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Hello, I'm a fairly new PW member and have received great opinions on finding a new Baby Grand. And now I would greatly appreciate any advice on what I have found to be a difficult qurstion.
Practicing for an hour or two using regular sheet music seems to me to be straight forward. However, if practicing from a fake book and improvising with your left hand or if practicing various licks while improvising along chord lines, what is the best way to practice?
I have read a lot about playing from a fake book, taken lessons, but the practice technique seems not very straight forward to me.
This may be an obvious newbie question but it seems that I know a lot more in my head than I have passed to my hands. How best to pursue a fake bok and improvisation practice regime?

There is unfortunately no best way to practice. If your goal is to improvise on standards I would suggest the following...

1 - learn the melody and chord sequence from the fake book and then put book away forever.

2 - learn to improvise on the melody and sequence.

For me I find that playing the tune/sequence in real time is the most important thing. If that is too tricky then go slow or take an easier tune. Use a metronome or backing track if required to keep your rhyhmn in check.

Learning to improvise really deserves a book by itself, or better still a decent teacher, and how you go about it is entirely dependant on your abilities, A few things you could try are...

- play root in lh, and 3 and 7 guide tones in rh
- play simple voicings in lh and the melody in rh
- play a proper bassline in lh and add in some more interesting voicings in rh
- 2 handed voicings, as if you are comping behind a horn player
- single line rh improvisation
- single line improvisaion lh
- solo using block chords
- try some different chord substitutions
- same again in another key
- up the tempo, slow the tempo, try it in 7/4 !
These are just a few suggestions to get you going. The things you can do are only limited by your imagination.
If there is one part of the sequence that is particularly tricky then isolate that and loop round 4 bar sections, a particular 2 5 1 for example. Stop and experiment to find some better voicings or better stategies of getting round these parts, and then do it again, and again and again.
I believe improvisation is like a language, and the only way to learn is to actually do it.

3 - listen to as many versions as possible of the tune played by the jazz greats. Take a mental note of how they are getting round the tune, what voicings they are using etc. Transcribing is good for you. Developing good ears is essential.

4 - away from the piano get used to humming the tune, improvising over the sequence in your head, visualising the chord shapes, mentally transposing sequence and chord shapes to different keys, hear the walking bass, tap out new cross rhythms, etc. Do it all the time.

And have fun with it.

You've made one wrong move so far
by buying a baby grand. We are
living in the Digital Piano Era, and
acoustic pianos are on their way out.
Digital pianos offer so many advantages
over acoustic pianos that they are
sending them the way of the harpsichord and
clavichord, that is, into obsolescence.

Don't compound the error now by approaching
improvisation in the wrong way too.
Like many people, you're trying to
learn to improvise by playing from
a fake book/lead sheet, but that's
doing it backwards. You improvise
first, to train your ear, and then
you'll be able to play by ear,
arrange, compose, play from a fake
book, sight-read, etc. Improvisation
is actually the key to everything
on the piano, and you do it first,
before everything else.

To improvise you sit down at the
piano (a digital is far superior
for this than an acoustic) and dig
in with both hands and all ten
fingers and play purely by ear, with
no consideration for any music
theory. When you do this, you are not
playing any particular chords, just
bunches of notes with one or both
hands--you make up your own
chord-like structures. And you
are not playing any particular
scales or arpeggios, just what might
resemble scale or arpeggio-type
runs--you make up your own, on the
fly. And so forth.

Anything goes when you improvise, and
you might not even restrict yourself
to using ten fingers. You might
your your palms, fists, forearms,
etc., if it suits you. And you
give no heed to what anyone says
is the proper way to play--you're
improvising, not doing textbook
drills.

To ears used to hearing nicely finished
compositions and polished recordings,
this type of improvisation might
sound awful, like a chimp pounding
on a keyboard, but that's exactly
what you want--that's what improvisation
is all about, being original, not
playing according to some textbook.
And like anything on the piano,
this takes practice and experience.
After you've done this for a while,
you'll probably lose all interest
in playing from fake books or
making arrangements of popular
tunes. You're making you own
music, which is far superior to
merely arranging someone else's.

Hi Gyro. I have a partial quote from your above post. Your statement here invalidates your entire post above. Your only useful info was about ear training.

To help, here is a link to a nice ear training site: http://miles.be/

Shells in Left Hand (7th or 3rd)

Right Thumb on 7th or 3rd (whichever is NOT already being played by the Left Thumb)

Main melody is always played on top (A moving to G in this example)

After playing the main melody you may improvise your own lead lines using mostly chords tones while continuing to play left hand shells like shown below. You do not need to keep playing the right thumb harmony note while you are soloing unless you want to.

