Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
hey guys, just messing around and recorded some songs on my keyboard. Sound quality and performance sucks because I can't get good control out of my keys..but I got no mic for proper recording.
This week, some fabulous post. I am not sure how to share, but look at Eymard Furtado's post. It's my favorite so far.
Lovely piano playing Knotty. Now I play this tune frequently (because it is frequently requested) so I can solo over it in my sleep. But sadly I am out of time.
A lot of great vocabulary in there. It sounded really good.
Thanks Bob! And you're the first. No one has ever accused me of having vocabulary. LOL.
Well it doesn't come as a surprise; your playing is very fluid and natural - not at all contrived. I'd love to learn about your approach to learning and integrating new material while still maintaining that "organic" feeling and sound.
Bobpickle, I appreciate your really nice comments.
It's hard at this stage to characterize an approach since it's constantly evolving and changing. There are many little things learned from teachers that come back to me after awhile and so there's a continual source of tidbits that may not have made sense years ago.
As one pushes off tasks to the subconscious and basics become more automatic, there's more opportunity to feel the music differently.
Since you're listening to live recordings here, these are more difficult environments since there's so much going on during a gig so perhaps these are not necessarily the best indicators of performance.
In any case, it is safe to say that however good or bad my playing demonstrates, it clearly does not come from external vocabulary in a conscious manner. It comes from me. My main teacher for many years was not one to encourage cliche licks typical of Bebop. His comment to me would be that he would be personally embarrassed to sound use a lick.
Given that, I had a complete absence of external influence on vocabulary other than from listening and doing a few transcriptions. However, having said that, I work on vocabulary on my own and I do recognize how to construct a Bebop lick, though it will not come to me mechanically. I'd have to hear it in my head. Lots of work to do here.
The approach that I'd like to take from here is to woodshed starting a motif and then try to building on it. If I can LISTEN to what's coming out well, I think it would improve what I do greatly. This style of practicing I think will develop my own sound and not be like anyone else.
Not there yet though.
In general, my choices are guided by the harmony though I'm learning to go way beyond that on certain tunes I know well. There are also phrasing and rhythmic influences from others that affect my lines. These influences are not likely to be from Bebop players.
Anyway, this is just a starting point. If there's anything specific you want to ask, please do so.
Jazzwee - whatever your approach is , it is working. Having listened on and off to your playing for the last few years ( since joining the forum )your progress has been continual and I must say your recent recordings are very impressive.I can only congratulate you, you must put a lot of hard work into practice, all that live playing can't hurt either. I find your journey very inspiring.
Jazztpt, wow, coming from you that's just special. Thank you so much. I think the constant gigging is really helping. And the listening after the gigging to correct mistakes. I think too that as one progresses one gets even more critical so sometimes it's hard to notice improvement unless one listens to an old recording. So thank for noticing what I haven't
I think very soon, I'm going to step into the higher level jam sessions with better players. I need to feel failure and pressure more. It's the stress of gigs and trying new things that really cause jumps in progress.
It's the stress of gigs and trying new things that really cause jumps in progress.
Thanks Custard.