Tag Archives: practicing piano

AC #54 Even though you’ve never done that! Why not try it‽

During the 1990s (ancient history now!) I had several experiences with making music for a few computer/video games and other less populated outlets such as music for an ice cream truck, live “muzak” in grocery and department stores. When the opportunities were offered to me, I thought, “I’ve never done that! Why not try it‽” So I did, and I had loads of fun. I learned a lot about those particular aspects of the music business and I got to work with some great people.

Many years later, when Jason Peter, one of my local students who does in-office and online lessons, first started asking me basic questions about MIDI, sequencing, and electronic music in general, I was more than happy to share with him my experiences and what I’d learned.

Jason, who’s an awesome drummer, is still studying music with me today and I’m very happy that he has continued his involvement with keyboards and sequencing in addition to his other musical interests. On any given lesson day, he’s apt to bring a project to class on which he’s working and whenever he does, we make his project the focus of that day’s lesson.

Check him out just below in the short video he made about a project for which he composed, played and produced the music.

Jason is testing his light show systems in this clip.

So even if you’ve never taken an on-line or in-office piano or music lesson before, why not try it‽ Like Jason, you may discover that they’re fun and who needs to have less fun in their life‽

See you next post.

AC #45 Online Lessons – Do They Work? How Do They Look?

Yes! They really work and they’re fun! / What do online piano lessons actually look like?

With today’s video conferencing capabilities, online lessons now work better than ever before! High-quality consumer-level equipment, interactive screen sharing of amazing music software programs, coupled with optional multi-angle camera viewing on larger computer screens, the online lesson experience is the next best thing to “being there”. It’s great for long-distance learners and local learners have the option to use both in-office and online platforms on an as-needed basis.

Some people feel that in-office lessons are “better” than online lessons and I’m all for people having their preferences, but let’s face and admit an obvious point. Student progress is not guaranteed just because their lessons are “in-office”! In-office students who don’t practice, won’t progress, and it doesn’t matter if they’re under the tutelage of the world’s best teacher! Students, in-office or online, who don’t practice, don’t improve, and go nowhere. End of story!

So, the question is not whether online lessons work! I’ve been involved in online ed for quite a few years and I’ll tell you, “They work!” The real question should be, “Is the student practicing?”

As long as you practice, you’ll do very well in online lessons. Since both of us are in the comfort of our own homes, the atmosphere is relaxed and informal which is most optimal for learning. You can work at a pace that’s most comfortable for you, and flexible scheduling is a great perk!

How Do Online Piano Lesson Look?

The “face” of online lesson sessions may vary considerably from person to person because of some important equipment-related factors that need to be considered in determining how they will look to you. Does the teacher and/or student have a single-camera or multi-camera system? Things like the quality and kind(s) of equipment each teacher and student bring to the video chat room table have a significant effect on experience for the both parties.

Here’s a sample of how a few of my configurations will look to you.

I use a mid-range consumer-level, 5-camera set-up, (6 cameras including my screen cam). My main camera is my “mug-shot cam”, followed by the overhead, side-left, side-right and hand-held cams. Most of the time I use only the mug-shot, overhead and hand-held cams.

Below are 2 screen shots and video clips of how a couple of select multi-camera configurations will appear to you. My mug-shot, overhead, side left, screen cam, and hand cams are shown.

Video 1 Alternate Link

I like to groove to you when it’s “Your Turn” to play!

Video 2 Alternate Link

AC-45-Part_3-FIGURE 8 MAJOR TRIAD TARGETS-ORNAMENTS

All exercises and assignments are tailored for you.

How you look to me depends on the webcam setup configuration of your work station.

Having a webcam is pretty much a requirement for us to do our work in online piano lessons.

Webcams on laptops are almost never an issue because most laptops come with a pre-installed mug-shot cam which can easily double as a keyboard cam by carefully positioning the laptop with its lid tilted.

Webcams on desktops are another matter sometimes. However, as long as a camera-less desktop has an empty USB port, a webcam can be easily added. (Usually!)