Gyro I'd like to hear some of your improvising based on what you mentioned above. Care to post a song or 2?

I have a feeling you don't really play the piano at all and just spout utter nonsense.

What kind of information is this? I want to know more about the fact that acoustic pianos are out.
Please give more information on this topic.


After how many days of improvising can I arrange, let's say, a Big Band chart?



How do I know that I don't play scales and arpeggios when I don't know what scales and arpeggios are?




More than ten? or what you mean?



My neighbours are complaining. Shall I close the window?





Wiki says:
the art of improvisation can be understood as composing music "on the fly". This of course requires great skill and knowledge, and is a very important aspect of music in general, for any experienced musician.
...Work within the idiom and music-theory of the certain style to express ideas with creativity and originality.

That sounds better. ;-)

I'm going to try Gyro's tip to not use your fingers to play piano but use other body parts. I'm going to record a cd and call it, "Fists of Fury on the Keyboard". It should go platinum!

Gyro,

Why do you think a digital is superior to an acoustic with respect to improvisation?

fingers

Shells in Left Hand (7th or 3rd)

Right Thumb on 7th or 3rd (whichever is NOT already being played by the Left Thumb)

Main melody is always played on top (A moving to G in this example)

After playing the main melody you may improvise your own lead lines using mostly chords tones while continuing to play left hand shells like shown below. You do not need to keep playing the right thumb harmony note while you are soloing unless you want to.

Wizard of Oz, I could post something,
but I won't, because the point is to
not listen to other pianists but
to develop your own way of playing.
I have the impression that like so
many other jazz players here you're
working from a textbook and/or trying
to imitate the jazz greats. What is
the point of playing just like some
other person? You might as well not
play if you're going to do that.

Cudo, several forum members have recently
bought good, but unspectacular, acoustic
upright pianos in the ~$6000 price range.
For the same price they could get a
V Piano or a CLP 380, essentially
concert grands. Add to this the advantages
of light weight, volume control,
instant record and playback, no
maintenance or tuning, durability and
reliability, and one would have to say
that choosing an upright is insane.

As for how many days of improvising before
you can arrange for Big Bands, I would
put it more in years than days. But
in any case, people have been arranging
for Big Bands since the 1930's. Of
course you could go into that field,
but wouldn't you rather do something
original instead?

Fingers, a digital has volume control
and a headphone jack, and so you
can improvise and not disturb anyone,
as you develop your style from what
might initially be hard on people's ears.
You spend $100,000 on a concert grand
and there's no volume control. So
even a $500 digital is superior to
a concert grand in that respect.

On the subject of acoustic pianos, even though I think he is one of the best pianists in the world, why is Keith Jarrett so anti electric? It's saves a lot of money to get a digital piano. Is he just a snob, or is there another reason?

I have a Yamaha Clavinova and the piano sample is superb.

Eventually I want a Nord Stage which has a Steinway sample on and sounds incredible, just like the real McCoy.Plus it has lots of great other sounds too.

An electric piano is just not like a real piano, they are a very poor imitation. Of course they have a use, when the gig doesn't have a real piano or if you don't have space or money for the real deal, but there really is no comparison. Any electric piano, even V piano, is just a toy in comparison to a Steinway D.

Yeah, I know theres nothing like the real thing but since most people don't have£100,000 to splash out on a steinway, an electric piano is the next best thing.

There are forces at work in the jazz
piano community that are trying to
make it just like classical, that is,
fossilized and hidebound, where
people must play in a certain accepted
way and only play the "classics,"
in the style of the jazz greats,
with nothing else acceptable.

And this carries over into the
choice of pianos. Now, only a Steinway
concert grand is acceptable for
a jazz performer.

Gyro, imitation is the way all jazz musicians learn. Everyone tries to find their own voice, but you need to hear all the masters before you. Branford Marsalis said he was imitating people even in his 20's, it's like a fine wine, it takes time to really develop your own voice.

If you skip this process you end up sounding bad, like a person who's learning a new language but doesn't bother with vocabulary, grammar, and articulation.

Wizard of OZ,

Gyro doesn't really play jazz.. and considering the other posts he wrote on classical/jazz piano, you shouldn't take what he say too seriously

Yea, don't pay any attention to Gyro. I suspect he is a borderline troll. He posts simply to get others to react to his posts. Doubtful he even plays piano, at least with his fingers anyway.

Real pianos are cheap these days. I have a couple. I am thinking of selling my upright and will probably get £3-400, and that is a LOT less than my electric piano and accessories cost. Its even got a nice rich tone, for a budget piano. I would rather play that every time to my top of the range electric piano.

Gyro,

WOW! I never looked at it that way.
You're a genius. You really ought to publish you're findings.

fingers