Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical Let's Talk Cocktail Piano

I like to be on the sidelines.
As long as there is a spotlight on me and I have everyone's attention :-)

Michael/cruiser said:
1. True Love - (Cole Porter song from the show/film "High Society").
2. Autumn Leaves - but not in a too jazzy style.
3. Moon River - because my wife loves it and, since I love her...

I'm learning these three pieces more or less 'by the numbers' from a fake book, although a little improvisation/embellishment would be nice when I'm able.
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Michael, I may have for you just what the doctor ordered! For about the same price of a book, you can own two fantastic instructional video on how to play all the beautiful runs, fills, and progressions that make cocktail piano what it is. Here is the link:

http://www.learnpianowithelssa.com/

Elssa is also a frequent contributor to this forum, even in this particular thread.

Moon River is covered in one of the videos. Autumn Leaves will probably be available in the near future.
She also has a forum that is dedicated solely to cocktail piano. It is free to those who buy even one of her vastly underpriced lessons. There are no monthly fees or any other ploys to try to more of your money.

If you join the forum, I will personally make you an arrangement of "True Love" in the key of your choice, complete with sheet music and a midi file of the tune.

I'm a 67 year old beginner to piano. I am affiliated with Elssa only as a deliriously happy customer and an admirer of her talent and hard work. I hope to see you there!

Ray

Frank, spotlight (for those of us on the sidelines) should have an amber or rose-colored gel. Ha.

Regarding memorization—everyone has their own technique, and yes, playing the piece a bunch of times with the music in front of you will help your muscle memory, but as long as the notes are there, you will look at them, so I think it's best to get rid of them early on in the process. This will cause you to think about the harmonic structure of the piece and you won't be relying on pure memory as much because you'll be using your musical knowledge and intellect to guide you (assuming you've stayed away from the second glass of wine). In any case, this helps me a lot. I also find it useful to sit down with a piece of music before I ever attempt to play it—look at the structure and do a little pre-playing analysis.

Thanks, Ray, for your tips about Elssa. She is also a frequent contributor to the Wedding forum, and I've seen some of her videos. They could be very helpful to some readers here.

A friend of mine just sent me an email about his first cocktail piano job. He said he sat down at the piano at 5 p.m. and played and played and played, looked at the clock and it was 5:07. This happens when you start out. It takes about 12 hours for an hour to go by.

I just came back from a local Music Meetup (open mic)... I played Blue Christmas, Christmas Time Is Here, and Carol of the Bells. I even cajoled one of the guitar players there (who warned me he only plays by ear) to do a duet with me, but as usual, I was the only piano player. It's so wonderful to play for and/or with others, though. We don't have any venues for solo cocktail piano players around here, unfortunately.. (I've had to move about an hour above NYC in the past few years).

I'm definitely more of a background cocktail piano type player, too. Not too fond of the spotlight. But it's all fun

I just wanted to add that I think cocktail piano music is the most challenging to play and teach, even more so than classical and jazz - less strict rules, more creativity but in the end the most rewarding.

The late great Henry Mancini once approached my piano at the Hyatt in downtown Pittsburgh. I was eighteen at the time, and playing "Charade" in 5/4, which, being eighteen, I thought was extremely hip. Anyway, he was very nice. I didn't recognize his face, and I almost had a heart attack when I introduced myself and he told me who he was. I my have been young, but even then I knew that the last thing a composer wants to hear is a whacky version of his beautiful waltz in 5/4.

But to my point (to back up Elssa): He said to me, "My dear, playing in a bar is one of the most difficult things a pianist can do. Everything will seem easy in comparison. I've been listening, and you're doing a nice job."

As he was leaving I played "Moon River" (in the right time signature), but I don't think he heard me.

I'm sure I wasn't doing such a great job, and that he was simply being a gentleman and offering encouragement to an obviously young and unpolished musician, but those words of his have stuck with me over the years. And even though I'm not famous I still try to offer support to other players in this same situation, because I know that a few kind words go a long way.

