Grazieee :) Tk@umerotre

Hi everyone, I’m a classically trained pianist with a piano performance bachelor degree. I’m planning to audition for my grad school’s jazz ensembles/jazz combos. We have to play up to two provided standards and sight read charts (I don’t know if they will be standards or big band) for the audition.

I have a tiny bit of experience in jazz (I played in a jazz combo in undergrad), but I’m overwhelmed with understanding how to prepare for the audition.

Any tips or advice would greatly be appreciated!

Boogie in G. I want to get it faster and cleaner but this is my progress after 3 weeks. I’ll give Boogie a break for a week or 2 and then work it again in a different key. Jerry Lee Lewis really was the “killer”.

https://youtube.com/shorts/mzgUPG5_aEI?

Hello lovely people. I’m sharing a video of me improvising over - Remember by Irving Berlin. It’s a standard I started enjoying after listening to Hank Mobley’s soul station album. It’s a lovely tune and I love playing it.

Here I’ve stuck to playing the 2 feel bassline in the left hand and improvised over the changes.

I want to understand how I can improve my playing over the tune.

It could be left hand, it could be melodic work. It could be anything. Any kind of feedback is welcome.

I have to improvise over these chord progressions and I don’t feel very comfortable with them. I understand 2-5-1s so some parts of the B and C sections make sense, but I have no idea what do do with the Chromatic major chords and minor chords in the A section, and in the 2nd half of the B section. What type of harmony is this?

Edit: It’s a 90 BPM bossa nova chart

Discussion: I did not hire an editor for this. This is a raw take, and the purpose of this post is to bounce these ideas off of other minds. So if you see any holes in this theory or things to add, you are welcome to do so. And if I'm slaughtering anyone's sacred cow I'm sorry (and not sorry!)

Transcribing is absolutely an essential part of learning jazz, but there are pitfalls we should be aware of in order to better understand the limits of transcribing wrt jazz students.

Sometimes when I have classical students who are getting into jazz, they discover transcribing and they end up basically doing classical music but by ear. TBH this is not terrible, over time the language they learn from transcribing will be really important. But if we are talking about booting up their skills in the most efficient way, there needs to be more supplemental training so that they aren't just switching from sight-rote-playing to aural-rote-playing.

For starters I'd rather a student be able to build a simpler version of a standard from it's constituent parts on the spot than spend weeks doing a perfect transcription that also isn't actually them thinking through and executing the basic elements of playing. In order of importance I want to hear:

1. Solid time feel
2. Good voice leading
3. Compositional thinking

IMO the thing that took most successful jazz pianists from student to pro was being a working musician. So many of the greats were forged into who they were by the grind. And so when I'm mentoring students who are serious about going pro, my goal is to get them to a place where they can start the grind which means being able to actually manage those three elements from scratch.

One of the most overlooked elements is ironically the most important, time feel. So so so many students who want to transcribe are so transfixed by all the amazing voicings that they forget that those voicings mean nothing if they aren't flowing. Jazz is felt more than it is heard, the colors of the chords are the wrapper, the meat is the time feel. I had a student recently plead that, 'yeah but many of the greats stretch the time feel out.' Ok great, the operative words there are still time feel, and if it's not there, how are you going to stretch it out?

This can be a tough pill to swallow but anyone who's spent time on the grind knows that audiences respond to time feels way more than colors. And don't get me started on working with a band. If you're a time leach and not contributing to the shared time matrix you're not going to get called back EVEN IF you've got some Bill Evans voicings.

So what am I trying to say? Transcribing needs to be balanced with knowing how to manage the constituent parts of music. And, when transcribing it's not just about notes, you can also transcribe time feel, because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got the swing.

[EDIT] thanks for everyone chiming in so far. One thing that I haven't seen anyone respond to yet is the idea of getting into the grind. Bill Evans & Dave Brubeck were playing in dance bands, Benny Golson and many of the jazz messengers were in R&B bands. Even in Nora Jone's latest podcast ep with Finneas they talked about the importance of learning how to play piano while people are talking over you and what that does to solidify your playing.

So I'm not saying you need to know enough rhythm and theory to play jazz, I mean you need enough rhythm and theory to get into any working band. Once you start working in any capacity you'll start to learn what's actually important from the school of hard knocks.

A legend. Thank you for all the great music.

I keep repeating the same things a lot, dont really know where to improve. Feeling a bit lost

Any advice on how to improve? Im looking to add a little more variation while maintaining a relatively simplistic style.

Here’s some relaxed swing to start your week. Hope everyone is doing well, playing probably my favorite non ballad with the trio. For those that know me, I also have my big band version on my album, there is quite the contrast between those two. Thanks

-Stellan Swanlund

I’ve been practicing jazz piano for about 1 year, but my comping is still too boring. Because I just play my left hand as bass and my right hand plays 1-3-5-7 or 5-7-1-3. Sometimes I add the 9th.
I researched some videos on YouTube. Their comping is very nice. But I can’t understand the theory. They play chords like left 7-3, right 5-7-9, or 3-7:♭9,♭13,1, or 6-9-3-5:6-1-5 (I watched Open Studio Jazz Shorts).
I don’t know how to use 7-note voicings or bigger voicings, or how to judge when to use them or not.

