 I recently attended the Louisville Jazz Workshop at the University of Louisville in Louisville Kentucky at which the legendary bassist Rufus Reid gave a stunning solo recital. His playing was exciting, imaginative, dynamic, and colourful. Later that day he shared his practice tips with the audience of jazz students. He stressed that no matter how long our practice session might be students need to include the following.
• Technique. Practice the basics and get on top of your instrument. Make sure you can keep the beat, the count, and the groove. • Style. Practice producing a “good sound”. Play your instrument in "a nice way". Be creative with your approach. • Repertoire. Learn the jazz standards by heart. Listen to the jazz canon, and then play along with these recordings. • Patience. He stressed being reasonable with yourself by not pushing past your actual ability. It takes time to learn to play both your instrument and the jazz idiom well. Thank you to Frank for the note outline.
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Watching my students perform is always a pleasure.
David Piano students ask, “what should I focus on in my practice sessions?” Here is my reply.
1. Pieces include the music assigned in class and a review of favourite works. 2. Studies address specific aspects of playing like dynamics, articulations, and balance. 3. Theory includes key signatures, time signatures, terms, and rhythm. This helps us see and understand the patterns in the score. Furthermore, theory allows us to communicate, using the proper vocabulary, with other musicians. 4. Sightreading skills help us to quickly learn new music. 5. Ear Training is the ability to make sense of what we hear. 6. History includes knowing the broad historical, theoretical, and stylistic outlines of the music we are studying and our instrument's place in it. 7. Playing music with others is a great way to practice. 8. Scales, chords, and arpeggios train our fingers to execute, from memory, the building blocks of music, and give us a chance to practice playing beautifully. 1. Learn to comp and voice lead chords. 2. Practice sightreading chord charts. 3. Play along with recordings. 4. Record yourself and listen back. 5. Play louder. Why? The drums are loud. 6. Practice your broken chords for every tune. 7. Use a metronome on everything you play and practice. 8. Learn to clap and count aloud eighth note rhythms. 9. Listen to jazz daily. 10. Sign up early, piano spots go quickly. What tunes should you practice? See below. By clicking on the image, you will go to a product page. I don't take a commission. If I can help you, call me. I've attended a dozen jazz camps over the years as a pianist and drummer. David   What do we gain by learning Jazz Standards by ear?
1. We acquire an intuitive understanding of jazz rhythm. 2. We learn the jazz feel which is something that can't be notated. 3. By playing along with recordings we learn to stay in place. 4. We learn how to solo by acquiring ideas (licks) that we can use in other pieces. 5. We learn how to play our instrument idiomatically by hearing it played in context. 6. We begin to appreciate the depth and scope of jazz history when we know about the history of our instrument, and its players. 7. We learn how to mess with a melody. A first step to soloing with finesse. "Learn the melody, mess with the melody, then mess with the mess" Louis Armstrong If I can help you on your journey, call me. David Revised August 2022 Lesson Plan Materials needed:
Have fun. If I can help, call me. David revised August 2022 Do you have enough time to take piano lessons?
Given the demands of overscheduled lives, most adults will have to give up some activity to make room for a new one. Google "how many hours does the average adult spend surfing on their phones?" Cutting that in half will free up enough time to learn piano. Call me when you are ready. David Revised August 2022 Why do we practice slow to go fast? We all play like we practice. If we practice carefully, thoughtfully, and methodically our odds of playing expressively, confidently, and at a steady tempo go up significantly. Let's consider one aspect of this: Slow practice. 1. Starting slowly allows us to consider our motions at the piano. 2. Slow allows us to play steadier while learning. Remember playing quickly and stumbling about may make our stumbling get embedded in our playing. 3. Speeding up bit by bit as our skills increase with the scales, chords, arpeggios, etudes, and pieces is a good strategy. 4. To play fast eventually we will have to practice fast. It is good practice to have our musical moves together before sprinting through the music. David revised August 2022  Sight-reading tips
Revised August 2022 This will help you learn the diatonic chords of E major. Watch the crossover with the left hand and the change of clef in measure 11. The left-hand fingering is 531; the right-hand is 135. Revised August 2022  
This is what Rick is working on.
Rick’s memorized list of tunes with study links.
Steps to solo fluency.
Revised August 2022 Many poor readers erroneously believe that printing the note names on their music will help them to read the music easier. This is a misunderstanding of how musicians read music. Music moves too quickly in time to identify all the notes as they play. Instead of seeing single notes, musicians see patterns of notes. One important source of this pattern knowledge comes from understanding musical rudiments, such as intervals (steps, skips, and repeats between notes), key signatures, harmony (chord recognition), melodic direction (does the melody go up or down?), dynamics (loud or soft), and rhythm. When the student prints out all the notes, they skip these important ideas especially rhythm and note direction. This leads to poor results. To read music fluidly the student will need to address these knowledge deficiencies. If you would like some help in this area, call me. David Revised August 2022  I'm always trying new ideas with students to keep it fresh for us both. This warm-up assumes you know the correct fingerings for each position. (The right scale at the 10th starts with 31234 etc. The broken chords and arpeggios in the right start with finger 1.) This exercise should be transposed into a different key at each practice session. Tempo markings are only suggestions. If I can help you, call me. David Revised August 2022
Playing the piano is much easier when the scales and chords have become automatic in our hands. Below is the fingering chart for all 3 note chords like C major and G minor. I've cropped this image from a student's notes. If I can help you, call me. David  How to play fast comes up in lessons frequently. Let's get the basics out of the way first.
Now some often-overlooked facets of quick playing.
If I can help you, call me. David  Some days and weeks are going to be difficult. Life will get in the way. Here are some suggestions I gave one adult beginner to help relieve his practice room blues.
