Jazz Beginner
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asking questions, picking brains, taking advice, reading the wealth of material, dipping in and out of levine, listening to the music suggested on this site. i am "self taught" but i have been to a few lessons recently and the guy, on hearing me play said last night:
"..you say you are self taught??" (in an amazed tone!)
"..do you realise how good you are?"
this may sound like i am bragging but what i am trying to say is stick with this site, it will transform your playing.
bro'
i too am self taught and i consider that a pretty good alma mater when i look around at all the jazz piano players who came up that way.
ii-v-i
left hand alone and two-hands voicings...
with that,you'll play all the standards!
p.s.: of course it isn't that easy, but i think it is a good start...
p.s.2: the old advice...transcription...copy, imitate, take wath you like!
p.s.3: don't give up. jazz is not easy, but rewarding!
i would highly recommend first of all concentrating on blues until you develop a level of fluidity with this genre. what helped me alot was first of all moving anything i learned into all 12 keys so as to even out my playing and becoming familiar with the various chord tones in all keys. moving 12 bar blues progressions through all 12 keys is a great way to progress. as time moves forward and you become fluent with the standard chord progressions (basic) in blues then you can begin to jazz up the progressions at a steady pace and gradually move into the jazz style. besides its great fun doing it this way also. when i started i tried to dive straight into jazz and bought books like the levine book etc but for me this did not work in terms of improving my playing. what did revolutionise my way of approaching improvisation however was an article called "forward motion" by hal galper. this de-mystified alot for me and i still hold it as my best read to date. going back to what i stated about the blues, i would recommend first of all listening to a few blues records and finding something that you like and then transcribing this from the record and then moving this idea through all 12 keys for fluidity. the forward motion article that i just mentioned is fantastic for explaining what is happening with these ideas etc. you are guaranteed to progress this way, it would never be time wasted.
anyway this is just my take on this.
best of luck to you
nile
good luck!
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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