Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical Play popular music in a more "sofisticated" way?

Hi all.
I have a lot of popular music sheets that has the chords printed above the treble staff. As I'm pretty sure most of the popular music comes in that way.

So I want to play it in a more "sofisticated" way, and not just play the chord as written and just lay the melody line...

As a totally newbie I even don't know what's the correct term of what I'm looking for? Is this improvisation? Can you please clarify this for me?

Where do I begin? What do I need to start learning?

Thanks

Well, you need to learn modern chords! Start with seventh chords and learn how to play them in both hands. Once you have your chords down, you can voice them anyway you want.

That's when the magic starts to happen.

Eweiss, thanks. Here's an example in Encore to you have a look what I mean:

http://www.4shared.com/account/file/122030789/e5cefcfe/I_say_a_little_prayer__movie_theme_.html

Thanks

I think I got the correct term: Fake sheets. So how to play fake sheets just not the way it is written.

Here's how I'm playing this music (just the first part).



Sorry for the tempo mistakes, but it's first sight reading.
My parents are sleeping so I couldn't play it louder.
Would love any feedback!

There are basically three types of popular/jazz sheet music
that you can get. The most readily available is the
"piano-voice-guitar chords" variety, which has the melody
line and the words to the song, with guitar chord symbols
above, and a full piano rendition below. These piano
arrangements are typically intermediate level, which
just about anyone can handle.

Then there is the sheet music which is
a fully-written-out professional type of arrangement. These
are not as common, because of the difficulty of
playing the music.

The last type is what is known as a "lead sheet" or
"fake book." This typically has just a melody
line and the chord symbols, with no written out
piano rendition. These are harder to find and
are intended mainly for professional players, who
can improvise a full piano arrangement using
just this sketchy outline of the music.

All three types of scores can be informative for learning how
to make a sophisticated arrangment. For example,
if you had the same song in all three versions:
intermediate-level, "piano-vocal-guitar chords"
rendition; advanced-level, fully-written-out
arrangement; and pro-type lead sheet, you could
then examine them to see how, from a basic melody,
a full piano arrangement was derived.

But in any case, you need to start improvising, because
that is where you learn how to arrange. How exactly
to do this is going to vary from person to person,
because each person will have different interests.
Basically you just start pounding out stuff on the
piano. For example, play the three 4-note chords:
D F A C, E G B D, and F A C E, on the piano. Using
just those three chords, in any order, you can improvise
all kinds of tunes by playing just white keys in the r.h.
Then you can add more chords. And so forth.

There's a really good topic that started 2 years ago, just run a search on Autumn Leaves. You'll learn a whole bunch...it's a really long topic, and it doesn't show up easily, at least not for me, because it's so old, but if you put it on your watched topics list, you'll be able to find it once you've gotten started.

Also, I subscribe to jazzpianolessons.com. For about $25 per month, you can have access to dozens of videos by Willie Myette who is a really good teacher, from very basic improvisation techniques up to an intermediate and higher level. I really like this site. He includes PDF files for all the materials, he walks you through specific songs, there are lessons on boogie-woogie and blues....it's very well put together. AND you can get a 3 day free trial just for going to the site and entering your email. It's a family business, he's very honest, and it's hassle free. If you decide to quit, he might send you an email asking why, but that's it. Also, if you have any questions or problems and email, he personally responds to you. No affiliates, no hard sell...highly recommended.

Dave S. who posts here also has some free lessons which he has put up which are really good. I'm subscribing to several free lesson sites right now.

https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubb...2/topic/005653/Number/0/site_id/1#import

(had it bookmarked :D)

Yipes. That's a great thread ...