Q. I have been classically trained in piano for 12 years and would like to teach myself jazz piano.
What books should I buy, and how long would it take for me to be able to give a performance?
Also, I was never quite sure - is jazz piano mostly memorized songs or improvisation?
A. I too, was a classical pianist for most of my life before turning to jazz. I would recommend that you study with a teacher because jazz is one of the hardest styles of music to teach yourself, especially for someone who has studied classical music for a while. If you can teach yourself successfully, then learn from the books mentioned.
Basically, you must learn your chord voicings, identity chord symbols, know your chord/scale theory, learn to improvise and listen to lots of jazz artists. I really do not know of a jazz book that will teach you automatically how to play jazz, like the book mentioned by Mark Levine titled "The Jazz Piano Book", it is good but if you take it too literally, it will confuse you.
A teacher will give you some pieces to learn, help you with the chord voicings in those pieces, teach you how to comp(accompanying in jazz terms), and help you figure out which jazz scales to use over the chords. A good teacher will give you a solid fundamental foundation and then you will have that to build on.
Take an improvisation class like someone else mentioned, after you get a teacher, enroll in a small jazz ensemble so that you can implement what you have learned in the real world..................that's how I learned. Learn how to compose your own stuff a little later down the road.
Depending on how well you learn the stuff I mentioned will determine how well and how fast you learn jazz. You memorize the melody and chords and you improvise on those chords in the piece.
jazz piano HELP!!!!!?
Q. I've been playing classical piano forever(I'm almost 15)!! I've done bits and pieces of different genres of music. But no jazz. I've grown up around lots of jazz and always admired jazz piano improv. So i started a jazz camp this week and they basically hand me music with tons of chords I don't recognize quickly and at least 4 flats per song. They expect me to sight-read which I am good at. But this is so much harder. I'm in a small ensemble where I am the only pianist and they want me to do random solos I can't keep up with. It's a complete mess... What should help?? How to improv or try to???
A. just do your best. Jazz _does_ require advanced skills that you won't pick up overnight, so don't expect too much of yourself; that'll just make this painful instead of fun.
This free booklet from Jamey Aebersold has a bunch of piano voicings around p 49... since you read well that should help you at least decipher the chord charts.
http://www.jazzbooks.com/mm5/download/FQBK-handbook.pdf
There's a lot of other great info as well, including tips on improvising, as well as the Charlie Parker story that everybody knows: how he got laughed off the bandstand when he was about 16 or 17. He later became one of the most influential jazz players of all time, for not just sax but everybody... there isn't a jazz player alive who hasn't studied Bird.
About chord voicings?
Q. its mind boggling to me the number of possible chord voiciings, so im looking for a comprehensive source maybe a book on all of the most used chord voicings that perhaps outlines or categorizings the most common voicings, im familiar with four part voicings as i have done so many four part writings in theory but id like to get beyond that and move on too more complicated voicings
A. Both of these books are great and illustrate the voiceings in an easy to understand way.
The Jazz Piano Book by Mark Levine
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Piano-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/0961470151
The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215720990&sr=1-1
Try before you buy plug the titles into here and see if your public library has them
http://www.worldcat.org/
when it brings up the title you can put in your zip code to see which library is closest to you
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Title : Learning jazz piano?
Description : Q. I have been classically trained in piano for 12 years and would like to teach myself jazz piano. What books should I buy, and how long w...