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But how did you choose this particular piece? More or less randomly?

Well it is the first in the book.
It's also RH dominant, and as the RH pattern starts on an off-beat it's easy to get a "jazz vibe" from it.
The ètude is also about getting a wide - broad -sound and as Jazzwee writes: it's great for the 4-5 fingers.

Good to know, thanks--

Apparently Chopin had some interesting chops. In some of his pieces you use your thumb to play two notes at once.

Random choice? No. I don't want to play a lot of classical. No time. So for jazz, you have to figure on technique builders. Chopin Etude 10/1 is apparently the most difficult Etude and I've seen it discussed over and over on Pianist corner and saw it was about arpeggios.

Another staple is Chopin Prelude in Em. This is good for jazz chord balance. For soft playing.

So I'm picking only classical for technique building, not for performance. And easy to memorize.

Perhaps Bach might be an option too but harder for me to memorize.

>> Perhaps Bach might be an option too but harder for me to memorize.

That's what I was gonna say. Playing these pieces can be daunting if you're not a great reader. It just takes too much time.

LOL. That's one of the reasons I liked 10/1. Ever look at it? Also the Em Prelude. Both very easy to read...

I have to say though, that my reading is getting better. My teacher actually put music in front of me and for the first time, I didn't freeze.

I think it's because of the jam sessions. At the last jam monday, every tune I played was sight reading. The keys were either changed for a Sax player or vocalist or brand new tune. Man, it's hard to think about a nice solo when I'm barely able to look away from the sheet music.

I think several times there I just played by ear because I didn't know where we were in the changes. I'm so curious about how bad I sounded in the recordings.

So what happened? I mention a little Classical etude and everyone goes away?

What do you guys use for technique building?

Oh, I'm still here . . . just knackered getting this production to the printers in time.

>> What do you guys use for technique building?
I've been using the omnibook for a good while. Gonna do some Bud Powell now. Doesn't it qualify as classical? Yeah, I think so.

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Great stuff. I look at it as a vocabulary builder though, not technique in itself.

I've got to do more of that myself.

Are you a pretty good reader Knotty? Fortunately, these are mostly single line. My reading has improved so now I'm no so afraid to tackle this stuff.

A friend from the Jam went to a classical teacher and he's being pounded with Bach.

>> Great stuff. I look at it as a vocabulary builder though, not technique in itself.
You can use the omnibook for many purposes.
* ear training. Meaning you sing all the lines. It's tough
* Technique. As you approach Bird's tempo, it's really violent. Lots of wide intervals followed by small ones. Plenty of slides, weird fingerings. Makes your hand work.
* Phrasing, theory, swing. As you sing along, you pick up the articulation, swing and phrasing. You get better sense for what constitutes a good solo. Also, you get to see how he uses common tones and extensions, in very clever ways, and you can't help but steal a few ideas and try to apply them to various progressions.

>> Are you a pretty good reader Knotty?
No. Even single line is hard to read. The omnibook doesn't have key signatures, and that kinda makes sense, but it's also tough reading the odd rhythms and abundant accidentals. That said, I'd imagine sight reading Bach is tough.

But classical offers the different side which is important to my playing. Dynamics, evenness, relaxation, stretch, control, etc.

Those cannot be found in older jazz players except maybe for Bill Evans.

I can't sight read, but at least I can read an memorize now even with accidentals. I used to be at 2 seconds a note. Now I can handle 2 or 3 per second. heck of an improvement but hardly qualifies for sight reading. LOL.

I've been practicing with this Ipad app. And it tracks your progress with time response.

This is the most difficult thing for most us learning jazz The other hard part is that I can't look at sheet music while improvising. And once your eyes get off the page, it's hard to find where you are.

At my last jam session, everything I played was sight read chords. I didn't know the tunes. It's miraculous that I could even improvise over those. I just kept it simple. I'm really curious to listen to the recordings and see if I really messed up. Didn't lose myself on the chord sight reading I don't think.

I'm still here too. Just been busy.

I learned alot of classical as a kid, but my teachers never really taught me about dynamics, evenness, phrasing, control etc. I got alot of this my first 2 years in college though, when all I did was classical. I've also worked through all of the Hanon exercises... but I don't think they really helped much. For me, the most useful technique exercises seem to have been scales and arpeggios, and transcriptions.

Working on classical could help with technique, as long as it's done correctly. But, truth be said, I just don't have the interest in learning classical anymore. I can read alright but I just don't like it. I figure, the best thing I can do for myself is just keep learning new stuff and record and listen to my playing to find and correct control and evenness issues. I'm happy with not being a "refined" player. It gives me my own sound.

You're kidding, right? How about every great pianist that preceded Evans? Surely they knew something about everything that you suggested above. All of the great stride pianists (Fats Waller, JP Johnson etc), not to mention Art Tatum do all of this and more. Ahmad Jamal, Phineas Newborn, George Shearing, Hank Jones, as contemporaries of Evans also shouldn't be forgotten.

Scott, if you're a good reader, you really owe it to yourself to check out Scriabin. Amazing tunes, and will really teach you about inversions, substitutions, and modern voice leading techniques. And, to boot, he's written some very, very beautiful tunes.

Tunes? Scriabin? They'd kill you for that in the Pianist corner. Lol.

Tatum et al are obviously the best speed demons.

But you could say that Evans brought in things like touch and tone into jazz playing. Nowadays its something we expect of KJ, Mehldau, etc.

I like this style a lot.

Man, sounds like a dangerous place there. But really, Scriabin wrote some cute little ditties.

Well there's quite a lot more to their playing than just speed. I'd think that trying to do any of their transcriptions would give you an equally challenging workout as Chopin might.

I like this style too, but I'm not sure that the other pianists lack touch or tone necessarily. I think they are different styles more than anything.

I call this style "pianistic" jazz where some elements of classical piano are brought in. Most the top players of modern times play like this, starting with KJ of course.

A bit of contrast to Monk, Wynton Kelly, Garland, Garner who had a more raw sound that jazz was well known for.

Of course, I don't discount what Tatum, et al. have done in the past. I mentioned speed since the question was of technique not content.

Although I have never really been a fan of pre-bebop. When I started appreciating jazz, it was more because of Herbie and Miles. And that eventually led to everything else.

I remember telling one of my early teachers I wanted to learn Maiden Voyage and I was pretty much laughed at -- like what guts do I have to ask that before I even knew the basics It all seemed so easy at the time. Modal music sounded so cool to me.