It is not necessary for you or any of my students to have an elaborate multi-camera, split-screen set-up such as mine! The visuals I need from you can be sent with an under-$25.00 webcam.

It is helpful for me to have a good unobstructed view of your hands and fingers on your piano or keyboard. The angle at which you place your camera to achieve that end is determined by the circumstances in your home such as surrounding furniture, doorways, ceiling height, etc.

Jake, who started as an in-office student, takes most of his lessons online now because of the convenience and fun factors. Here are a few snapshots of the overhead configurations he uses.

Willie, one of my online students who lives over one-thousand miles away from me, has a dual camera setup (mug-shot / overhead). He agreed to let me post a clip of him practicing two assignments so you can see the overhead angle he uses most of the time during his sessions.

Channel WT-56 Alternate Link

Does your camera(s) have to be positioned overhead for me to see what I need to see? No! It does not. The overhead-cam positions used by two of my students are only samples of what works. There are many variations and degrees of side-views, front-views and other angles that work fine.

Working out the best camera configuration angle(s) for your work station, from my perspective, is something we do together. The first time generally happens in your introductory free lesson. Since camera positions often change from lesson to lesson for many reasons, readjusting their angles is a subject that’s frequently revisited. Giving each other this type of feedback helps both of us make sure we see everything we need to see.

Online lessons are a great idea and piano/music students, of all ages, at every level of development, can positively gain from the experience of having them. Even absolute beginners who don’t yet have a piano or keyboard on which to practice can benefit from taking online lessons as there are lots of things that can be done “pre-instrument”.

Of course, an instrument will eventually be needed, and the sooner one is obtained, the better, but an absolute beginner does not need to wait to get started with taking online music lessons. Beginner and intermediate students of all ages are always welcome at my place.

Practice well, see you next post.

AC #34 Intervalics 101 (1sts)

Intro / Op-Ed

The first scale that beginner music students encounter is usually the “major scale” and in studying the major scale they are inevitably introduced to the core building blocks of our Western music system. What are those building blocks? Intervals!

Understanding Intervals.

A solid understanding of intervals is essential to understanding how to construct scales, chords, and voicings. Understanding intervals also helps your ability to read music, compose melodies, construct bass lines, and improvise. Intervals comprise the bedrock upon which our Western music system is built and understanding them will help you build a solid foundation for your musicianship.

Please note that only ascending intervals will be covered in all of the “Intervalics 101” posts. Descending intervals are excluded. However, I can be persuaded to address them in the future!

Since the scope of this examination ranges from 1sts to 8ths, I’ve divided the presentation of material into a short series of eight individual mini-posts. I may add one or two more posts toward the end of the series for the purpose of giving you additional drill and review exercises. This will depend on the feedback I get from you and my students who also monitor these posts.

During this series, we’ll be taking a look at how to identify and name these intervals. From the brief examinations, discussions, and easy follow-up drill exercises in each post, you should come to have a very clear understanding of intervals. By the time you’ve successfully completed the work in all eight mini-posts, you should have an easier time of using intervalics to assist you in things like constructing bass lines, chords, specialized/personalized chord voicings and chord scales.

Speaking of chord scales… Let me draw your attention to the major scale again. In addition to being a chord scale, it’s also the scale upon which we base all of our musical analysis.

To understand the major scale, you need to understand half steps and whole steps… and to understand half steps and whole steps, you need to understand major and minor… and to understand major and minor, you need to understand the major scale… and to understand the major scale, you need to understand intervals… and to understand intervals, you need to understand half steps, whole steps, major, minor, diminished, and augmented! Whew! I’ll stop there! (Smile!) Now all of that may sound like some kind of riddle or comedy routine like Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on First” skit, but it’s all true! So let’s get started by defining interval.

What is an interval?

An Interval, defined as a musical term, is the measured distance between any two given musical notes. The unit of measure used to calculate the distances is usually calibrated in half steps, whole steps, or a combination of half and whole steps.

Should you study intervals? Are they a waste of you time?

Yes and no! Yes! You should study them! No! They are definitely NOT a waste of your time!

