Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical Join the JOI jazz joint !

Hi 10
I would have thought that thumb under would be smoother too. But try the lateral hand shift, you will be very surprised. It's a great technique for Book 2 when the tunes get harder.

I will bear that in mind.

Good point about these exercises facilitating lateral hand movement. I’ve noticed that and I’ve wondered about the relationship to thumb-over fingering.

WRT the comment about minor scales, I think they are covered, since the natural minors are modes of majors, and since all minors are the same if you only do the first five notes. However, that does bring up the fact that these exercises focus only on the bottom five notes, which leaves out some of the interesting and useful possibilities, e.g., the upper parts of bebop scales or harmonic minors, or even the modes of the major scales. I’ve also thought about playing these patterns over pentatonics, but that might involve some uncomfortable stretching, I’m not sure. They might work better over whole tone or diminished scales since they are not so spread out; I’m not sure how useful that would be.

For now, I have plenty to do. My plan du jour is to separate RH and LH and play them at their individual max speeds.

Ed

Not really, since you do notes root-5, then 2-6, followed by 3-7, 4-R, 5-2, 6-3, 7-4 and finish with R-5, before going back down. So it does cover the whole scale, but in steps.

I was thinking again of doing them also in minors. I know, in theory, the minor scale is just a mode of the major. But there's more to it than that. The raised 7th is a cognitive step beyond what I can think about when I'm playing - I need to make it automatic. It really is a mental thing rather than a physical. So when I'm doing C major, I'm thinking 'C major'. I'm not thinking 'A minor starting in a weird place'. And I probably do need to have harmonic and melodic minors at my finger tips equally as well as majors, which means I need to dedicate more time to minors, not less.

btw, I survived the guitar party yesterday. Will be glad to take a break from So What.

in book 2 the hanons get wider, and a couple of the hanons are in melodic minor..

DF

Order JOI last week. Hoping it comes in today. I'll soon find out!

Welcome to the club!

Thanks. Didn't come in, though.

Next planned music store visit is Tuesday.

I'm very interested to see this method. I'm not exactly a beginner jazz student, but I do teach. And I, as of yet, not come across a true method (such as Faber or Alfred) for jazz that I truly like.

Do you truly like Faber and Alfred? I've not seen them, but so far I've not seen any method book for anything that I truly like. They can be useful, though, provided no-one expects them to do everything. They can only facilitate.

Jazz is doubly difficult, I think, to prescribe activities that will lead to the learner being able to play jazz.

From what I can gather, JOI seems to work mostly on the principle of absorption. Bit like immersion for language learning.

Hope your book arrives soon.

Yeah, I like Faber and Alfred. No, I don't expect them to do everything. (I should hope not, anyway, then I'd be out of a job!) You're absolutely correct, they are there to facilitate. But the teacher must be good enough to recognize what needs more work, other strategies to learning, etc.

But even THAT I haven't found in the jazz idiom. Half the books I see start in the first chapter saying "learn all the scales in all keys starting on all scale degrees". Well, thanks. LOL. THAT'S not overwhelming at all...

Quite.

Wow, for a second or two I misread your post (as above), and I was really looking forward to book 2!

Ed

I did exactly the same thing. Wild hanons, what a thought!

haha, a Freudian typo, actually in Book 2 they get WIDER and wilder:)

DF

Actually, wild hanons are quite tasty when roasted on an open grill and served with lightly salted arpeggios!

save the hanons!

How about some gluten-free voicings?

Wow, I am a celiac, I do gluten-free eveything!

Hanon from book 3:

[video:youtube]-8sJPG0FFUE[/video]

man that was great! Right with him:) was that at full tempo?

DF