Message number: 6642
dave frank for one year. i covered one lesson of his books per week with him over 52 weeks plus other things. so i can not accuratly say
what it would like to study his books without his direct supervision.
what i can say for sure is that using is books with his supervision has
radically changed my playing and compositional abilities for life.
dave frank is an amazing pianist in his own right, but he has also
studied with two of the best most legendary jazz piano teachers of all time. these are the now diceased lennie tristano and the still living
charlie banacos. because of this dave is also an incredible teacher.
the experience of playing for him and hearing his feed back and real time critiques is an amazing thing indeed. to give you an example
of what it is like: you can start playing a compostition for him that you just wrote this week, he has never heard it before. he is in the
next room getting something. the tune you have wrote is over giant steps type changes with a donna lee type melody and tempo. as dave walks back into the room he is saying " ya man, but i don't know about
the c sharp in that triplet in the 5th measure i think it was. i think you should try a d there or maybe just cut that note all together and play two eights." you are saying to yourself " jes f ch" he just heard it for the first time , i wrote and i am strugleing to figure out where this triplet is in the 5th measure.
dave taught me about the zone, he taught me how to play eigth notes better. he improved my tone on the piano.
so you see its hard for me to distinguish between the book and the
teacher. but maybe this is closer....
lennie tristano, one of the greatest jazz pianists and teachers of all
time was a master of the melodic line. it was the core of his teaching, playing, and compositional technique. it is why many famous
non pianists studied with him as well as pianists. lee konitz was one of his most famous diciples.
i interpret the joi of improv books as teaching these same core
principles that lennie tristano emphasized. each lesson contains studies designed to bring you closer to mastering the ability ot improvise great melodic lines. each lesson has jazz hannon exersizes that are designed to perfect your ability to swing a melodic line and work on stamina, flow and consistency in this regard. each lesson has
chord exercises that are right from the teachings of lennie tristano.
then each lesson has has a melodic line that you are to learn that dave frank composed over a blues progression and over a standard tune.
the accompanying cd that comes with the book has recordings of dave playing all of the above.
a couple of things you clearly do not get from the book that you do
get from studying privatly with dave:
when you study privately with dave you also write your own composition every week over the chord progression to a standard. then he critiques it. after a year of this, believe me you can compose one hell of a melodic line. and that is after all really what improvisation is...
composing a melodic line only it is in real time.
the other thing that you do not get from doing the book on your own is that: when you study privatly you have to be able to sing all the lines perfectly while just playing the chords and not playing the line while dave listens. you also have to learn to sing improvisations from recordings... for example you might be assigned to learn to sing louis armstrong solo. dave listens to you sing and then critiques you. his ear is literally perfect. how you profit from these exercises is immeasurable. so in the end i highly reccomend if you can not study in person with dave that if you can
afford it that you explore correspondence lessons as well as buying the book. dave points out that he has had a lot of success with corresspondence lessons. he feels he does not need to see his students. he points out that he studied with lennie tristano in
new york city for years and lennie was blind.
you can also check out this web site:
https://www.jazzpianists.com/davefrank
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Jazz Piano Notebook Series
Volume 1 of this educational jazz piano book contains 15 jazz piano exercises, tricks, and other interesting jazz piano techniques, voicings, grooves, and ideas Scot Ranney enjoys playing.
"Latinesque"
Volume 2 has 14 jazz piano exercises and tricks of the trade, and quite a bit of it is Calypso jazz piano related material, including some Monty Alexander and Michel Camilo style grooves. Jazz piano education is through the ears, but books like this can help.
Volume 3 contains 12 jazz piano exercises and explorations by the acclaimed jazz piano educator, pianist, author, and recording artist Tim Richards.
Tim wrote the well known "Exploring Jazz Piano" and "Improvising Blues Piano" books and has several others to his name.
Volume 4 is by Jeff Brent, a jazz pianist, composer, teacher, and author of "Modalogy" and other acclaimed jazz theory and education books. In this book Jeff shares detailed analysis of transcriptions of live performances. He covers everything from the shape of the songs to the tricks and licks he uses in improvised lines to the ideas behind his lush chord voicings.
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