I'm just wondering if it's the same as what I talk about above.

Also you are really good at mixing in those 16th note solos in the ballads. What's your source for your vocabulary? It sounds blues influenced (from listening to some of the Practice sessions).

I don't have a vocabulary source specifically myself. I've tended to just play intervals until I've sort of figured out what sounds good. And then after awhile my ears just took over. If I listen to someone long enough, I tend to hear the patterns in my head.

You talk about Teacher's influence Glen. In my case, it's a lot of that influence. My current teacher is a Modern Jazz artist and I probably skew along those lines. In the early stages, it's been more focused on mid-tempo stuff until my technique picked up and we began working on uptempo stylings. Stylistically, he doesn't allow me to play ballads rubato. Always tied to a fixed beat however slow. As I've played faster, and slower (both extremes), he has stressed the metronome more and more. Probably more so than ever.

His attitude is that the masters differentiate themselves by their time mastery and he's very critical of any time deviation. As you can imagine, that's pretty tough and I certainly have not perfected that.

One of the reasons he says space is essential (and I often forget this), is that the space also allows you to resynchronize the time. But as you know when you're playing solo piano, it's difficult to get a rhythm section right there. So I often have to practice on a keyboard for rhythmic things.

BTW - I'm amazed at your collection of tunes. I don't have that collection. Since my study is more pedagogic at this moment, I've focused on difficult tunes but not that many. When I've overcome the technical hurdles, only then can I focus on expanding my Set List.

There are ways to extract audio from a youtube video. I use a tool called ffmpeg

http://www.catonmat.net/blog/how-to-extract-audio-tracks-from-youtube-videos/

To download the youtube video, there are tons of add-ons for firefox. Just search for youtube.

Knotty, but to import into Transcribe, it would have to be WAV. How can you do that?

You can open mp3 in Transcribe. I think the audio in youtube is always mp3, so it's pretty straightforward.
Try it on these MacPartland video. This way you can listen to them in your mp3 player.

hey thanks a lot!

Dave, I was just hoping you're one of those guys with perfect pitch and can repeat everything after hearing it once at full speed

i wish.

I'm posting my Nov ABF recital piece in this thread for posterity.

Autumn Leaves - I call this rhythmic play because I'm doing something different here, playing with rhythms including overlaying 3/4 meter against a 4/4 meter. It's experimental and although I took the idea from Brad Mehldau, I think I've implemented it differently. If I did it again, I probably wouldn't or couldn't repeat it in this style. This is one take. Rather fast. Plenty of faults, not the least of which is the lack of space.

http://www.box.net/shared/h1idgknmzt

I've received some private comments on this calling it 'Modern'. No doubt that I'm influenced by a new kind of Jazz so I'm not necessarily copying the traditional. I'm finding ways of capturing a swing feel without relying necessarily on a swing articulation. I'm just on the beginnings of my quest here but I'm expecting that I will make even further changes stylistically sometime soon.

I should note that when my teacher heard this, he said I should use a metronome

Teachers are good at that!

Sounds great! Sometimes I wish I could say something a bit more intelligent, but my mind wanders when I listen to jazz...

A nice history of Bill Evans - Interview of his Producer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52ScsGolkWI

Here's a few tunes for your comments/suggestions. I got stuck experimenting on "Blue Grey" and could not decide which one to post up.

Hope you like 'em.

Glen

All The Things You Are

Some Day My Prince Will Come

That's All

Blue Grey

Blue-Grey

Not So...Blues

You've been so busy Glen!

Hey Glen, started listening to your stuff. Piano sounds great. You really know how to bring out such a nice tone. You need to discipline yourself though to really count out each bar since the number of bars on each is pretty variable. I'm not even talking about Rubato here. It's the actual beats. It's a bit of a bad habit you got into there my friend. I hope it doesn't take too much time to undo.

When I do that and begin to wander, my teacher would stop me immediately and not let me solo and make sure I have the form straight in my head. And it makes sense since you cannot make the solo fit the form if the form itself is wavering.

BTW - is that a Steinway? Piano really has a lovely sound and you record it really well.

Glen, you really have very nice articulation on that Blues solo. I liked your touch on that a lot!

Have you tried playing against a drum track? This is a nice good source at different tempos. It's a live drummer and he really alters the drums to the tempo. It really keeps you in the form because the pattern tells you where you are.

http://www.paulcarman.com/store/home.php

Getting good time is hard as heck. I'm mediocre at best. But I'm really working hard at it.

When I listen to Chick Corea and Hiromi, I'm amazed at their time and how in synch they are. Just from an internal body clock. No rhythm section here. When they play the head of Spain at the end it was so precise it was mind boggling!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRU1o-sCnqY

I've been following this thread for a little while now. Two weeks ago my piano teacher started me on learning jazz.