Studying intervals provides you with a way to analyze and systematically identify the precise distances between two notes. It gives you another tool to help improve and sharpen your note-spelling/music-writing skills, your transposition abilities, and your eye-to-hand coordination skills as applied to finger placement/spacing on the piano keyboard. Intervalic analysis may be equally applied to notes on the staff and keys on the piano keyboard.

The ways in which this particular area of concentration help you to elevate your skills of music-reading and music-analysis are numerous and tremendous! Whether you are a beginner or an advanced musician who could use some review on the subject, interval study is well worth your while!

Intro “wrap-up”

I hope all that was said, in the intro-op-ed,
got you fired-up and ready-to-go!
If the info that’s ahead, is something yet you haven’t read,
then learn it well to make yourself a pro!

Intro Wrap-up; Art Matthews
(Beat Box)!

Okay! It’s time to take a look at the first interval of the series…1sts!

1sts – a.k.a. unisons or prime intervals. These intervals are easily identified because both notes share the same letter name. When written in standard music notation, they share the same line or space on the staff, notwithstanding any accidentals which may be attached to either note. On the piano keyboard, they are either the same key or next door neighbors depending on the attached accidental. (Next door neighbors, In the case of 1sts, have zero keys in between.)

The most commonly used accidentals are shown in the lineup just below followed by examples of the most common occurrences of 1sts in the key of C.

♮ = natural
♯ = sharp
X = double sharp
♭ = flat
♭♭ = double flat

Perfect 1st = C to C (The 1st note of a major scale remains unmodified)
Augmented 1st = C to C^♯ (The 1st note of a major scale is sharped once)
Minor 1st *(N/A)
*(Minor functionality is not allowed on any perfect interval)
Diminished 1st = C to C^♭ **(The 1st note of a major scale is flatted once)
**(Perfect intervals become diminished with only one flat)

This link will open an Acrobat/Adobe flash type of applet where you’ll be asked to correctly match ten intervals via a drag-n-drop process. Doing the exercise at least 4 or 5 times will give you an introductory workout on identifying and matching the intervals in C and other keys.

Study well and have fun,

See you next post,

AC #30 Guest Speaker’s Tips on Reading and Sight-reading

I reached out to a very special person who is going to speak to you in this post via one of her videos. Please allow me to preface her appearance with a few thoughts and words of my own.

Two practice activities that are very often mistakenly regarded as being synonymous:

1. The practice of learning to read and sight-read music.
2. The practice of learning to play songs using a “sight-enhanced playing-by-ear” approach.

1. “LEARNING TO READ AND SIGHT-READ MUSIC”

After learning the names of the piano keys, teaching beginner students to focus on note reading in 5-finger positions, starting with the “C Position“, is and has been a widely-accepted practice for years. It’s how I was brought-up and many of today’s nationally recognized traditional method books use still this methodology. I wholeheartedly believe in the efficacy of this method and I use it with my beginner students. I also use it with some of my intermediate and advanced students who wish to go back to fine-tune or brush-up their music reading skills.

Did I say advanced students? Yes! That’s right! Some of the world’s most well-known and formidable musicians are/were not good “readers-of-music”. From Irving Berlin to Billy Joel. From Glenn Gould to Erroll Garner. From Bela Fleck to Sir Paul McCartney. There are loads of musicians who’ve been up-front and very honest about their music reading abilities which, by their own words, range from not-so-good to not-at-all.

As evidenced by their very successful careers, it’s easy to see that the ability to read music is in no way THE determinative factor as to whether or not you’re going to become an excellent player/musician or have a successful career.

Nevertheless, there are many musicians who, in their heart-of-hearts, later come to know and realize the importance of what they’re missing. Hopefully, many of them will also know and realize that it is never too late to go back and get any of the things which they may have missed during their formative years. Just go back and get it! It’s as simple as that! Put it on a “Bucket List”, then find someone to help get it done! If you’re just starting out, then get it done right now so that you don’t have to go back and do it later.

So, whatever the reason, if learning to read music is a high priority item on your list of objectives, then I recommend that you find a teacher/coach like me, my guest speaker, or someone you may know to guide you through the maze of activities that lie ahead of you. Don’t go it alone! It is difficult to do this alone!

