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I agree with you, snakechaser. This thread and as well many others are quite read worthy. I've not been posting here as much, as I've been participating lately in recitals, e-citals, lots of recordings, and local playing gigs. There are some very fine pianists, piano enthusiasts, and composers/arrangers that post and click around here. Lots to learn, all the time. Nat King Cole produced some timeless music. His singing is magical and he was a fantastic pianist. His ballads are inspiring and you can count on Nat King Cole for his ability to really swing, no doubt about it. As well, he had much respect from his peers. Here's an old standard that he made very famous that I enjoy playing every now and then and attempt to jazz-up. [color:#3333FF][size:11pt]Nature Boy[/size][/color] Here are a few free-play improv ideas in minor keys from me as well... when you have the time. Some are more sensible than others. [color:#3333FF][size:11pt]Post Recital Blues[/size][/color] [color:#3333FF][size:11pt]Heat Stifled[/size][/color][color:#3333FF][size:11pt]Idea for Three [/size]Quarters of One[/color][color:#3333FF][size:11pt]Another Minor Idea[/size][/color] [color:#3333FF][size:11pt]Almost Three[/size][/color] Glen
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Jazzwee, I have put together an excercise for practicing two handed solo voicings, following my understanding of the guidelines in the lessons you posted a few weeks ago. The objective is to leave some fingers free for playing the melody (head of the song), while playing 3 and 7 and 9 with either RH or LH. I put this together for my own practicing, but in the event that others are interested, here is a link to the PDF file: http://www.box.net/shared/107j239m9f For any given chord, the voicing you would choose might depend on whether the melody note is 3, or 7, or between 3 and 7, or between 7 and 3, so there are several options to practice. Also, sometimes it is cool to put the 9th in the LH, but sometimes that is a bit too low, or the stretch is uncomfortable, so there are options for the 9th in LH or RH. Obviously this does not cover all the possibilities, but I'm hoping to develop voicing habits that leave upper fingers free. The idea, of course, is to practice these in all keys. Ed
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Those are some great ideas to put into practice, Ed.
Thanks for sharing them.
Glen
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Hello, First of all, what a great study group this is, and what a great lessons it contains! Jazzwee and all the others you guys have put and are still putting a lot of effort in here and I really really appreciate that. I've made it to lesson 3 now without a lot of trouble, but I always like listening to music I want to learn. How do you guys think of Nat King Cole as for listening to? I don't like all his music, but some of them I really love. Hello Snakechaser, welcome! You always have to listen a lot as that is what Jazz is all about. Nat King Cole is great and a nice one to start with as far as listening to Jazz is concerned. And if you want to really learn, it's best to post what you accomplished and get some critique as that's the only way to improve.
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Jazzwee, I have put together an excercise for practicing two handed solo voicings, following my understanding of the guidelines in the lessons you posted a few weeks ago. The objective is to leave some fingers free for playing the melody (head of the song), while playing 3 and 7 and 9 with either RH or LH. I put this together for my own practicing, but in the event that others are interested, here is a link to the PDF file: http://www.box.net/shared/107j239m9f For any given chord, the voicing you would choose might depend on whether the melody note is 3, or 7, or between 3 and 7, or between 7 and 3, so there are several options to practice. Also, sometimes it is cool to put the 9th in the LH, but sometimes that is a bit too low, or the stretch is uncomfortable, so there are options for the 9th in LH or RH. Obviously this does not cover all the possibilities, but I'm hoping to develop voicing habits that leave upper fingers free. The idea, of course, is to practice these in all keys. Ed Nice Ed! Very helpful for visualization. I surely recognize them as what's discussed in the lessons! Don't forget the exception cases. Those have to be learned too (like LH 1/3 higher up). Hopefuly I'll be posting a recording of Falling Grace (maybe in the other thread), shortly. And it is primarily played with 2 handed voicings the whole time. So that will be another example.
