HI everyone I have a desire to learn jazz solos such as those in the steinway library
"stylings of the great standards"

I havent bought the book yet I decided to start with the most basic of this series growing on and simply elegant
I can learn the growing on pieces in one sitting at performance tempo
perhaps a half hour to an hour at most

I havent tried the simply elegant piano yet

but here is my question

I rate my level as early intermediate/intermediate i could learn an early intermediate song in one sitting and an intermediate song would take me all day to pefect and possibly I could learn songs that are early advanced. given a week I could probably turn out a song

in the past I studied john thompson book one and two and started book three but got bored with the music. since then I have grown in my reading by playing many hymns



so my question is how I can I most effectively develop my sight reading so that I can tackle more of these songs in the steinway library I want to learn all of them in a year
a daunting task but I feel If I could sight read them I would have an easier time at it.


I dont have any formal training I taught my self to read
and lately I have only been reading hymn books and in this I am not really reading I more or less analyze the music and create my own accompaniment or left hand approach.

I was going to finish the piano adventures course and then tackle the steinway does that sound like a good plan?
or perhaps as I am doing the piano adventures course I could use the steinway material too as aditional pieces.

any suggestions

There are six volumes in the main series, not including the Christmas one and so forth. Hard to believe you'd want to learn every single one of those sixty songs, some of them are bound to be not worth the effort if you just don't care for the tune or the arrangement.

Or do you mean you want to sight-read through each tune a couple times as a sight-reading exercise? Even if you could take an arrangement from sight-read through polished in a couple of days that's a long time to spend on a song you don't like.

For my part, I would not care to spend a year in the no-man's-land between reading through a bunch of tunes a couple of times (which is fun) and learning tunes well enough to perform (which is also fun but tends to be a lot of work). Sounds like you're aiming for something well beyond a read-through but well short of actually being able to play the piece decently. Halfway learning 60 songs is just a page-turning exercise and I'm not sure it would be worth the time. I know it would not for me.

Thanks for the reply
you are right I am aiming at something
I want to play cocktail gigs and I feel the arrangements in this series are exactly the sort of thing I need my theory is very strong my ear is pretty good but my ability to compose these arrangements on my own with just a fake book is just not there I know the basic a/b voicings in all keys and can do a few drop two movements but that is about it.
I felt that learning these songs regardless of whether I like them all or not would allow me to get a gig and start an additional revenue stream. as an added benefit my reading will no doubt become stronger as well as my ability to hear arrrangements. I would then be able to play some intermediate and late intermediate classical stuff as well and perhaps secure a modest income to combine with my church salary.

so you are right it

is a lot of work but I am already a full time musician (church musician)
I have a lot of time on my my hands and I feel this would a be a good use of it

your first reply was so thought provoking I hope now that you have a more bakground you can serioiusly point me in the right direction

Maduro,

If your goal is to learn how to sight reads, you can find very decent methods that do specifically that.
One is the 4 stars series.
Another is Faber's Improve your sight reading.
Another is Schaum's I believe.

They are all based on the same concept of building your level up slowly. I used the 1st 2 and found them very good.

The simply elegant books are fairly easy to read, but the ones from the regular Steinway series are a lot tougher. They are generally beautiful arrangements though.

Alas, I can not be helpful on a more concrete level as I'm even less equipped than yourself for such a project.

That said, I can play the wonderful "What Child Is This" arrangement from the Christmas book in that same range and I own the first two volumes of the main series. Looking forward to gradually nibbling away a a few tunes but rather than 60 a year I'm expecting that four or five might be doable for myself.

BTW, there is a book called "The Professional Touch" by Lou Stein that is aimed at a slightly lesser level of difficulty. There is a cool "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in that one which might make a good early choice for your project!

when you say it like that "60 a year"
you make it sound like an impossible task
I am anticipating great difficulty in the beginning perhaps I will only be able to cull through one or two in the first month
but my thoughts are that as I go through more and more
my ability to play and catch similar patterns and changes will improve and maybe toward the end I will be able to learn one of these arrangements in a sitting rather than take all month.

so where it may take a month to master one song after twelve months it may only take a day to master one song.

as far as the sight reading courses I definitely think that is worth pusuing.
thanks for that info

Maduro,

on the sight reading method, the key is in finding your current level.
The first few tunes in each book are very easy. Check how easy the tunes are towards the end or middle of the book. Don't just read and assume, sight read it.
They have those books in stores, so you can easily test them out.

The last thing you want is get Four Star level 4 if your level is 2 or 3.

Someone told me something very valuable about sight reading:
"You can't simply plow through it"

Have fun.

wow thanks I needed that I am on amazon now debating if I need to go way back to book one just to be sure I dont miss out on anything.

