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Don,

I've been taking Skype lessons with Dave Frank for over 2 years, and I'm really enjoying them. If you check out his site, you'll see why he's a great teacher. He has a well thought out method that you would follow week after week. He'll give you a free lesson if you ask so you can decide for yourself.

Books and DVDs are great too, sometimes very entertaining. The problem is that it is very difficult to transform the huge amount of information into an actual practice plan. If you can afford it, go with a teacher. I'd almost recommend going with a few bad ones first so you can see what a great one feels like

Take care.

Knotty ....

Thanks for the reply.

I have contacted Dave Frank and we'll see ...

Thanks

Thanks for responding KHZ. It's easier to give tips when I have a little background. First of all, you seem to know how to get around the keyboard to do rootless voicings and such so that can get you around in combo situations. Learn shell voicings too (1-7). Maybe you already do but if you're playing without the backing track, then do it with a shell voicing so the root is clear in your head. This is ear training really.

So skipping the problems you're already aware of, just a few tips so you have something specific to work on. You have a little problem with the timing of eighth note triplets. So you may want to fix that now rather than later, otherwise it'll mess up your time later.

At this stage of the game, be aware of always playing legato. When you're playing your solo lines or comping, try to eliminate some of that jarring movement when changing notes or chords. You can use the pedal when comping. The thing about swing is that it has to be really legato to sound good.

Try varying your solo so it's not all eighth notes. Usually at the beginning stages, it is very helpful for your ears to included a lot of quarter and half notes mixed in there. The less notes the better. As long as they're the right notes.

Knotty says play it slowly. I'm sure there's value in that but I never did that myself. The problem with playing slowly all the time is that the phrasing/articulation is different from slow to fast. Rather, I'd say the equivalent is play LESS NOTES (and LONGER NOTES). It probably amounts to the same thing, but again the the articulation is very difficult playing swing at 60bpm.

To me playing slowly and fast are two different exercises. Both needed.

We (including myself here) always play more than we can honestly handle. Playing less gives you more control and allows you to listen to the rhythm section and line up your notes more exactly as well as phrase it better.

Keep posting stuff and I'll (and others will too) try to give tips here and there.

dmd, having a teacher is really essential to making serious progress, I find. Self study can only take you so far. I think the basics are the key. In the absence of a teacher, we try to do our best here to get feedback since it is the feedback that really causes improvement. It's what I pay my teacher for. So post stuff here and we'll comment on it and give tips. It will be like having some sort of teacher.

Certainly the theory aspects can be learned without a teacher. Probably most of us learn that by reading.

I can't speak to the other specific players you mention, but Dave Frank is a MONSTER player so you should be lucky to find him so accessible for those not near a big Jazz city.

The things that are hard to teach on-line here is swing. Sometimes hearing it is 100 times better than talking about it for pages and pages on this thread. It's easy enough to identify bad swing and give comparisons, but most still don't seem to get it until you have a more personal interaction.

Wiz, your comments about swing/time was interesting. I was talking about my beginning teacher and he does jazz gigs even with his limited improvising skills. But you know why he survives? Because he has good time and good swing. So basically, it doesn't even matter what he plays as long as he can play with the group, then they'll want him back. And I guess he reads music well too.

It's interesting because often we spend so much time on picking what notes to play, but the reality is that rhythm makes up maybe 75% of the importance (IMHO, my perception)

Maybe it should be a clue to what we should be practicing...

I am coming to that conclusion myself. And I agree with your comment about paying your teacher for feedback. LOL ....

We all need someone (preferably an expert) to assure us that we are doing the right things and progressing satisfactorily.

Wee, yeah timing is everything in music. I tend to gravitate towards "non-swing" styled jazz, like the European players. Oscar Peterson swung bad (as in really good) but alot of his stuff sounds old fashioned to me. Maybe I'm just too young.

All my gigs right now are solo, so I can be lazy with timing and play more freestyle. I've tried playing with singers but I prefer the freedom of solo.

I think you're talking about playing straight vs. hard swing. I hear you on that. I'm into more modern Jazz myself which is played much straighter. I'm newer to jazz to so maybe that relates to it.

But my point was:

Good time = more Gigs (since you were into gigs)
Good Improviser != More gigs (apparently true for this guy I'm talking about).

So since I'm not interested in the gigging aspect so much, I should be the one concentrating on solo piano

Improving time "takes time"... I feel like I'm finally making a dent but it's a LONG ROAD man. When I listen to my problems I feel like an absolute beginner.

