LearnJazzPiano.com archives: drop 2 book

asteffen -- 04/24/2007, 13:39:34 -- #34689

anything new about it? Anybody is working with it? A.

Jazz+ -- 04/24/2007, 18:45:29 -- #34689

I read it and was disapointed because there is very little new material in it. It's very short and is billed as a "wokshop." It's basicly a rewrite of Chapter 19 "Block Chords" from his The Jazz Piano Book. I think it's an attempt to further cash in on the popularity of his previous two books.

Jazz+ -- 04/24/2007, 18:45:53 -- #34689

"workshop" (sp.)

extremeseafood -- 04/24/2007, 22:09:51 -- #34689

are you asking about how to play in drop 2? My explanation might be bad, but if that's your question, what you'd do is take the melody and the block chord that it's supposed to be played over, and invert the chord so the note that you're playing in the melody is on top and take the next-highest chord tone and drop it down an octave.  If the melody note is not a chord tone, then you switch it with the nearest chord tone to the left.  (I.E. Suppose I'm playing a Cmaj7.  First I'd substitute the D in for the C, so the notes I'd be playing would be D-E-G-B.  Next, invert the chord so it's E-G-B-D.  Then you drop the B down an octave, so it's B(3)-E(4)-G(4)-D(5).) I hope this helped!

asteffen -- 04/24/2007, 23:03:54 -- #34689

thanks anyway! But jazz+ was right. I was asking for the new Mark Levine book.

elwapo -- 04/25/2007, 00:51:39 -- #34689

I just bought the book myself but have not received it yet. If Jazz+ is right then I've just wasted my money

Scot -- 04/25/2007, 08:26:35 -- #34689

I haven't seen it.  Mark said he would send one out this way for review, maybe he doesn't want to hear that it's like chapter 19 of the Jazz Piano book in the review :)

CynBad -- 04/25/2007, 15:06:13 -- #34689

I found the same thing to be true about "The Jazz Theory Book".  Much of it was verbatim from "The Jazz Piano Book".

hepcatmonk -- 04/25/2007, 17:18:55 -- #34689

I've checked it out. For the most part, the drop-2 book isn't that great; at least, it doesn't match up to the excellent standard Mark Levine set out in the Jazz Piano book or Jazz Theory book. It's basically just a more clarified explanation of drop chords, corrected from the chapter in the Jazz Piano book. I actually found the Jazz Theory book to be a great read -- although some of it is the same as the Jazz Piano book, there's a lot of additional material: transcriptions of a Mulgrew Miller solo, for example, that are very interesting. Also, the list of "1000 Standards to Know" and the definitive recordings of these was a great addition to the book. hm

Jazz+ -- 04/25/2007, 18:00:20 -- #34689

The book layout is spacious so there is not a lot of material on each page. At the end he added a 7 page "Interview With Myself" where he asks and answers his own questions. I felt it was a bit egocentric and not very useful. It's was as if he is trying to make the book longer.

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