Hello all, I just found this site recently and am excited to read so much useful information.
I learned classical piano as a kid and now I play jazz. I am self-taught, with plenty of trial and error!

My current goal would be to do some lounge or solo background playing.

Please have a listen to my songs and give me some feedback, so I know what to improve on. Thanks!


My Funny Valentine

http://www.box.net/shared/zjpjih8atu


When I Fall in Love

http://www.box.net/shared/il1hlg6h0m

Wiz--I listened to When I Fall (since I play it a lot as a wedding song) and it seemed nice and smooth, but was missing some crucial passages. I kept listening for recognizable harmonic changes from the 2nd & 3rd phrases, but it seemed like you only hit the opening subject, then wandered off somewhere and came back to the A theme.

Wizard, this is quite lovely. I think it is sensitive and I also think it is obvious that you are using your ears. You are orchestrating it with your ears as well and that is a good thing. In time you will become more firmiliar with how to better orchestrate your right and left hand, chord voicings, etc. Just keep doing what you are doing. The only comment I would have for you right now is to just clean it up a little. It sounds to me like the pedal is REALLY your friend. It's easy to become reliant on it, especially when playing a ballad. My teacher encouraged me in my private practise to take my ballads and try playing them through completely with NO use of pedal. At first it was VERY uncomfortable but it showed me that it is more important to connect the sounds with your fingers first, and THEN add just a touch of pedal. nThe result is a very clean sound that is very connected to your body and your fingers. You have much more control over every note and and every chord you play.

Listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V5IouHeI...=PL&index=6

It almosts sounds like Keith is not using any pedal at all. If he were to hold down the pedal through those runs, all of those notes would cluster together and it would sound like someone went and pressed 39 notes on the piano all at the same time, but it doesn't sound that way. Listen to how clean every single note is... and enjoy this recording because it is beautiful!

Cheeze...

Cheezie,

Right on! I also wondered about the tuning of the piano, but couldn't be sure because of the pedalling.

The OP is doing fine, and with constructive criticism such as your will continue to improve.

Hop

Thanks for the comments, yes my piano is a little flat and yeah I do tend to overuse the pedal. Good to know what to work on.

Wiz,

One of the reasons we see these things is because we recognize them in our own playing!!

Keep on keeping on.

Hop

I can't tell since the files were deleted.



How convenient.

link removed

I was interested in listening to the tunes, but what happened to them, they're missing?

katt

I am not sure If it's the same recording that was posted a long time ago,(i can't listen to it right now), but if it is, i agree with gangoinlaoshr, you do need to play the tune in it's entirety, especially for the kind of lounge gig you want to do. On lounge gig, people aren't really going to pay attention to how you solo, in fact, you can actually get away with playing the head twice on a slow song. The most important thing is for the people to recognize the tune you are playing, and if you don't play the whole tune they might not recognize it.

If you want to play a lounge gig, the best thing to do is learn as many songs as you can.. you probably want to be more versatile in your song selection, and pick some Beatles tunes, and well known pop tunes too. In some cases they prefer you play more pop covers than jazz tunes, it really depends on the venue. But I know in Asia, and in places like china, taiwan, and maybe hong kong, you will have to play a lot of chinese pop songs cover as well as some jazz tunes.

You might also want to think about set list, and playing tunes with different kind of feel/groove. It would sound very monotonous if every song in the set list was a slow jazz ballad.

the thread is one year old....
eweiss decided to bump it for some unknown reason.

That's right etcetra on about making sure you establish the melody of a tune. rather than only focus on soloing. My ole late great piano teacher used to get on me about that. He said the solo should be built around the melody if possible to compliment the tune and the composer's intention. I have heard pianists play a tune with a lot of mumbo jumbo and ask them what tune was that? "Oh, that was Night & Day, I was just messing around on it."

I also feel that it's ok time to time to take liberties with certain tunes on the melody, but being careful to establish an identity.

You also have to have a varied songlist to include some bossa novas, up blues, med swing, up swing, bouncy type standards, maybe some Beatles and Billy Joel tunes.

Anyway, I would still like to give a listen if the tunes can be put up again on another link to hear them.

katt

I bumped this thread because Wiz asked me to search for his music here at PW. I found these 2 files but now I can't find Wiz or the music.