PLAYING BY EAR? Jazz Piano
Mark C. Gay
> Re: Jazz and improvising at the piano, and the comments that to play jazz
> "you don't have to know theory".
> Most jazz pianists are extremely well-versed in harmony. It's a great
> misconception to believe that jazz is somehow a "primitive" art form that
> doesn't require an enormous amount of continuous study.
I'm just begining to learn to play jazz. I had about 11 years of
classical lessons when I was younger, followed by a long time I played
very little. I've been getting back to playing, more and more over
the past 2 years. I find that my classical backgroud has been both a
tremendous advantage, but also something to overcome.
> I've been playing
> jazz piano for many years (I studied with Teddy Wilson). At this point
> improvising is just a second language. I just sit down to play a
> standard tune, and can "speak to it" for an hour, for example, just
> improvising and exploring it . But this comes after years of listening,
> imitating, transcribing and analyzing all the great innovators, e.g.
> Teddy, Art Tatum, Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, Dave McKenna,
> NatCole, and on and on. Eventually you find your own voice, just as any
> writer, painter, composer, etc. They all go through the same process. And
> the process never ends. But the "process" itself is the best part of any
> creative endeavor anyway.
I've found that to make progress I need to put nearly as much work in
to listening to jazz as practicing and learning tunes. I'm having to
relearn how to learn to play, forcing myself to get away from just
learning printed arragements and transcriptions, and learn by ear.
Even though good arrangements and transcriptions have been very
helpful in understanding the mechanics and styles of different
players, it seems that the only way I can learn to improvise is by
listening to others and doing it myself.
> Getting back to the technique itself - A jazz pianist must have a
> thorough knowledge of chords and chord changes and substitutions; bass
> lines (the basis of everything above it); phrasing (learned by
> listening); and ultimately an ability to "swing" (that's the inuitive
> part). And learn and explore all of our great American standard songs.
> Many of the piano parts are beautifully arranged - yes - the piano parts
> in their entirety - not the guitar chords, which never contain the bass
> lines. Exploring the standards from the sheet music is a great way of
> learning harmony, voice leading, and again: BASS LINES (so important).
> That's it for now. Just some unorganized (improvised?) thoughts provoked
> by the responses to this subject in this newsgroup.
The best thing I ever did was to take the advise of the Mehegan jazz
improv books seriously, and thoroughly learn all the scales and all
the chords in all the keys. I recall that when I was studying
classical piano I would often be intimidated by pieces in odd keys,
and would have trouble sight reading them. Now it's something I
rarely have to pay much attention to, and though I seldom play any
classical pieces, I can sight read them better than I ever could, and
usually pick them up quicker than I ever could before I started
concentrating on jazz and blues.
--Mark
ma...@teleport.COM | Not affiliated with anything in particular,
| including teleport public access.
--
ma...@teleport.COM | Not affiliated with anything in particular,
| including teleport public access.