Hi Wizzy
It’s nice of you to offer to send me your first draft of Never Let Me Go, I look forward to hearing your refined version after you’ve had time to work on the tricky parts. As you say, it’s not a straightforward song. When I first heard it, I thought it was modal even though it’s tonal. It just sounded somewhat modal since it's in the G minor key.

Herbie in your Canteloupe Island clip was full of creativity as usual.

Seems like your summer gig schedule is keeping you busy.

Jazzwee I enjoyed reading the story about what you learned from being back in touch with your old teacher. Must be satisfying to see what progress you have made!



From where I am I'd be happy to be able to improvise as your old teacher does. Maybe if I could do that I'd want more, I don't know.

>>
Knotty says play it slowly. I'm sure there's value in that but I never did that myself. The problem with playing slowly all the time is that the phrasing/articulation is different from slow to fast. Rather, I'd say the equivalent is play LESS NOTES (and LONGER NOTES). It probably amounts to the same thing, but again the the articulation is very difficult playing swing at 60bpm.
<<

I know you enjoy the debate.
To me, it's about walking before you run. While running and walking are 2 different things, and while it is true that slow running is actually difficult, yet, you must learn to walk before you run.
And both involve a very simple technique, which is to alternate both legs moving forward.

The reason I make this silly point is because really, the fundation of jazz is a flow of 8th notes. And if you limit yourself to this simple concept, forgetting swing for a moment, then there are only 2 challenges left.
- play in time.
- play beautiful melodies.
If you can do those 2 things at, say 72 bpm, on a tune such as Ladybird, then you are well on your way to experimenting with the rest of the ingredients that will make up your jazz recipies.

Speeding up and using 1/4 notes is not the way I would take it.
That doesn't mean one should not work on speed, swing and all sorts of other things. You should do that in parallel with a bunch of exercises. But playing 1/4 notes, 1/16th, triplets etc.. comes after one has acquired the 8th note flow foundation.

But the true 1st exercise when you approach a new tune is to own the changes, be sure you can pull out all chord tones / arpeggios, scales as needed. And be sure that you can play a nice flow of 8th notes, putting rests where they belong, without getting lost.

If one can do that at 72bpm, one is well on its way.

I mention counting in 4s, because that will solve many of the issues above. For one, thinking in blocks of 4 notes will allow you to play nice long line.
But it's not easy. It's not easy at 72bpm, and as you speed up the dial, it becomes less easy.

Have I been brainwashed yet?

Hey Dmd,

Actually, being in Penn, you might be able to take a trip to NY once in a while and see Dave perform or give masterclasses. It's a lot of fun.
I agree with JW, if you can find a monster teacher in your area, that's a great way to go. I would certainly prefer face to face lessons.

But, I have tight schedule and I've already had several local teachers, some of which were monster performers, and I mean big time, but unfortunately could not give me straight assignments from one week to the next.

One thing I have found interesting after 2 years of lessons, is that just about everything Dage teaches me is explained in the book "Metaphors for the musician". It's really all the same. Crazy.
But you know what, I've had that book since day one, and still I was not able to transform it into a practice routine...

Knotty, blocks of 4 is certainly a good concept and is something that Hal Galper often talks about. It allows you to learn to move around chord tones. Although I personally never learned anything that structured. But I guess it's natural to think in 4's when playing in 4/4. Doesn't work in a Waltz though.

To me though, telling a beginner to play at 72bpm maybe good for 'giving time for note picking'. But it's really hard to do as a beginner. From my experience, there's a middle tempo that's easier. Let's say that's 100bpm. As you go higher and lower from there, it gets harder. It's a very specific kind of practice.

This to me is not walking vs. running. Playing at 40bpm is like doing Mime - super slow. That takes a lot of control. Obviously you have already built this skill and it is easier for you. For someone like me, 40bpm is still VERY HARD.

So to me, the starting point is actually in the middle and a step away in either direction requires extensive practice. And you of course would know that swing articulation is completely different at 60bpm vs. 180bpm. Hard swing vs straight. Maybe you were taught to go slow but none of my teachers had me go at the beginning levels at a tempo below 100bpm. I think it is because most of swing jazz is in the 100-150 range of medium swing and that is the most functional range to learn.

So using your analogy, I'd say 100bpm is walking, 200bpm is running, 300bpm is olympic sprinting, 50bpm is Mime or Tai Chi.