2. LEARNING REPERTOIRE USING A “SIGHT-ENHANCED PLAYING-BY-EAR” APPROACH

The core component of “sight-enhanced playing-by-ear” lies in the key phrase, Playing-by-ear. Playing-by-ear happens when you use only your ears to recreate the sounds (melodies, chords, rhythms) you hear. It’s a wonderful skill to have and I encourage you to develop it to the best of your ability. Later on, playing by ear is often enhanced by other things that you may learn in music theory such as intervals and “note reading”. With this method, you’ll frequently find yourself working on small sections and segments of songs… perhaps 2, 4, or 8 measures at a time. As long as your objective is to “learn to play the piece”, this approach is very good! Using written notes to assist you with your playing by ear activities is what sight-enhanced playing-by-ear is all about.

However, learning to play songs that way is NOT at the center of what learning to read and sight-read music is all about.

Guest Speaker Video

Watch this video and spend the next 10-minutes with my guest speaker. Listen to her share some of her thoughts and tips on how to improve your reading and sight-reading music skills. She spells out her reasoning as to why you, and piano students in general, should slowly work your way through level-appropriate music. Everyone who is serious about either learning or brushing-up sight-reading skills should check out what she has to say. She is a real treasure!

Of all the tips and points that Margaret makes in this video, I’d like to emphasize the fact that consistent, daily work in this area is what will move you along. Practice well and be patient.

See you next post.

AC #28: Piano Starts Here! Learn The Piano Key Names!

Learning piano key names is among the very first things I have my beginner students do.

However, many times, during the preliminary stages of working with non-beginner students at varying levels of development, I discovered significant gaps and breaches in such fundamental things as knowing the names of the piano keys and/or the lines and spaces of the grand staff.

The focus of AC #29 will be about learning the grand staff. The focus of this post is exclusively on learning the names of the piano keys! So, if you are an absolute beginner or someone who may need to go back to the very beginning to review, for whatever reason, this post is for you.

Use the four utilities on this page in their numerical order of presentation to help you drill and thoroughly learn the piano key names starting with the white keys first.

White keys and natural keys are synonymous and, as illustrated in AC #10, white keys were the only keys present on the world’s first piano keyboards. That said, you should earnestly study the natural keys first before moving on to the next step of learning the names of the black keys.

Each red-note question may be answered by using your mouse or qwerty keyboard commands in conjunction with the up & down arrow keys when answering questions on sharps and flats, i.e. if C# is the question, press/hold the up arrow key first, then answer it with the qwerty C key. If Db is the question, press/hold the down arrow key first, then answer with the qwerty D key. Mouse-click once anywhere in the applet before using the “qwerty” keys to enter your answers.

Since each exercise utility is never-ending and presents questions indefinitely, you’ll want to set some type of completion benchmark such as answering 100 questions correctly or you might use the clock timer, located at the top of each utility, to set a time limit, such as 5 to 10 minutes. If you use the timer method, be sure to click the Reset Score button when you start each utility. In either case, keep working until you have a success rate that’s between 90% and 100%.

Practice well!

Art

Name The Natural Keys (White Keys)
Keyboard Note Identification #1: Your first mission is to learn the names of the white keys.

Name The Black-Key Sharps
Keyboard Note Identification #2: Your second mission is to learn the black-key sharp names.

Name The Black-Key Flats
Keyboard Note Identification #3: Your third mission is to learn the black-key flat names.

Name All of The Keys Quickly
Keyboard Note Identification #4: Your fourth mission is to name them all quickly!

AC #27: “T” it up!

ATTN: All Instrumentalists and Vocalists! This post applies to you!

As you’re listening to some music and you hear a melody, a phrase, a motif, or an arrangement that draws your attention because it “speaks” to you and you really like it, you should “T-it-up”! What do I mean by that? You should transcribe it! You’ll benefit whether you “T” all of it, or only a fractional part of it! Just get in there and “T” something up!

