Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Jazz Study Group 2: Advanced Players

New thing I'm working on, playing inner voice leadings, ala Keith Jarrett! I notice he does it on ballads and slower songs. He doesn't play the entire chord at once, but plays the left bass note and right melody, then fills in the rest a split second later.

Listen to Over the Rainbow, Danny Boy, or any of his solo ballads.


I'm trying to figure out what he's doing on the intro to the Wind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1KPg8otfgE

First 20 secs, it's like staccato chords, alternating left and right hand. Very cool sound, anyone have ideas?

Custard.

I do try to be polite, but directness has a place as well ;-)

I have noticed that many people play the left hand too loud, too sustained and too often on the first beat of the bar, so I watch out for that and stop myself when I find myself doing it.
If its a medium up swing tune the LH can be very quiet and staccato so it just adds a bit of punctuation between the RH phrases. The shorter the chord the better it often sounds.

JW, I would strongly recommend you get familiar with tapping out out 2:3 and 3:4 crossrythms at different tempos. These are very important and it is impossible to play them on the piano if you can't tap them out first.

Wiz, yes its alternating LH and RH stuff. I practise lots of that stuff, paradiddles between the hands and other drumming ideas.The piano is a percussion instrument so treating it as one can be very rewarding.

Hi Dave B
Where for you are the interesting places to come in on the LH e.g. on the 2nd/3rd beat of the measure ?
In general, would you say LH shorter sounding and RH legato ?

Hi Custard,
The articulation you use depends on how you want it to sound, probably you are going to use a more legato touch on a ballad than on an up tempo swinger.
Practice playing the left hand chord on each quaver of the bar, then when actually playing you can bring it in wherever you want. Often on swing tunes the LH is best on the off beats.

I never even heard of the word "paradiddles" before! How would you go about practicing this?

Luckily, I am very well practiced on 2:3 Beeboss. I don't practice it as a scale though. If I played Windows, I'd have to use it frequently. When I played Very Early, I recall my LH was stuck on 2 (dotted quarters). Yeah I do remember learning this by tapping it out.

3:4 or 4:3 is still difficult. I can see how it's important. My difficulty with it is in changing rhythm and coming back to it. Especially in ballads.

I really love this specific advice. Also your advice on LH comping was so specific that it gives me something precise to practice.

Thanks!

Beeboss, on LH comping, typically I would play the LH staccatto on quiet moments, but I noticed that if it doesn't land exactly on the downbeat/offbeat it sounds really awful. This is really my particular problem with the LH. Harder to practice since I have to be so conscious of it with the RH doing something so complex. This is often why I just simplify and play footballs on the LH.

So based on your approach, it would have to practice comping in precise time while simplifying the RH. So it get's to be in the subconscious first.

Paradiddle is a drummers rhythm, it goes L R L L R L R R

or in reverse - R L R R L R L L.
The piano is a percussion instrument so just imagine that each hand is a drumstick and go
L R L L R L R R.
Any notes or chord will do.
There are lots of different rhythms to try, but getting used to the approach is the most important thing, the idea of alternating the hands.
Also try L R R and R L L
This fits easiest over a straight 1/8 groove but you can do it in triplets over a swing rhythm if you like.

Thats what I mean about playing on something simple, so the right hand can do not much and you can give the rhythm of the LH comping virtually your entire concentration. Obviously it has to be exactly in time.

Yeah, your practical advice is really useful Dave B. When you said to practise playing the LH chord on each quaver, does that mean I play the LH chord 8 times for each measure – and then figure out which of the 8 sounds best ?

Custard, you actually end playing only one or two beats of it if you're playing stacatto style (per Bar). I was just doing this today and I realize I mix up. Like I break it up and play non-stacatto every few times. Often I don't think about it and it's based on the space in the RH line.

I believe in the AL Thread, I had a sample there where I played 1 and 2+ which is a Charleston Rhythm. But I don't always play 2 per bar. That's probably a base starting point. Playing at random beats is harder to keep time with and you'd have to work to that. At that point, it's more by feel on how it interacts with the RH.

No, not on all 8 quavers in the same bar. Try putting the chord on just 1+ for example for a whole sequence or until it feels easy, then try on 2+ etc. When you have gone through all 8 possibilities then try the pairs that JW is talking about.
Listen to where the great players place their chords and then try and do likewise. If you notice Jarrett putting his chords on 4+ and 2+ then try it and see if you can do anything with it.

Here is a bit of what I was practicing yesterday - Doxy.
I was trying to get the LH nice and crisp, and trying not to overuse it.


http://www.divshare.com/download/12362618-d89

Wow who is playing this – Dave McKenna ? Thanks Dave B and JW, this is complex for me, I really belong to the non-advanced thread, but I like talking jazz with anyone who will help me. When I come back from holidays in a month, I’m going to play around with my LH a lot.

Beeboss, with your playing you really should be drawing a crowd at your jazz gigs. Your playing is beyond your typical pro doing casuals.

And if we ever argue about your harmonic choices when soloing, let me just say that your note choices so clearly state the harmony (on downbeats) that my teacher would claim you as a bright example of that.

BTW - I was practicing that LH thing yesterday just trying to maintain perfect time and I really need a metronome to do this right. I didn't have one yesterday and I could feel myself waver. I was trying to just feel the beat that's established with the RH 1/8's. Having a precise LH is definitely a skill that is dragging behind on my end.

nice job beeboss! Swingin'.

I'm trying to play the Wind now, that KJ song I posted up before. Melody is no problem but harmony shifts around, so I'm working on that.

I don't transcribe the "normal" way, hearing it note for note.

I work out the melody first, then work on chords on my own. Lots of experimenting.

It's in C-, then Ab+, G+, then back to C-.

Who wants to try the head and compare? Help me out with the harmony guys!

Thanks JW, although you don't need to flatter me so much. I was only posting that as an example of LH staccato chords.

Wiz, maybe it is easier to work out the harmonic progression from the Chet version, probably it is less abstract.

Not even flattery Beeboss. I was just stating a general fact and not just with this tune. That's why I ought to really pay attention to your intense practice strategy.

Just yesterday I was working on doing comping with 4+ 2+. That was a little new to me. It's the most swinging comping I've ever done and more so than the Charleston comp.

It was hard to do so I just kept it simple. I just did some blues chords on the LH and an ostinato on the RH and repeated the comping on the LH over and over. This will take a long time to sink in. It was hard to always get the 4+. Many a time, I forget and do a 1 instead. But it's probably ok to mix it up too right? I'm not sure because I don't know what it sounds like to a listener.

For some reason though 4+ is great for keeping the beat going.