I guess eventually we all have to hit all of this (except for the Olympic sprint), I'm just wondering when.

Learning to play quarter notes first is something I was taught because although eighth notes is the foundation of jazz, melody building and understanding space is a big part of this. It's about ear training and hearing. Plenty of people play patterned eighth notes. If that was the only goal, we'd all sound the same. I can copy and hear a bebop line in my head all day. It's very predictable. My teacher has probably moved beyond bebop.

4 note patterns and continuous streams of eighth notes moving stepwise in a bebop scale. It's a very specific thing. It isn't the way Jarrett, Hancock, Chick, Tyner plays though so there's an alternate approach.

+1

I really highly recommend that book too. I think when I first read it, I just glossed through the pages. But looking back, if you really pay attention, there's a lot of practical stuff in there.

So as far as teaching content goes, I agree that it contains a lot and more practical than Levine's book.

However, as I mentioned earlier, it's really the Feedback that you're paying for. Unfortunately, it's still pretty hard to give ourselves feedback because we have egos. Different level teachers give different levels of feedback (I find). So you do get what you pay for.

That is a concern for me with any fantastic player. Many times they know what they know but may just be "winging" it during a lesson to the fledgling.



That is interesting because (of course) I have that book too (I have them all. LOL).

I guess I will be revisiting that book now !

Of course I thought the same thing when I started. But then at some point the comparisons stop with other people and it becomes something to do with oneself. Some of the stuff I shoot for now (like playing Giant Steps well), is not even a goal that many would aim for unless they're going pro. As I build my skills though (however slowly), I find that it gives me immense pleasure to not be limited in my expression. Think of the power Keith Jarrett has when he expresses himself. It must feel like God is talking to him directly

LOL. I know this is thinking far when it takes so many years just to learn the basics.

BTW - My current jazz teacher rates my first teacher as a "poor student" that didn't push himself. I suppose that's a clue right there. But he can at least make a career of being a piano teacher. He taught my kid piano (Alfreds Book 1 type of stuff).

>>Doesn't work in a Waltz though.
Right, blocks of 6.

>>It isn't the way Jarrett, Hancock, Chick, Tyner
Of course, you just named my favorite pianists
When I listen to tyner, I hear blocks of 4s all the time.
Same with Bill, it's amazing how clearly I can hear the blocks.

And even more so with Jarret. Jarrett in a trio context to me is just above everyone else. A main reason is how solid his lines are and how long they can go on. Also 8th notes are much more present with Jarrett than just any other musician out there. Coltrane's a great example also.

But what is even more fun, is since I've been transcribing a bunch of Parker for about a year now, how much of Bird I hear in anyone and everyone, including Jarrett.

Overall, if you can pick up a recording of Coltrane playing at 200bpm, and play exactly like he plays it, but slowed down to 80bpm, you have it made.

That’s what I want to do, I’ve ordered the Coltrane Stardust album as you recommended. But things from Amazon usually take 5 weeks to reach here !

Knotty - it's not really much of a disagreement as a practice strategy. If there's a wick on two ends of candle you choose to start lighting at one end and I chose the other. The end result may be the same.

The reason I say that is that no, playing Coltrane at 80bpm doesn't mean you're made. The struggle to play from 80bpm to 200bpm is a hard road and there are different technical struggles.

From this thread here, people are playing Donna Lee at 60bpm. You will learn swing at 60bpm but you will not learn swing at 200bpm automatically. You still have to go through the same road.

On the Improv side, it takes different brain function to create melodies at 220bpm vs. 60bpm. I've found this to be true playing Giant Steps.

And having said that, it is hard for me to play Donna Lee at 60bpm. Because I haven't practiced that kind of articulation.

Mind you this is not the same thing as playing something slowly a few times during practice to get articulation right. I think we're talking here about the regular practice at slow tempo. I've always learned early on by practicing at a medium tempo (usually 120bpm). You have typically chosen much slower than that.

It's probably neither here nor there so I'm not going to suggest a fixed practice tempo to anyone. Just whatever they're comfortable with. I'd probably lean towards approaching medium swing so the swing sounds more realistic.

Regarding the 4 note thing - I thought you were referring to 4 note Bebop patterns. If you're talking ANY 4 notes, then I think we're in sync.

Jazzwee - please don't jump to any conclusions about widespread interest - I estimate I have made about 29,900 reads myself.

Great stuff!

Thanks,

Ed