Friday, September 23, 2011

Can I pick up jazz after ten years of classical piano?

I LOVE jazz I just don't know that I will ever get the groove. I've learnt all my 7th and sixth chords and trying to get more fluent at adding 9ths etc. I'm working from Mark Levine's 'The jazz piano book'.|||Keep working through Mark Levine (I am using the book still after 10 years) and get yourself a jazz scale book which shows you all the scales - half diminished, whole tone, etc. and practice them in each key.





After that get some popular music jazz charts (sheet music with the abbreviated notations - ie eb Alt, g m7maj7B5..) You will find these in what are called "Jazz Fake" books.





Work through some easier standards (old popular jazz songs) like "Girl from Ipanema", "Day in the life of a fool" and or "Fly me to the moon". This is the bread and butter learning of jazz.





Once you know your chords, as you mention the 7th chords, try to improvise within the songs by using all the notes from that 7th chords on the top hand while playing that ie 7th chord in the bottom hand.








let me know how you are progresssing , or if you need more help|||absolutely,





you are on the right track for sure. What i do is photocopy a song i want to work on. Listen to a version on mp3, then learn the chord changes of the song. Then I play along with the mp3 recording to make sure the chords/key is the same. Then I learn and latter memorize the piece.

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|||ya you can|||you can because the classical piano is what they originally used for jazz bands.|||the key component of playing jazz is "the feel" and improvisation.


The Feel can not be studied--but you can learn how to improvise.


Levine's book is excellent but having a jazz player as your teacher would really be impt to you.|||My brother started piano lessons when he was 8 (classical piano), then when he was in middle school, he started playing for the jazz band at school. When he got into high school, he started listening to a lot of jazz and thinking that was what he really wanted to do, so he got a jazz piano teacher, and now he is a jazz piano major in a really great jazz program at a college in southern California. I strongly recommend finding a jazz piano teacher, learning how to improvise, listening to as much jazz as you can get your hands on, and really know your music theory. Good luck!

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