One of the lead sheets he has me working on is All the Things You Are. I'm just playing the chords in the LH and one note melody in the RH. It feels somewhat empty to me at this point. I do know my chords. (maybe not adding 11ths, 13ths yet) What I really need to know, or work on, is putting more in the RH, but I feel stuck. I really don't know how to go about this.

I'm OK with inversions, adding 9ths, 6ths, and whatever sounds good in the LH. But I guess I just need some advice on how to proceed.

Maybe this should be another thread altogether, but thought I'd start here with the pros. Any advice would make my day! Thanks in advance!

CMohr, this is the perfect place to ask this question and I will get back to you. I was just about to post something and I will be leaving so I'll get to your question a little later.

Charleston Rhythm

I've been asked this question so I will expand on this a bit more. Typically comping on the LH is based on what is called the Charleston Rhythm.

Here is where the Charleston Rhythm is derived from (the 20's dance):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJC21zzkwoE

The structure of a Charleston Rhythm is based approximately on two DOTTED QUARTERS, played on Beat 1 and approximately on beat 2+ (2 and). But this is not quite an accurate description. To really get the actual exact timing of the Charleston, we have to convert the bar in triplets instead of quarter notes to get an accurate representation of a dotted quarter.

Here's a picture showing the actual beats of the Charleston.
http://www.box.net/shared/3rd5ug414d

In the photo above, the 2 Charleston beats are marked as Beat 1 (1st note of 1st triplet), and the 3rd note in the 2nd Triplet. So it isn't exactly like a Dotted Quarter in which the 2nd note of the Dotted Quarter would start on the 2nd note on the 2nd triplet. Thus you could say that the Charleston rhythm is a bit delayed and its position within the beat gives this enhanced swing feel.

When jazz players base their LH on the Charleston Rhythm, it doesn't mean that you play both beats. In fact, it could also come out like this where only one beat is played per bar and it could be alternating.

| _ x | x _ |
instead of
| x x | x x |
(underscore signifying a ghost note -- note is unplayed).


So there's no fixed rule here other than the fact that the LH tends to sparse. Typically you play in empty spots.

Now I personally discovered some additional value to the Charleston Rhythm for the more advanced. The 2nd note of the Charleston has a very strong swing feel because of the positioning of the note, EVEN IF ONE PLAYS A STRAIGHT EIGHTH NOTE. It suggests that playing lines so notes land on the last note of a triplet gives a strong swing feel without using triplet feel eighths (2:1 ratio eighths). It has the sound of hanging back. This is why swing sounds so strong when you hang back a little from the beat.

CMohr, ATTYA has a particular structure that makes it conducive to a particular voicing strategy (for solo piano) which I will explain shortly. In ATTYA, most of the melody notes happen to be the 3rd of the chord. Now as a general rule, the melody is played on TOP, and the melody note should sound louder than the rest of the harmony.

So for the actual ATTYA voicing, try this:

LH
1 - 5 - 9
RH
3 - 7 - 3 switching to 7 - 3 - 7 and adjusting for chord quality (i.e. flat the notes as needed).

This will work on most of the chords. There's a particular shape to this that you can almost practice the feel on because the RH is always an Octave and the LH is slightly past an octave. The LH ends up with the thumb a half step or full step away from the RH thumb (distance with 9 and 3rd of the chord). This depends if the chord is major or minor of course.

It's a very full sound because of the stretch and reach of multiple registers. Another thing you will notice here is that on many chords (ii-V progressions), the 7th of the chord will move down a half step to the next chord.

So here's an example for the first 4 chords of ATTYA.

Fm7
LH F D G (1 5 9) RH Ab Eb Ab (b3 b7 b3)
Bbm7
LH Bb F C (1 5 9) RH Db Ab Db (b3 b7 b3)
Eb7
LH Eb Ab F (1 5 9) RH Db G Db (b7 3 b7)
AbMaj7
LH Ab Db Bb (1 5 9) RH C G C (3 7 3 )

Most of the time here the upper note is the melody note so just move it as needed if that is not the case (seldom).

Notice that the only extension you really have to worry about is the 9th and it is always played in a fixed position relative to the root.

Notice the important voice leading between Bbm7 -> Eb7 -> AbMaj7 (ii-V-I). Recognize that movement as it repeats itself often in this tune and in most Jazz standards.

I'm hoping I don't have any typos on the notes above as I am not anywhere near a piano. Now this strategy of playing is used when playing the melody (or "Head" as we call it). When soloing, this is simplified greatly (often to just a 1/7 shell voicing). This style of playing is applicable to many Jazz tunes that have a 3rd as the melody note.