If I can help you, call me. David Revised August 2022 One of my adult students was asking tonight for some help planning his practice time. He is preparing for his Grade 8 piano exam. He is an engineer, a spreadsheet kind of guy. I'm sympathetic. Here is what we discussed. Warmup with sight reading. Use a metronome! Get into the zone. Now start practicing Technique with a 2-minute timer. Switch activities every 2 minutes = 15 minutes
Practice one short section to perfection =15 minutes Theory =10 minutes Ear Training = 10 minutes Review completed piece or pieces 10 minutes BOOM! one hour of accomplishment This may work for you. David Revised August 2022
Please excuse this short story in which I’m the hero. I’m learning to play the jazz xylophone. I started at Christmas 2021. I practice every day with my 100-year-old textbook, a stack of tunes that I want to learn, my video recorder and oodles of desire. Here is the process I usually follow.
The video below is an unedited version. Notice it took just a brief period of time to accomplish something because I didn’t try to do everything at once. David Revised August 2022 Another day in the teaching studio and another diverse set of pieces. Someone stated that an average piano teacher teaches 600+ titles a year. I believe it.
Up next: Music rehearsal with my friends, the pianist Jim Finlayson and bassist Rory Slater. I'll be drumming. We've been meeting every 2 weeks for years. It is always a highlight of my week playing tunes from the "Great American Songbook". Lots of Porter, Corea, Hancock, and Ellington. Back to class 7. Prelude in Db by Glière 8. Fantasia in D minor K397 by Mozart 9. Pumpkin boogie by Faber 10. Sonatina in C by Faber 11. Drum rudimental warmups 12. Never Going To Give You Up by Rick Ashley 13. Theory class RCM 8 and Band Lab DAW Now to the drummers 14. Video game music 15. 3/4 Scottish snare drum solo 16. Free Fallin' by Tom Petty 17. Rollin' in the deep by Adele 18. Superstition by Stevie Wonder Revised August 2022  Another day of teaching piano and drum set comes to an end. Here is today’s student repertoire.
Marching by Kabalevsky Skating Waltz by Berlin Love Me Tender by Elvis Claire de Lune by Debussy Les Baricades Misterieuses by Couperin Chitlin’s Con Carne by Burrell Etudes by Scriabin Prelude and Fugue in Bb by Bach Clementi Etude in E by Clementi Serenade by Haberbier Cancion by Mompou Cottontail by Ellington Kamado Tanjiro no Uta by Shiina and Ufotable Watermelon Man by Hancock Haunted mouse by Faber and Faber Forest Drums by Faber and Faber Dinah by Fats Waller Never Going to Give you up by Ashley Street of Dreams by Ella Scottish ¾ March It’s Only A Paper Moon by Nat King Cole Meditation by Jobim Night train by Forrest Time for a beer. Revised August 2022 Playing in different keys is an invaluable skill. You will learn to visualize musical shapes, key signatures, and hear rhythm in new ways. Try playing just the melody in the following keys with the recordings. Modify your note and rhythm choices to fit in the best you can.
The assignment is to play and mimic the melody with the recordings. You will learn jazz rhythm, jazz articulations and phrasing all by ear. Have fun. David Revised August 2022 Level 1: Fun is guaranteed in level 1 by just showing up and playing. Playing in a community concert band or at the family Christmas party would be an example. On the lesson front, level 1 is leisurely and steady. Level 2: You are going to perspire. Lessons will be intense. You may be getting ready to audition to play in a high-level community group. Or you may be preparing for an exam. Regardless, the musical standards are high. Daily deliberate practice of an hour or more will be required. Success is a near certainty given enough grit and time. Level 3 is going to hurt, tears will be shed. But you are all in. Your daily focus is piano. You dream of Carnegie Hall. You have multiple lines of attack. You put yourself out there. You are preparing to be an Olympian. Many dream, few make it. But this doesn't deter you. Large amount of time and money will be spent. Results not guaranteed. Athletic parallels Level 1: Weekend running group. Level 2: Marathon preparation. It's going to hurt, but you will live to tell the tale. Level 3: Extreme endurance running. You might die. Let me know where you stand. David Revised August 2022  I spent the summer of 2001 making music on the Mediterranean near Santa Pola, Spain in a small apartment overlooking the sea. I fondly remember the sun, the heat, the paella, the wine, the flowers, and the nightly walks along the seaside promenade.
Now to the story. I had had big plans of dragging my portable piano to Spain. At the check-in counter in Toronto the agent promptly rejected the piano in the lovely crate I had built. The airline won’t let me check it as baggage because they said it was as big and heavy as a coffin. Dejected I sent it home in an in-law’s car trunk. As luck would have it, I had another in-law in Spain with an old unused Casio keyboard of sixty-five keys, one pedal, a stand, and books of Bach and Chopin. I set up that keyboard in a window with the ocean view. Then I started playing during the long afternoon siestas. Bach, Chopin, and I quickly fell in love. Apparently so did my new neighbors who, unbeknownst to me, heard me practicing hours on end through that open window. Back in Canada I started asking about for a “Classical” piano teacher. A professor from McMaster University recommended Leon Karan. I set up a lesson. It didn’t go well. I banged through some scales and thumped out my Bach. Though I was embarrased and humiliated, Leon was kind. After I recovered, he said, “you are of course going to do your ARCT?” “I am?” Five thousand hours later I earned an ARCT diploma in piano pedagogy and won a national scholarship. Thank you, Leon, for your patience. You changed my life. David Revised August 2022 |
You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail. AuthorI'm a professional pianist and music educator in West Toronto Ontario. I'm also a devoted percussionist and drum teacher. Categories
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