I borrowed the title phrase for this post from the world of golf. I’ve been a fan of Tiger Woods for a long time. Through his actions on the golf course and his interviews, Tiger has always demonstrated that he possess a deep knowledge of golf on many levels. He has frequently spoken about the high regard and respect he has for golf’s “elder statesmen” like Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas. He’s spoken specifically about the fact that he’s watched many videos of them and studied them.

In the world of music, you’ll find many musicians, including myself, who have the same kind of high-regard and respect for music’s “elder statesmen”. For instance, whenever someone asked The Beatles and Eric Clapton questions like “who most influenced you?”, they’d always name Chuck Berry first as they spoke about their high regard and respect they had for him. Whenever Chuck Berry was asked that same question, as he addressed it in his autobiography, he’d immediately credit his local peers, the great boogie-woogie pianists and the great Nat “King” Cole as he spoke about the high regard and respect he has for them all!

So, I was particularly delighted when one of my students, bass player Nicholas Gendron, originally an ear training student who by the time he signed on with me had already done complete James Jamerson transcriptions on his own by ear, spoke to me about the high regard and respect he has for many of the same great jazz bassists for whom I share the same feelings. When Nick expressed his interest in expanding his ear training studies to include having me work with him on “strengthening-up” his walking bass lines, I immediately suggested that he start right away on transcribing some of the great jazz bassists. I agreed to get right in there with him and do some of my own transcriptions of some of the bass veterans also to share with him in his lessons. So for this post, I decided to give you the complete transcription I did for Nick of what the great Israel Crosby played on “But Not For Me” from one of Ahmad Jamal’s classic albums. You can view the video and download this PDF too!

[gview file=”http://www.artmatthewsonlinepianolessons.com/wp-content/uploads/But-Not-For-Me-Ahmad-Jamal-AM.pdf”]

The information you can get from studying transcriptions is invaluable, and by all means, I strongly suggest that you, and all serious students of improvised music, should do a lot of your own transcription work! Don’t get me wrong. It’s definitely ok to draw information from the transcriptions of other people, however, the benefits of doing your own transcription work will pay bigger dividends because, in doing so, the information you derive gets planted deeper into your musical soul by the nature of the do-it-yourself process.

Whether you do one-chorus, multiple choruses, single phrase, multiple phrases, right-hand only, left-hand only, both hands, partial heads, full heads, partial arrangements, or full arrangements… you’ll be doing something that’s good for your musicianship!

The focus of your transcriptions are determined, of course, by whatever your objective may be at any given time. For instance, you might limit the focus of your transcription to getting the actual musical notes only! Or, you may want to exclude the actual notes and focus on obtaining chord progressions only, as in getting the chord changes of some particular song or tune. Perhaps you want everything… actual notes, chord changes, articulations, and dynamics too! Ear training makes it all available to you.

You can write your transcription work down on manuscript paper using standard music notation, or you might write it down in some other form on unlined or lined notebook paper for that matter! If you have a good memory, you can even skip the writing-it-down process altogether and simply keep it all in your head, as Nick did with his James Jamerson transcriptions. If you can do it, I recommend you do some of both because it’s all good!

At the time of this post, Nick is in Aruba! He’ll be starting his own page within my site soon after he returns so if you’d like to follow Nick on his page, check back in a few weeks and just type or paste his name into any search box on my site.

Remember that although your teacher or coach can point you in the direction of what work you need to do, it is YOU that has to DO the work by practicing!

Do some listening and “T” something up!

Practice well!

AC #25 – Three Piano Technique Practice Tips (Part-2 of 3)

2: TECHNICAL EXERCISES and RUDIMENTS:

Get yourself a technical exercise book and a book of piano rudiments. The books I specifically reference later in this post are mentioned mainly to let you know that those particular books are among the ones I have used for myself and that I still use them with some of my students.

There are hundreds of these types of books on the market and they are not all the same. I’ve seen and had students who’ve gone-it-alone and made ill-advised choices and purchases of music books of various types only to find out that the “water” they’d gotten themselves into was way too deep! And too hot! So watch out for that!

In choosing something that most closely fits your needs, your current level of musicianship and pianistic capabilities have to be considered! In order to objectively assess that, you may need the opinion or advice of someone other than yourself to help make that determination.