When the melody note is not the third, often I will use this:
LH 1 5 7 RH 9 3 + melody note. The 9 and 3 here are very close together, often only a half step apart and thus gives a very jazzy dissonance. If comping you can also stretch this to "9 3 9".

The basic strategy is to use ones ears and if these types of voicing styles are practiced often, it can be quite automatic after awhile. This is a very important part of jazz that many beginners don't often practice.

Thank you SO much, Jazwee! What a great detailed HELP. I'm going to try all this now - I'll let you know how it goes.
It really does make sense (after reading it) - it seems so logical that I should have been able to figure this out for myself.
It's a whole new thing - being only used to reading classical music and playing - now having to loosen up and play what sounds right for the song!

CMohr, don't hesitate to ask because it really isn't that obvious. Now I'm leaving you to work out the rest of the chords but if you get hung up, just ask.

Thanks, jazzwe...

The concept of keeping time and changes is growing heavier and heavier on what I should focus when it comes to creating my own arrangements of tunes and any of the free-play tunes. When I play classical music, there is not issue there.

Yes, it is grown to be a bad habit, and I have a tendency to get wrapped up in the sound of the instrument and what I am going to do next, rather than sticking to the changes when they are supposed to happen. It makes it impossible for anyone else to play a duet with me, etc. I do seem to stick to the changes when I play with someone else, but it tends to get away from me when I am playing solo.

I've slowed down a ton and just going back to the basics to bring into greater focus making changes when they are supposed to happen rather than creating 3 to 5 or 6 beat measures because I am too consumed in creating sound, rather than sticking to the tune's as they are written.

Sometimes, I hit it on the mark, sometimes I am way off...most musicians just scratch their heads trying to figure out what I am doing.

Thanks for the suggestions and heads-up on where to spend my focus.

I'll post up some more tunes, some more standards that show a stricter adherence to the changes in the written music.

Your input is highly appreciated.!

Glen

Glen, thank my teacher This is a common problem, including with me. But my teacher would just stop and not teach me anymore until I play the form correctly. He won't even listen to my solo if I don't have to form right. And that's understandable now looking back, because often he criticizes my playing based ON the form (like playing in time, note selection on downbeats vs upbeats, accents) and that cannot be determined without that structure.

So don't feel too different there. He was criticizing my form on a tune even just a few weeks ago. You play well, so if you sort this out, you'll be sounding really good.

Gig Blog (sort of)

Thanksgiving is like a gig for me.

After cooking (I cook the Thanksgiving meal for a large group of people), I play piano so they have the full entertainment thing going on here, from food to cocktail lounge. I sort of use Thanksgiving as a measure of where I am with piano playing as I started playing about 5 Thanksgivings ago. What's different this year is that I was completely relaxed when I played. I had no fear or tension and I could play while having a conversation. And although I don't know as many tunes as I would like, later on my guests started pointing at tunes in the Real Book and I just played it directly from the leadsheets. Surprisingly, after one run through, I could play pretty much any regular standard and even solo over it.

I would say that this is the first Thanksgiving where my playing actually sounded more professional -- just like a real Cocktail lounge. I was even playing some things like Donna Lee and Blue Monk with a fast solo, or Bossas since people were getting tired of slow ballads.

Someone even left money in a tip jar

For next Thanksgiving, I think my goal will be to increase my set list. Most of the tunes I normally play for Jazz practice is stuff I wouldn't play at a party. There's a lot of easy tunes to add. Just from playing some standards cold, I can see that it shouldn't be a big deal anymore.

BTW - all the stuff I was playing are just things already discussed in this thread.

What a great thanksgiving for you and your guests!
I think what you have accomplished , like you say, over the past 5 years is very close to what I would love to be able to do some day - play some things people know while they are relaxed and enjoying themselves.
What could be greater motivation for a player than knowing your guests feel "treated" to some great music!
Thanks for the post, it enforces my desire to keep at the "jazz" side of my learning!

Thanks CMohr. And you can do it yourself . It's a tough road because sometimes you practice and practice and don't realize when playing the chords and navigating the keyboard becomes automatic. But I'm here to reassure that if you practice it constantly, by the time you've accumulated the hours, it really does work out somehow (just for a guide, I'm at about 4000+ hours of practice).

Now I'm setting higher goals (playing at a higher level) so I'm in for another struggle for the next few years

I have not been here for a while and decided to pop in tonight, and what a surprise to see this post! Congrats Jazzwee. What a great way to spend thanksgiving and wow, you've accomplished a lot within 5 years. All those practicing hours really pay-off eh?. Next year's Thanksgiving will only get better for you. It's really great to have an audience when you play. You really do play better because of live interaction.

Rosa