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Hello Snakechaser, welcome! You always have to listen a lot as that is what Jazz is all about. Nat King Cole is great and a nice one to start with as far as listening to Jazz is concerned. And if you want to really learn, it's best to post what you accomplished and get some critique as that's the only way to improve. Hi Jazzwee, thank you very much for the warm welcome. I've recorded AL, I'm very curious about what you and maybe others think of it. So far I've done the first three lessons, but didn't really break my head about that 2nd beat accent... I thought I'd do that automatically Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, I'll hear in a moment I think, hahaha. Here is Autumn Leaves. I've also made this short jazzy composition a short time ago, before I knew about this study group anyway, you can listen to it if you like here. Watch out for the volume though!! This one is recorded with my previous soundcard and the volume is way higher than AL (which is way too low, so I'm off searching for a 3rd soundcard right now . About Nat King Cole, I've imitated his intro of "Frim Fram Sauce", when I heard that intro for the first time I fell in love immediately with it It was tough though, first of all because I'm not that into jazz yet, but even more because his piano is just so out of tune it was hard to play along. Anyway, here it is.
Last edited by snakechaser; 08/22/10 12:41 PM.
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Hey Snake,
I thought this was really good. Very nice arrangement. I like your use of dynamics, and the movement in the left hand, especially on the bridge. Very nice. How long have you been playing? Are you classically trained?
As far as good starting points for listening to solo piano, Keith Jarrett playing standards solo are always wonderfully arranged and generally easy to listen to. He'll pick old standards like Oh Danny Boy or Time on your Hand and treat them with great respect.
There is a collection of solo concerts from the Maybeck Recital Hall that are also very well recorded and showcase a variety of artists. Most albums are really great. Monty Alexander's might be my favorite of the bunch, but Gene Harris' is gorgeous and so is McKenna's. All easy to listen, all different in style.
You have a good sense of time and a good ear. I think you'll enjoy Jazz a lot.
take care++
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Thank you for your elaborate reply knotty. I've used a VST (Native Upright) for midi processing, so maybe that explains the nice dynamics, most keys are multi-sampled and all that. I've been playing for some 11 years right now, but not all of these years have been really useful. I am 19 now, maybe that explains some things, for in my earlier years I didn't always like to learn and play the piano. I've not been classically trained however, more pop I guess. I quit taking lessons maybe a year ago since I felt like I didn't learn anymore from lessons, I was learning more from listening to recordings than from my teachers. FWIW, I didn't really think about my "arrangement" of AL, I practiced of course, but left hand and all comes automatically. It is easy and nice in one way, but on the other hand it's not good because a lot of things you play feel the same, as if you can't vary enough in your playing. Anyway, thank you for the artists, I'll look them up soon and try to learn from them.
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>> FWIW, I didn't really think about my "arrangement" of AL, I practiced of course, but left hand and all comes automatically. It is easy and nice in one way, but on the other hand it's not good because a lot of things you play feel the same, as if you can't vary enough in your playing.
That's the issue you run into when you apply a formula to arrangements. It's great to be able to do that, but you're going to want more. I believe that comes with writing down arrangements (or at least working them out). Ideally, you'd want each of your tunes to have a little something special.
There are so many different styles in Jazz, only you can tell what's really going to click. Peterson, Hancock, Corea, Jarrett, Monty, Palmieri. All very different. Many people lack the training required to listen to Jazz. And so they simply dismiss it. So I recommend starting easy. I would not start with Coltrane with Eric Dolphy for example. All in good time.
If you are 19, the key I think will be to find friends to play with.
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Snakechaser, nice touch! Sounds like you been dabbling in this for awhile. That was Autumn Leaves with a Latin beat. Did you know you were doing that? Sounded great.
I noticed that your rhythmic skills are above average so you are advantaged here. Time to get into some improvisation because as you know that's the real meat of jazz.
Do you have a jazz teacher? Read up on the commentary on swing here as you can improve on that a little (lots of pages of stuff).
AL is a great platform for learning to improvise since it contains to ii-V-I's. (major and minor). That's found in so many tunes so theoretically, if you can play AL in every key, you will hit most of the changes in standards.
Keep posting stuff as it's from feedback that we improve.
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Jazzwee, I had no idea this was a "latin beat", I guess if I'd play it again I would play it a bit differently. What makes this a latin beat actually?
I don't take lessons anymore. I had a jazz teacher the last two years I was taking lessons. He could play pretty good, but he didn't really have the gift of teaching that. Besides, he was really into scales and all. Of course, scales are an easy way of playing jazz, but to me it doesn't feel good. I can't possibly compare myself with one of all those great (jazz) pianists, but most of the classic ones have learnt everything by ear right? Listening, imitating/transcribing, practicing, trying, and all that. I quit lessons because a teacher can't learn you to listen, or well, my teacher couldn't. I preferred listening myself, and not being obligated to learning 10 different scales in 12 different keys and the like.