In any case, once you’ve obtained the books, factor the exercises from of both of them into your practice routine so that you’re spending a “good” amount of time with the material during any given week. The “good amount of time” which you should spend will depend on your present level of development and the advice of your musical coach.

If you don’t already own any books of these types, check out the rest of this post and ask your teacher for recommendations because your teacher may wish to have you use a different publication from the two I reference here. So with all of that said, let’s move on!

Technical Exercise Books are usually focused on presenting you with many finger-strengthening exercises. One of the books I used for myself was the “Ernst Von Dohnanyi: Essential Finger Exercises” book. In any case, whichever book you use, you should follow your book’s prescribed practice instruction for each exercise, after which, you might then try some of your own experiments and variations.

I used to set up a rhythm track, or a metronome, and work each finger or group of fingers until the point of fatigue, then I’d stop!… Shake it off!… Then I’d do a few more reps… Then I’d stop again!. Before long, I noticed that my hands and fingers were starting to feel stronger at the piano keyboard. They even looked stronger and their “keyboard posture” felt more stable and more powerful than before. My execution was cleaner and a lot more articulate.

For an example of what I used to do, watch the next video to see how I practiced a technical exercise that uses all five fingers on a full diminished 7th chord. I encourage you to do the same thing or something similar if your fingers aren’t able to comfortably reach all five notes.

Notice how the inactive fingers keep their notes held down while the active fingers are engaged in the exercise.

This is the kind of thing you might do on any number of the exercises you’d find in this type of book.

I want to emphasize that you should not rush through this type of practice. Dedicate yourself to setting small goals of one or two exercises and thoroughly practicing those exercises for a while before moving on to another exercise.

Click here to search for and purchase your next “piano technical exercise book“. You might precede your search string with the word “beginner”, “intermediate”, or “advanced”, depending on your present level of musicianship.

When practicing “on-your-own”, feel free to be creative as you improvise your own rhythmic variations. It’s ok for the rhythmic composition of each rep to have some minor, or moderate, or even drastic differences! Just keep it in the groove!

Rudiment Books are usually focused on presenting you with material such as scales, arpeggios, I-IV-V-I chord progressions and resolutions, etc. Since this type of material is pretty much self-explanatory, I’m not going to say much here other than that this material is essential to your growth and development. If you have any questions, contact me.

Watch this video clip to see what Oscar Peterson said about his experience as a kid with a rudiment book and how his dad, mom, and family helped him get through it by insisting he practice!

One of the books my dad had me use from this category was the “Hanon Complete Edition” publication from the family of Charles-Louis Hanon finger exercise books.

Hanon finger exercises were first published in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France in 1873 and the first release of the Schirmer’s Edition was also over 100 years ago. The Hanon books have been in the “public domain” for some time now. This means that you can easily find them for sale from a number of publishers and distributors who’ve placed them in their catalogs, or you can easily obtain them as free downloads from many places on the Internet.

There are many published third party Hanon variations on the market. I put my own spin on Hanon Part 1 by creating a digital package that has on-board MIDI drum accompaniments.

If you’d like to play along with the “Music-Minus-One” version I made for you, click here or here.

The M.M.O. video’s on-screen notation is written in the treble staff only, starting from Middle-C. I used 8th notes instead of 16ths notes and the exercise is played twice-through per video play. The chord changes I used are also there so you can use the video for “comping” practice too!

I still use Hanon with my current students. I use their current level of development to determine which volume to recommend to them and/or the specific exercise(s) I assign. For example, one of my students may be working from the Hanon volume titled “Part I” which contains the first twenty scale preparatory exercises while another student who’s further advanced might be working from “Part III” which contains exercises #44 to 60 .

The Hanon Finger Exercise Books:

Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist, Part I – Preparatory Exercises – #s 1 thru 20 only

Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist, Part II – Scales and Arpeggios – #s 21 thru 43 only

Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist, Part III – Scales and Arpeggios – #s 44 thru 60 only

Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist, Complete Edition – Approximately 120 pages

If you wish to have your copy of Hanon in a traditionally-bound book you might opt to purchase it. Click here then type or cut and paste your choice into the next page’s search box .