You know, or maybe you don't, some concert musicians (classical and jazz and everything else) will snub you or look down on what you do. It happens. "Bar music," they might say. "How can you play when no one is listening?"

I've learned to say: "I listen to myself. And I like what I hear. That's enough."

Here was last night's first set:

Greensleeves (always nice at Xmas)
Bach Air on a G String
Legends of the Fall
First Snow (my song)
Over the Rainbow (request)
What Is this Thing Called Love
Night and Day
Lerbach Nocturne (my song)
Wonderful World of Amelie (I play several pieces from this movie but I don't know what they're called)
Water Lily (my song)
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

So that's that. Have a great weekend, everyone—

this is going to be another wonderful thread I see.

A cocktail lounge apprenticeship? Kansas City has so many wonderful blues and jazz musicians.. bands, singers and pianists. It is a mecca for serious musicians and people come from around the world to play here. Tho competitive, the musicians seem to all be friends and often play together whenever and wherever. I occasionally have been known to play along on the same piano.

I'm going to be a church musician forever. The ceiling is so high here.

And now even Russian Premier Vladimir Putin it getting
into the cocktail piano act...

I think I ran into some of his friends last month at the castle. Cabaret Vlad---gotta love that. I wish he had played without his shirt on, though, you know, just to maintain that macho vibe.

I played a concert at the US Consulate in Düsseldorf a couple of years ago when Bush was still in office. It was a riot---I had to stand in a receiving line next to the Consul General with an American flag on one side of me and huge portraits of Bush and Dr. Rice over my shoulder. I said this in my program: "I am very honored to be here tonight, and relieved to know that if my cocktail piano career doesn't work out, I can always be Secretary of State." Got a big laugh.

Played through my concert program last night on my cocktail gig. I am ready for this evening, I hope.

Apple, I love that last line of your post: "I'm going to be a church musician forever. The ceiling is so high here." The writer in me perked up when I read that . . . it's a perfect thought on so many levels.

Tonight marks the end of a series of high pressure events this season. The concert will be followed by a champagne reception and a four course dinner. I'll be sitting at a table with ten of my good friends. And I'll actually be able to enjoy it since everything will be OVER. Next up is a series of cocktail Xmas gigs, but they will be fun, fun, fun!

A musician pal of mine (a great bassist) just played his first cocktail piano gig. He put a tip jar out and collected 25 $ for charity. What a great idea!

What's the different between a cocktail pianist and a modern
jazz quartet?

Answer: The cocktail pianist is all alone on the stage.
(s)He cajoles and brings forth from the instrument the most
satisfying harmonies and melodies the mind can imagine.
Everything is in tune with the machinations of the Universe.

The jazz quartet is four guys on stage, with each of them
playing a DIFFERENT song (sometimes in a different key)!

Ray

I purchased "How to play from a fake book" by Blake Neely over the weekend.
I read it cover to cover first (it is only 95 pages and not wordy.).
It seems very informative about how to form chords,(up to 13ths), and different styles and left hand patterns. It comes with a lot of musical example to practice. I then started from the beginning doing the examples. I'm only on the first pages where you do block chords, and root and fifths in the left over a plain melody. That part was easy, but obviously I would not be able to get way with that for a performance. It is good however for learning chords and their inversions.
The book makes it sound so easy, but I can tell that in practice, it will not be.
After reading the book, I pulled out some pop full sheet music books I have, and studied what was going on. What do you know. It was all exactly as the book said!. Chord tones, arpeggios, block chords, inversions, etc.

In the other thread that this spawned out of, many people said One could play in this style pretty well in a year or two. It seems hard to believe, but then again, in the past 1.5 years I am playing some piece that looked impossible to me. I practice pretty much every day at least for a half hour. I plan to up that now, which shouldn't be hard because this new style is so much fun.