What I'm trying to say might be this, that I'd like to use my ears more, and theory less. Or maybe use theory to "hear" things, but afterwards forget about the theory quickly, 'cause music should come from the heart, not from rules right?
I'll try to record some improvisations. Should they be improvised right at the spot, or is it ok to think, try, and retry before recording?
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snakechaser, there are many approaches to learning to improvise and in my case, the initial stages were more structured. I was taught to specifically play chord tones on downbeats. This is a commonly taught method which was codified in a book by Hal Galper called "Forward Motion". Whether or not you follow a structured method, in the end, you're just training your ears. My only thought on the final result should be that the notes should fit. You cannot improvise based on a scale alone, but the scale sets the boundaries and it would sound wrong if you're not aware of that, particularly on downbeats. This also makes me aware that I can get away with a lot on non-scale notes on upbeats, particularly on dominants. I think it is a lot easier with rules myself, because with a tune like Giant Steps, the ears initially don't help much. But think of the rules as just an ear training tool. At this point for me, I don't think much about anything when I actually play. The ears direct the fingers and it feels automatic. It's like I just think of the big picture. I don't know how to teach improvisation without some guidelines. But I suppose it can be done if someone had some innate skill. I already knew how to improvise at a basic level before I started jazz. Years later, I didn't realize how basic what I knew was Share your process here and we'll all contribute. Maybe with some group guidance you can pick and choose from everyone's style of learning.
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As far as the AL Latin Beat is concerned, listen to Boss Nova and there's a particular emphasis on beat 1, 2+, 4+. It's not swing. And your melody as played, from what I recall, as a triplet quarter. It's really nice what you did. If you can pull it out of hat when needed, it's great to shift styles between latin and swing. In fact On Green Dolphin Street does that, as an example.
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One of the best ways to start learning Jazz is to start with the Blues. It has only 3 chords, a steady beat to swing against and lots of examples to listen to.
Anyone game to working on some blues?
I can get your started with some basics if any of you are interested. Everyone needs to focus on improvising and not so much on the complexities of jazz and this is one of the easiest ways to start.
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I sure could work on it a little bit.
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Great. I don't know why I got no response from the 'advanced' group. You would think this is actually easier than a lot of stuff we were working on.
I'm practicing it a little bit right now since I haven't really done blues in awhile.
For beginners, this is a great way to initiate yourself to simple improvisation. So speak up if you'd like to give a try alongside Knotty and I. And I can give you some basic stuff to work on including voicings and scales.
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Great. I don't know why I got no response from the 'advanced' group. You would think this is actually easier than a lot of stuff we were working on.
Well, maybe for the reason you just stated. In any case, I've been lurking, AND working on my blues a bit the past days too. If I have a chance I'll record and post something, but on the other thread because I know that I won't be satisfied with the basic changes. Nice to see these threads still up and running!
Recordings of my recent solo piano and piano/keyboard trio jazz standards.
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Hi....I've been working on Blue's out off the Tim Richards book.....Improvising Blues Piano....Havent played piano for 55 years and its been a real buzz....also using the Colin Davey...play Boogie woogie piano and the Matthew Ball... Blues Preludes ....all have got me up and running and should be a happy player in 3 years ...Fingers dont work like they use to but have got a few of the triplets to an acceptable speed..use the metro a lot as it helps the counting with on...off beat in 8 to the bar.....Im intrested in any tips ......also intrested in comping chords for 12 bar.......Doug
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I've come over from the dark side having recently discovered Jazz via the Bill Evans album "Alone" and the wonderful album "Jasmine", from Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden. Like many others here I've decided to go the Blues/Boogie route towards Jazz and I'm going to work through Tim Richards's highly recommended book "Improvising Blues Piano". I hope to be a regular contributor here as well as taking advantage of the wealth of knowledge from the more experienced Jazz musicians.
Michael
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Experts,
It would be nice if, for the purpose of this thread, you could post a sample of you playing as you would want a beginner to play. Not 5 years from now, but today.
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:34 PM
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:23 PM
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