I will definitely start on book 2 i just dont know if I need to go way back to book one

Maduro, There is a large skill gap in between piano adventures and earning money as a gigging musician. I realise you are a church musician and have experience with hymns. But there are technical skills you may have yet to develop, like bringing out the melody, a nice singing legato, etc, and I fear it is possible you are underestimating just how large a challenge you are setting yourself.

Good luck with your learning!

Learn to voice jazz chords with the 2+2 system (Randy Halberstadt book on page 228, or ask "Jazzwee") and the 1+3 system (Mark Levine Chapter 3) . Play thru all the ballads in Real Book Volume 1 and 2. Then you can go do cocktail gigs. I would skip the Steinway collection, I have it here, that will bog you down , imo.

I agree I am sure there is a big gap the singing tone is indeed something I come and go with. since I have been playing a lot of organ lately (organs dont respond to heavy or light touch) I probably have gotten lazy with the singing tone.


but I tend to play my melody either with octaves sixths thirds or fully chorded with open voicings such as 3-73 or
also
as a church musician I am required to play tons of contemporary
like byron cage, tye tribett kirk franklin hezekiah walker etc
plus gospel hymns and worship songs and I always play the melody when I play a song. I almost never just play the basic chords and there is always room for reharmonizations which allows me to use a full array of passing chords chords built on the third and fifth
many altered voicings and even quartal harmony

my purpose for the steinway books was to allow me to gain a different pespective to my improvisations for now my ability is limited to my limitations
the solos will allow me approach the standards from the gaze of more talented arrangers and perhaps I can learn somtething from them.



alas I maybe biting off a lot and perhaps I may not be able to learn all the books well.

but whatever happens I am sure my reading will improve and my chops should improve as well.

as far as learning all ballads in the fake book that is cool I never thought about just learning the balads

what are 2+2 chords
I think I know what the mark levine a/b voicings are

Hi Maduro,
If you have a lot of time on your hands like you said I would instead spend the your time learning how to do arrangements. This would be much better than spending lots of time with the Steinway arrangements.

Learn how to build your own arrangements. They're not that hard to do once you get some more fundamentals and perhaps take a lesson or two w/ a good jazz teacher? It's a great investment.

So, lets say you spend 200-400 hours mastering all the Steinway arrangements. For the same time you could have studied piano arranging techniques and some different styles and have the ability to now build and play professional arrangements on hundreds if not thousands of tunes.

To get you started on some jazz piano arranging stuff here's a free lesson and video I made on playing the jazz standard Misty.

http://www.freejazzlessons.com/2011/11/15/how-to-play-misty-jazz-piano-reharmonization/

It's a bit more advanced but will get you started with thinking arrangement and theory.

Hope this helps and let me know how it turns out.

exactly why I want to study the 6 volumes of steinway that is the chasm
I will be crossing from the fourth book of piano adventures to gigging musician

Oh I almost forgot some of you have requested that I keep you posted
remember I dont plan on commencing study on the stylings of the great standards until February
in the meantime I am studying the first book which is pieces to grow on.
simpler material easier to read I can digest this stuff in one or two sittings
I think the goal here is to get comfortable reading the rhythms and the chords not master the material
I am treating these as sight reading exercises
preparation for the real thing

I learned the first two already and I am quite impressed with how different these melodies sound

should I be attempting to learn these to perfection (for performance or just as sight reading exercises like I am currently doing?

youtube

Well played Nick. Sounded very professional to me. If you have 30 of those up your sleeve, you can easily go play at a lounge.

I agree with Steve that the real prize is in writing your own arrangements. However, you'll find it difficult and time consuming. Plus it's hard to write at a level that you can play.
That said, why not learn some of those and try to do your own arrangement too?

that is good advice
after getting a few of these solos under my belt I may be able to have some sense of what makes a good jazz arrangement.
I have done arrangements but these solos sound better than anything
i have ever done.

>> after getting a few of these solos under my belt I may be able to have some sense of what makes a good jazz arrangement.
you will.
But start the exercise as soon as you can.

There's a great book called "Bill Evans, 19 solos for Solo Piano" by Andy Laverne. It's easy to sight read but harmonically quite advanced. Simple but sounds great. I think Laverne did a great job at simplifying Bill Evans. It's Evans' originals only.

Nick, you are good to go. I see you are using 2+2 plus added notes. Don't worry about arrangements, with what you got going arrangements are not really neccessary.

hey jazz +
the video was something I (maduro) uploaded
from youtube to give you guys a taste of what the Stylings of the Great standards were like

nick is the guy on the youtube video
I dont know him

I am the one trying to work up to learn those solos

Oh, I get it. Have you tried playing the ballads in the Real Book in 2+2 (also 2+3) and 1+3 voicing systems?

Also 1 5 10 arpeggios in the left hand with single note melody in right?

i have played django and alice in wonderland
with
1 7 10 in the left and just single note melody in the right

I dont know enough about 2+2 or 1+3 i dont really know what those numbers are supposed to represent