I wonder if any extremely benevolent soul would be interested in taking a fake book piece and showing us their process in working up an arrangement.

Here is a very LONG thread on arranging Autumn Leaves from the ground-up!

A PDF file is available. It prints out several hundred pages on arranging this classic tune.

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1569787/1.html

Ray

A great thread -- and I'm even mentioned in it! It reminded me how much I enjoyed your book, Robin, so I'm reading it again.

Here's a question for you, Robin: You noted that you knew mostly classical pieces when you went to Lino Tambellino's bar to practice. He heard you playing, and offered you a job.

Here's the question: what were you playing/practicing when he heard you? Classical, pop, jazz, or all three?

Here's a tip: memorize not only some tunes, but memorize a "my top ten" set list.

I learned this when I sat down for an impromptu concert once, and sometimes couldn't think of what to play next. When I was done, I thought "Oh I should have played ____, one of my favorites." I vowed that that wouldn't happen again.

So what I do is memorize a set list of favorite tunes using the memory techniques of Harry Lorayne to have that list of songs always in my head.

For example, here's my current "solo top ten" list:

Til There was You
Have you Met Miss Jones
Pennies From Heaven
Days of Wine and Roses
Easter Parade
Afternoon in Paris
Ain't She Sweet
Blue Monk
Blue skies
If I only Had a Brain
Five Foot Two
Polka Dots & Moonbeams
Take Five
Tenderly
Linus and Lucy
Misty

And here's how I memorize it:

1. I picture myself trying to think of what songs to play as I'm standing in a garden, tilling the soil.

2. I think of a woman I know who's last name is Jones, and she's tilling the soil.

3. I picture Ms. Jones, who is quite buxom, leaning forward, and thousands of pennies are spilling out of her cleavage.

4. I picture tons of pennies falling out of the sky, and falling on wine bottles, breaking them.

5. I picture a herd of big drunken Easter bunnies in a parade (they are drunk from the wine).

6. I picture Easter bunnies jumping all over the Eiffel tower.

7. I picture people licking the Eiffel tower and finding that it is sweet.

Etc. You get the idea.

Using this technique, I played my first paid solo gig last week, and sat down with no music or notes, and played seamlessly through the list. It was great fun.

I hope these help:

Al, fantastic stuff--thanks!

Thanks for the honorable mention of the very long running Jazz Study Group thread in the ABF.

I think the following lessons in there might be relevant here as they apply to solo piano style of playing.

Solo Piano 2 + 3 Voicing Lesson

Two hand Voicings - Practice Strategy This one is interesting because I broke out the two handed voicing as a pattern so you're hand just gets drawn to it.

I also tend to mix it up with what I call "modern stride" (I don't know the name for the actual style), where you pedal the bass root and then hit a rootless voicing above. I'll tend to do this when I'm improvising with the RH or just want to play a single line melody. But the difference with the regular stride is that the bass note is not always on beat 1, and often it is played only on every 2 or more chords.

Rootless voicings are also covered in that Jazz thread.

Typically I'd be mixing it up for interest.

Just in general, when playing solo piano, you really have to think "orchestrally" and pay attention to multiple registers. So often it is important to eye the forefinger/thumb of both hands and be aware of what harmonization can be done with them. In the simplest case, just think of harmonizing the melody in thirds ala Bill Evans.

I'm not exactly sure of the difference in playing between jazz solo pianists and cocktail style, other than the fact that I'd be likely to be improvising an alternate melody.

Perhaps Robin can tell us. I'm enjoying Robin's book too and finally took the plunge after reading this thread.

Nice Al! You obviously spent a bit of time figuring those specific arrangements out.

Thanks, JW, I'm going to work on that. It would be nice to add some voicings to my quiver that include 5ths.

For the practicing of the 5ths, I'm guessing I should use fingering of 1 & 4, right?

It would be great if you could post a recording or video of you playing something strictly with these voicings. I'm having trouble seeing how to fit the melody note in there.