If you are a “do it yourselfer”and you wish to obtain your Hanon as a free PDF download, then click any of the following options, courtesy of the anonymous person who uploaded and shared these files.

Hanon Part I – Exercises 1 thru 20 only (20-page PDF)

Hanon Part II – Exercises 21 thru 43 only (50-page PDF)

Hanon Part III – Exercises 44 thru 60 only (46-page PDF)

Hanon Complete – Exercises 1 thru 60 (116-page PDF)

So, get busy!

Part-3 coming soon in AC #26…

AC #24 – Three Piano Technique Practice Tips (Part-1 of 3)

It doesn’t matter how much you may already know or how much you may learn about the inner workings of music theory. If you are going to be a “player”, you need to have a minimum of at least an adequate technique to go along with your theoretical knowledge and know-how. With an inadequate technique, you will surely experience lots of difficulty in executing musical ideas and expressing yourself on the piano. If your fingers have not been trained, your brain telling your fingers exactly what to do will have no effect because your fingers just won’t cooperate! They will not be able to follow the orders issued by “headquarters”!

So, to help you build or maintain your piano technique, here is the 1^st tip in this 3-part series.

1: SCALES: Start with the major scales. Practice them in the one-octave range and play them using the traditionally recommended fingering for each of the 12 scales. Try to make this practice, as well as your practice on all rudimentary items and drills, as fun and as musical as possible by practicing with some sort of accompaniment track or rhythm track. Find a tempo marking that allows you to play evenly and accurately, then incrementally increase the tempo. The video just below shows me playing three metaphorically named major scale variations in the key of C.

1 – The “Stagger Lee”: Mostly 16^ths but the 8^th notes on beats 1 and 3 yield a staggered effect.

2 – The “Cloud Nine”: This extends into octave #2 to get the 9^th scale degree from the “cloud”.

3 – The “Michael Phelps”: After descending each time, go “under water” to change direction.

After you’re comfortable with playing all 12 major scales, move on into the one-octave dominant 7th, dorian minor, half-diminished and diminished scales. I encourage you to play these one-octave scales using your own rhythmic and style variations! After that, you should expand this activity into some multi-octave ranges and include chords, inversions, and arpeggios. Whether you “swing it” or play it “straight”, be sure to keep everything in a groove and have fun!

Part-2 coming soon in AC #25…

AC #23 How to learn the language of jazz? Speak Like a Child!

I don’t know about you but the first word I heard as a newborn baby was probably the word “NO!” Well, maybe it was “mom” or “dad”, but “NO!” was probably very high on the list of first-heard words.

My first physical experience was probably the doctor-administered “rear-end spank” that was customarily given to newborns. Do they still do that today? That spank hurt and it made me cry, and henceforth, my connection to “blues” music was immediately solidified! (Just kidding!)

Seriously though, I chose “Speak Like a Child” to be a part this post’s title because, for me, the phrase has a special figurative significance.

When a child learns to speak English or any other spoken language, a big part of the process is spending lots of time listening to and imitating the words, phrases, and sentences being spoken by the people around them–family members in most instances. The key words here are listening and imitating.

Likewise, one of the best ways for people to learn the language of jazz is to spend lots of time listening to and imitating and even transcribing the sounds of musical ideas and phrases being played in the music you hear or by the musicians around you. The key words here are also listening and imitating.

All of the world’s best orators started off as kids learning the intricacies of speech by listening and echoing single words, short phrases, longer phrases, and sentences, etc. until eventually, the ability to compose and express their own thoughts finally took hold. The language of jazz has the same dynamic! That is to say, all of the world’s best instrumentalists and improvisers started off as beginners who could barely make a sound on their respective instrument(s). But through the long process of listening, imitating, and learning to read in many cases, the art of self-expression finally developed and they became great players.