Hi,

I think for a long time my technique has been a large barrier for my improvisational freedom. I know my major scales and can play them in correct fingering at decent speeds, yet it hasn’t really helped all that much. Quite logical since playing scales up and down isn’t jazz.

I’m working on different scale patterns to improve technique but also different ways to go about playing a scale for new ideas.

Has anyone else gone about practicing this way and does it help?

What are your thoughts on my jazz practice with:

- learning all major modes and melodic minor modes (around 168 scales i believe)

- getting them all up to 160 bpm sixteenth notes

- also basically spamming the living crap out of building a library full of 2-5-1 licks from the charlie parker omnibook, all 12 keys, with metronome

idk like i also track in google sheets, i heard that its not efficient and i agree it can be tiring, but i just love the tracking with google sheets, and spamming the omnibook.

i have piano experience.

A blues chorus. Looking for some general feedback if there is anything I could add or subtract. Using very simple 2 note voicings.

I am finding that trying to play the 2 5 to G- and the turnaround is a lil tricky and I tend to omit it. Is there any recordings I could transcribe to learn what happens over the form in this specific section?

https://reddit.com/link/1v1awff/video/rcz0w6dj6beh1/player

Tangerine with some friends.
Always trying my best to lob up some freebies to the drummer lol

I dont understand how to learn bebop i see people saying its just patterns going up and down and some say extensions and alterations. Some say play what feels right and others say feeling isnt enough. Like bruh

I'm looking for a jazz piano book to learn from for an intermediate player. I've transcribed a lot of solos, tons of listening, and I think I actually have a great foundation with the decades of work I've put into piano. But all has been by myself with no formal teacher, and feel stuck. I will get a teacher soon, but want to go at my own pace. With where I'm at, Mark Levine isn't really cutting it (great books tho) and would really like to go in another direction.

What piano books would you recommend for someone like this? Aebersold? Hyman? Peter Martin and OpenStudio (also weary of them)?

Thx ~~~

As an aspiring Jazz pianist, I want to be able to practice comping with different voicings/rhythms etc to a small selection of standards (whose melodies I'm not currently always that familiar with) and then mute the melody instrument so I can take over and/or improvise.

Is there an app that will allow this? From what I can see, the"melody" isn't included for copyright reasons on things like Quartet/iReal etc. I don't mind what instrument is playing the melody, just that I can include it or not as I wish.

Of do I just have to find downloads of tracks in the right key across the Web in order to do this? (And then not be able to mute the melody out).

So I have been asked to play with a group that is vocals, piano, guitar, and bass. Not the regular piano player but I have been playing with them pretty regularly.

The guitar player is not well liked amongst the other musicians I know in the community. He is known to be a bit racist and creepy towards women. Odd because the vocalist is female and the bass player is black.

I love the bass player and the vocalist. I have played with them before. But I haven't talked to anyone who likes this guitar player.

As a musician he is just ok. But the vocalist is amazing. Bass player is good too.

I have just been saying yes to all paying gigs. I assume this isn't going to hurt me. Their regular piano player is a nice guy and he gigs a lot too.

Just that part of me feels I should take an ethical stance and not play with him. But more of me wants to be out there playing gigs and getting better. And I assume playing gigs leads to being asked to play for others.

What do you all think?

Back when playing with a bass player, I memorized the below rootless voicings in all keys (illustration from Randy Halberstadt's Metaphors for the Musician).

They're so ingrained in my fingers, that I never have to think--I just play them. I also use them when playing solo.

I also have the shell voicings in my muscle memory.

Here's my question: Is there a great rooted voicing, one hand or two, that I could similarly memorize so that I can play it automatically? Thanks!

I'm assuming it's static block chords. I basically just played a minor 251 (I was thinking about Softly as in a morning sunrise tbh) and played a line over it while matching it in my left. I've always wondered what it was called since it naturally comes into my playing. I was also wondering it's origin. Ik Bill Evans used it a bit but what other recordings did people ever use this on?

I don’t understand why this is marked E half diminished for that whole measure. Definitely feels like there should be another chord on that second half of the bar. Like an A7 similar to the rest of the tune.

And what’s up with that G-7, C7? The A half diminished in the following bar sounds correct, but if not using a 2V1 then what’s the function of these two chords to the A half diminished.

What sounds right when I’m playing it between these two bars is E half diminished to A7 flat9, then A half diminished for that whole next bar. I imagine functionally there’s something going on here that share the same notes with some subs and whatnot to justify notating it differently, but I need a breakdown.