Q. Hi guys!
My dad loves Brazilian/Bossa Nova music, and I'd love to learn a few chord progressions for the Bossa Nova or Brazilian jazz genre so we can work out a few improvisations on piano.
Would anyone be willing to share some?
Thanks so much! :)
THANKS to you both! :)
A. Your question does not make a lot of sense to me, but since bossa nova and Brazilian music are my favorites I'll attempt an answer. First, let me say that Antonio Carlos Jobim is the best, most influential composer since Beethoven! There is a lot of manuscript of his songs available on the net, many for free. You may want to listen to ACCUJAZZ radio http://www.accujazz.com/ which has a separate channel for Jobim compositions or AOL radio http://aolradio.slacker.com/?aolid= which has a Brazilian channel. You click on a song you like and that will lead you to more information about the song. I have downloaded several Jobim charts for free at WIKIFONIA http://www.wikifonia.org/ .
Listen to bossa a lot and learn what makes a song a bossa nova. ANY song can be played as a bossa. It is a "style" of playing. Pick a song which you like and already know the chord progression. There is no separate, defining bossa nova chord progression-- as listening to the Jobim channel will prove to you. Happy listening . . . and happy playing.
What is so great about Kind of Blue?
Q.
A. Kind of Blue was an album that was influential and is great mainly because it is one of the first examples of Modal Jazz. If you saw a Chart of the song, you'd notice that there are only two actual chords in the song: D-7 and Eb-7. For Bassists and Piano, this creates an effect to where they are able to use normally dissonant tones (if in C-Ionian), such as Eb, Ab, or Bb. John Coltrane (and Cannonball Adderly) use this to their advantage in their solo's on the most popular tune of the Album, So What.
Because the main mode of the scale, D Dorian, is repeatedly beaten into the listeners head, making soloing much easier, and much more creative rather than the strict parameters that Bebop and Hard Bop require.
Kind of Blue spawned many other albums, influencing many major jazz musicians at the time. John Coltrane (who played on the record) composed a piece named Impressions, which is identical in terms of the chord progression on So What.
The genius of Kind of Blue is that it allowed the listener to enjoy it, rather than just mainly those in the Jazz scene at the time, gave greater intellectual freedom to the musician in improvisation, and reinforced the new Jazz sub-genre of Modal Jazz, and gave more credit to West Coast Musicians associated with the West Coast/Cool Jazz Scene.
Help with Jazz piano auditions?
Q. On Tuesday I will be auditioning for my High school Jazz band. The music director asked me to play piano for the band next year because the current pianist will be graduating at the end of this year. I have never played Jazz before, I've been strictly classical. I'm late intermediate to early advanced in classical music, I can play things like Chopin prelude number 4, 15, 20, etc. moonlight sonata, Mendelssohn's gondola songs, and the Rachmaninoff prelude in C.
I am currently working on the scales for jazz piano. I need to audition with F major Blues and B flat major Blues along with a selection from a piece and improvisation in B flat major.
I'm fine with the first two, scales are no problem and the piece is easy. Improvisation is a problem. I have never done any sort of improv before, let alone in a certain key. I'm not very familiar with keys and stuff like that, I just have always played to play.
Any pointers and tips or links to tutorial websites would be so helpful! I'll be practicing on my keyboard unfortunately for the next week, as my piano is being repaired. Figures. :)
Thanks very much!
A. Improv is usually very hard if you don't have a piece that you're playing it to. Like, usually there's a head chart that you're playing with and you improvise during the solo section. Then you can use the melody to kind of shape your solo. It's a lot easier than just playing random notes and praying they sound good. Also, if you focus your attention around the root, 3rd and 5th, that's good, too. The flat 5th is also good, but don't hold on it too long. Also, if you know the blues progression, use that definitely. Then you can focus on the roots of those chords when you get to those specific measures.
Good Luck :)
Powered by Yahoo! Answers
Title : Bossa Nova chords anyone?
Description : Q. Hi guys! My dad loves Brazilian/Bossa Nova music, and I'd love to learn a few chord progressions for the Bossa Nova or Brazilian jaz...