So if you’re not already doing it, I want to encourage you to “Speak Like a Child” and add this type of listen-and-imitate approach to your practice routine. Get in there and get started by learning to imitate some short phrases first before moving on to medium length and longer phrases. Melodies and fragments of melodies are good too! I’m going to ask a couple of my students to let me post some of their work along these lines on their student page in the near future. It really is a very effective way to learn the syntax of jazz language and to build a lexicon of phrases and vocabulary. Stay tuned.

AC #22: Block Chords: What are they? How to use them?

While recording “You’re My Everything” during a recording session on October 26, 1956, Miles Davis whistled during the song’s intro to stop the recording and said to Red Garland, his pianist, “Play some block chords Red… Alright Rudy?… Block chords Red”.

This instruction was left in the mix and can be heard on the commercially released recording. What did Miles mean when he said that? What did Miles want from his pianist? The song’s intro starts at the video’s 19th second time code marker and as you’re listening, pay special attention to the difference in Red Garland’s playing before and after Miles’ instruction.

http://www.plosin.com/MilesAhead/Sessions.aspx?s=561026

“Block chords” is a harmonic device that calls for all harmony being played, during the spans-of-time that block chords are engaged, to be delivered within certain close-position voicings and rhythmic parameters. When block chords are applied to melody and/or single-note improvisation lines, a more impactful, “phatter”, richer sound results! I’ve seen Phineas Newborn draw actual gasps-of-excitement from audiences with his highly skilled block chord use!

There are several types or variations of block chords but the one on which I’m going to focus in this workshop I’ve named “book ends”. Book ends call for 5-note voicings with a numerical schematic that spells voices 1 through 5 the from top to bottom with the melody or lead always being note 1 or the top-most note. Note 5 always doubles note 1, one octave lower. Notes 2, 3, and 4 are harmony notes which must be placed in between or within the one-octave span of notes 1 and 5 (the “book ends”) at all times.

Since this is a tall order, I highly advise you to do yourself a favor before moving on to blocking melodies and improv lines. Do the prep work of making sure that you can play all Major7, Dominant7, Minor7, Minor7b5 and Diminished7 chords in all four of their positions in the 5-note block chord style! It’ll make what follows much easier!!!

As I always say, don’t hesitate to contact me if you need some assistance. I’ll be glad to hear from you and glad to help. Let’s Skype!

Where did block chords come from? Who invented them?

I recall having read somewhere in the past that pianist/organist Milt Buckner was given credit for starting or inventing block chords!

I’m not going to co-sign such an absolute statement but I will go along with acknowledging the fact that Milt Buckner is one of the first musicians to be widely noticed and recognized for bringing this style of playing to the “forefront”. George Shearing credited Milt Buckner and the big band sounds of Glenn Miller as his two major influencers along the lines of his developing the block chord “George Shearing sound”.

http://www.jazzwax.com/2009/05/milt-buckner-block-chords-parade.html

Erroll Garner also credited the sounds of big bands as his main influence in the development of his signature style which uses block chords. There are many other musicians who cite Milt Buckner as a main influencing source along these lines but as to whether or not Milt Buckner actually invented block chords, I choose to remain a non signatory.

John Lennon once said that if you had to rename rock and roll, you’d have to call it “Chuck Berry!” However, in Chuck Berry’s autobiography, Chuck thanked J.L. for the statement but spoke up right away saying that the whole “Chuck Berry” concept and sound was not actually his! It came directly from his being influenced by his local peers, the great boogie-woogie players, and people like the great Nat “King” Cole!

I like to think that if Milt Buckner were around today, he might thank all of his fans and “influencees” before giving the same kind of cautionary statement the C.B. gave J.L.

And so the story goes… Because of the influence factor, it’s usually inaccurate at best to try to trace and pinpoint something like a trend or a style in music down to one person. What is more important to me is finding out how to do it and how to use it in my playing.

With that said, let me draw your attention to the 7/22/13 update release of “Block Chording Short Scales” in my store. It is a rudimentary block chord drill system that focuses on block chording 3-, 4-, and 5-note scales of the major and minor varieties and it has MIDI accompaniments to help your practice move right along. If you do the work, this updated package can be very helpful to you in getting block chords “together”. Contact me if you need assistance.

See you next post.

Art