Re: Serious Jazz Practice Book Pdf
Phyllis Sterlin
I like how Barry gives useful practice suggestions & tips for both students and teachers who want to work on this material with their students. He also mentions some ways to vary the exercises beyond 8th notes.
I started playing the piano around 10 years ago but only started learning jazz theory in 2018. I've been able to brush up on jazz theory for the past few months due to being stuck in quarantine, though I feel like I could really work on my fingerwork and technique. I really wanna learn how to play without running out of fingers and really just be able to navigate the keys well. Any tips on how to go about doing this?
How many jazz real books and fake books do you own? Well, here's a beginner and intermediate jazz musician's practicing guide to get a lot more out of them! From improvisation strategies -- both melodic and harmonic -- to ear training and jazz composition, here is a collection of actionable steps, exercises, and ideas that you can use to get the most out of your jazz practice sessions -- all using your real book. [Intended for all instruments including jazz piano, jazz guitar, jazz bass, jazz saxophone, jazz trumpet, jazz trombone, jazz vibes, jazz drums, jazz vocalists, jazz arrangers and composers, and more.]
I put this material together so beginner and intermediate jazz musicians could have a more direct outlet to useful, actionable information in a shorter and less expensive format than many other jazz theory, improvisation, and harmony texts.
One reason to write a book like this is that real books are everywhere. Musicians, trying to build a library of the widest possible range of jazz tunes, already have quite an investment in their (often) multiple volumes and editions of real books. And I want to make sure that jazz musicians understand how any of these books can be more central to their daily practice.
There are some very creative ways to use any fake book to study all the main aspects of this music: creative improvisation, jazz theory, jazz harmony, ear training, basic arranging, and jazz composition.
Okay, now what? Choose one or more of these 36 actionable practice ideas (starting in Chapter 5!) and make real progress with your musical abilities: improvisation and soloing, ear training, connecting harmony, and more.
I've been incredibly stressed out these past few weeks since my high school jazz band auditions for guitar are in a week. The only chords I have down are the basic major chords and some barre chords. Sight-reading is killing me, and I don't know where to start. I feel incredibly discouraged, but none of the other guitars auditioning can sight-read, so I have a little bit of hope. If it helps, I have a percussion background.
All musicians need to thoroughly learn their scales, chords, intervals and various melodic patterns in order to be complete musicians. The question has always been how to approach this universal task.THE SERIOUS JAZZ PRACTICE BOOK provides a unique and comprehensive plan for mastering these basic building blocks of jazz, on any instrument. It takes all the diatonic, pentatonic, chromatic, whole-tone and diminished scales and gives you step-by-step exercises that dissect them into hundreds of useable patterns. The same is also done for all the chord types and intervals inherent in each scale. Many of the exercises are embellished with chromatic notes, giving them that jazz flavor right away. The companion CD has Barry demonstrating how to use the exercises to create great solos. The end result is a method book that will lead the reader to a deep, internalized understanding of the fundamentals of jazz.
We are seeking a full-time vocal jazz instructor to join our renowned jazz faculty. The ideal candidate will have an elite-level performing career and collegiate teaching experience. The duties of this position include, but are not limited to, ensemble classroom teaching, private vocal instruction, and jazz composition instruction. Being that we have a highly diverse jazz student population, we encourage candidates who have additional skills in other genres of music to apply. Other duties will include recruitment, curriculum development, and robust participation in departmental governance.
Accepting this is difficult, because you have come to identify yourself as an expert. Both can be true, i.e., that you are an expert musician and instrumentalist, and at the same time a novice in jazz or improvised music.
The sooner you accept the truth about where you are in your development, the sooner you can begin to make progress. You still get to take credit for the mastery that you have developed over years of practice. You have a lot to be proud of in taking the plunge into something new. Ultimately, by forging ahead in a discipline which is totally new to you, you will come out stronger for it.
One of my most accomplished students frequently arrives to his lesson with a list of concerns and questions including things such as sound production, shoulder rests, posture, etc. These are all good questions for approaching classical music, but they strike me as distractions for a jazz student.
One is typically only able to focus on this kind of practice for so long. So, if you practice 2 hours in a day, you might want to spend a third to half of your time drilling these harmonic exercises. The rest of the time can be spent on other things.
*NEW*: You are now encouraged to share YOUR jazz guitar book suggestions. Visitors can now review, discuss and share their favorite jazz guitar books here in the comments, at the bottom of the page.
In my humble opinion, every aspiring jazzman should possess at least a few specific texts on music. They could, for example, consist of: a method for learning the instrument, technical exercises, a good fake book, transcriptions, a theory (or harmony) book, articles on practice routines, etc.
One of the greatest books to improve sight-reading abilities for jazz guitarists. Super-charge your skills by dealing with the too often overlooked RHYTHMS of written melodic lines. Leavitt organized this book by rhythmic density and made sure that some key 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7-note rhythmic figures are repeated enough times to ingrain them well.
Michael Barry Finnerty (born December 3, 1951) is an American jazz guitarist, keyboardist, singer, songwriter, and arranger, known for his work as a touring and recording session musician for Miles Davis, The Crusaders, the Brecker Brothers, Hubert Laws, and Ray Barretto. Finnerty is the author of books on music improvisation and a semi-autobiographical novel.
He released his first jazz education book, The Serious Jazz Practice Book, in 2006. The work was endorsed by notable musicians including Randy Brecker, Bob Sheppard and Dave Liebman.[2] Finnerty authored a follow-up work in 2008, The Serious Jazz Book II, endorsed by jazz flautist Hubert Laws. In 2016 Finnerty released a novel loosely based on his life in New York City in the mid-90s.
Outlined below is a sample practice routine that illustrates how you can practice your technique, ear training, articulation and other essential instrumental skills, while simultaneously spending the dedicated time you need to devote to transcribing and learning tunes.
The warm-up is an essential part of your practice routine in which you prepare your mind and body for the physical demands of playing your instrument. This might include some breathing exercises, playing long-tones, running scale patterns, or sight-reading an etude to loosen up before you begin the real work. Many of us, however, end up playing the same exact warm-up everyday.
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These practice techniques will improve your memory of which notes are in the scale, but for the sake of efficiency, it's worth improving your knowledge of which notes are in the scale before you start practicing these techniques. To help, go to the piano and push down all of the notes in the pentatonic scale at the same time. Then play the notes one-by-one (1-2-3-4-5). Then move the bottom note up an octave and repeat--depress all of the notes at the same time, then play one-by-one.
When I get stuck not knowing exactly what to practice, I always go looking into three main categories: technique, jazz repertoire, and jazz language.
Technique: working on things that will help improve your abilities on your instrument. Furthermore, working on things that will help you understand your instrument better. The more your instrument is holding you back, the more difficult playing jazz music will be. We want to break free of everything holding us back.
Jazz repertoire: learning jazz standards which are the vehicles in which jazz musicians use to improvise. Learning jazz standards is important because they will help us learn the jazz language, and understand the music better.
I hope you enjoy this 7-day jazz practice routine. Having focused, goal-oriented practicing is incredibly important and will ultimately reap the most results in your jazz playing. Remember, if you really want to take this kind of practicing to the next level, sign up for our 30 Steps to Better Jazz Playing e-Course.
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