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Rosa, let me share with you a little exercise I did early on to help with accenting. I set the metronome to click on eighth notes - which means I am going very slowly. Then, I played a simple C scale in eighth notes - keeping the eighth notes even and legato. Then I accented each AND of the beat.

If it still doesn't feel right for accenting, set the metronome slower. This exercise gave my fingers the idea of how it feels to accent those off beats.

That's an idea Barb. Thanks for the tips. Also have you been practising the AL scale exercise back in Lesson 8. If you have, do you have a new midi file for me to listen to so I can play along with the Charleston rhythm and accenting the offbeat?

Rosa

Rosa- you're not sleeping tonight???

I just edited my previous post and added the word "legato".

I haven't done the AL scale exercise in a while. I'll hunt down the midi for you.

Rosa, in general, I would put more of my effort on accenting the offbeat than worrying about the length of each eighth note. You can play jazz with even eighth notes as Brad Mehldau proves. It's where you put the notes (within a beat) and the accents that count.

I would start off practicing scales and accenting the +. It has to be 100% legato. Only quarter notes are played detached. If it's not legato it will not sound like jazz. You can accomplish this by practicing a little bit of "overholding" (i.e. don't release the prior note until the next note is sounded, a short overlap will occur).

Barb, great job on the head-solo-head recording! Man, those rootless voicings sound awesome. I need to work on getting the LH back in there. It still throws my soloing off in a big way.

Rosa, I like your solo. That's definitely your best one yet. The accenting and phrasing stuff is very difficult. Just keep working at it and it will improve. I've played that scale exercise (forget the lesson #) countless times and I think it really helped with my phrasing. I haven't done as much metronome work as I should. What Barb suggested sounds like a good idea.

I had a really long practice session last night, which was nice for a change. I'm going to try and hit it again tonight and make a recording to post.

Oh, and welcome Woody!

Last night, I went to watch my teacher at a jazz concert. He's a world class jazz musician and was playing with some equally hefty names.

As I was paying attention to the stuff he was doing, it really made it clear to me what separated the "boys from the men" in jazz, so to speak. It's their control of time. It's not even the note choices. He would play a fast stream of eighth notes, straight like Brad Mehldau, but where the eighth notes land is a VERY big deal.

I don't have a 100% complete understanding of this yet but the contrast of a very straight in the pocket rhyhtm section against some off centered landing of the eighth notes or triplet eighths and triplet quarters. is a very big deal. The general term for this is rhythmic displacement.

I want to learn how to do this. I understand it theoretically but don't know how to practice it, especially alone.

So here I hound you guys about being on the pocket, accenting, swing. These are foundational. Limitless excitement to be found in the long run.

Focus on the swing and the rhythm. It's the backbone of jazz.

I'm off to a lesson in a moment...

It's way past my sleeping time 2:30 AM but I had to hear from you guys first before I turn this computer off. Deeluk, thanks for your comments also. 'I must sleep' now. And Jazzwee, have a good time in your lesson and come back and share more secrets with us.

Rosa

There you are Deeluk. Thank you for the encouraging words on that LH of mine. When I solo, all I can do is strike rootless on beat 1. For the head, I was able to syncopate the LH. Actually, I played along for many days with Jazzwee's AL combo midi to get into the stabbing LH mood.

Looking forward to hearing your next recording.

Hey Barb, I never left either. Just have had almost zero piano time over the past week or so. Travelling again was part of it. But I don't want to make excuses. I just need to stay up later. Who needs sleep, right?

So, what is the LH pattern you were using there over the head? On the 1, on the + of 2 and on the + of 3? I know this was discussed way back when. I should get off my duff and go read it...

I have no idea what the left hand was doing. As I said, I had been practicing with Jazzwee in his AL Combo track. Playing along with him as he played - trying to copy what he did. I don't think there is any set LH pattern that was discussed on the thread - besides Charleston.

No, you don't need sleep - you got JAZZ!!!!!

No worries. I'll listen closely and figure it out. Or dig up the old discussion.

All,
What a great supporting group you have here on the thread. So let's see if I have this right....
Based on the last two pages you've got Chris in Sweden (with a new baby - CONGRATS!!!), Rosa in Hong Kong, Jazzwee on the west coast, Barb on the east coast, deeluk in Colorado and now me monitoring from the deep south. What a group!!! This has got to be the most lively thread on PW!!!

Usually on on line all day long in my office. I can't bring up any indirect links (It's a government computer). I also am on-line around 4:30 AM central time on my home computer and do have the ability to listen to everyone's work at that time. Once I get my piano in tune, I'll start lloking for something to record with and start my postings - Promise.

Yup, great group here Woody. Glad you're going to join us. Once you get your piano sorted, the Zoom H4 and H2 are the ticket I think. I don't have experience with either, but from what I have read here, they're the best for a compact one-shot solution. Of course, if you want to get more serious, complicated and expensive, you can. But, for our purposes, those would suit perfectly. Then again, you could always do what our fearless leader has done. Just go buy a Yamaha Motif XS6.

Just to remind everyone again. LH comping of Charleston is 1, 2+. Sometimes it will be 2+, 1, or 2+ by itself or 1 by itself, or 1, 2+, 1 or 2+, 1, 2+. These are the varieties that Barb hears from my comping. Believe it or not it's still Charleston based.

So I still practiced comping Charleston style and then I stab only occasionally, which gives that characteristic jazz comp feel.

Typically you comp only when you need to fill an empty space so comping is not something you'd normally do on every beat during a solo.

It's important to get the rootless feel comfortable in the LH, especially the voice leading aspects of it (very little movement). It anchors the time for the RH so don't skip practicing it.

Comping itself could be just a stab, a half note, or whole note,... it can be whatever you want or a mix of all the above. Typically you would practice comping with just whole notes on the beat 1. Then when you get to Charleston comping then you'd target 1 and 2+ (at times when you need to stab).

Welcome to the group Woody. The more people here the merrier. Yes, this is an around-the-world thread.

Jazzwee, while working on the offbeat accent, I am going to repeat what I did to Autumn Leaves (3rds, Shell Voicing, walking bass, solo) to another song. Earlier you suggested All the Things You Are, My Romance....which one do you think is within my ability now? What about O Danny Boy?

In a very early post, you mentioned something like this:

I had not come in at that time. Do you mean that if we just do 1/7 LH and RH put in the 3 5 & 9 under the melody -- that is enough to play any songs with power.

Rosa

Barb, did you specifically practice doing an arpeggiation of EACH chord? Do that and forget about soloing for a moment. I want to build your vocabulary. So start the arpeggiation at the 3rd of the chord and go all the way to the 9th.

So on Am7, play C E G B. and repeat for each chord. This is the way Bill Evans plays. I want to make sure you're comfortable with arpeggiation beyond two notes. Usually you'll cut your lines too short like you don't have anything else to say. By learning how to arpeggiate up and down, Let's say C E G B G E C A, you already have automatically 8 notes to fill a measure. Arpeggiation is a common jazz vocabulary. You will find it to be a common theme among many jazz pianists in some proportion or another. Very high proportion with Bill Evans.

I want to get you off a rut on picking notes so you can concentrate on the rhythmic aspects. Don't do anything else yet until you master this.

Let me know when you're comfortable with this and then I'll move you to the next assignment. I want you to able to come up with a stream of eighth notes that is paused only because you lifted your fingers off the keys, not because you ran out of ideas. So consider this STEP 1 to Vocabulary building.

Rosa, each lesson builds on a necessary skill to knowledge of jazz. Not all the lessons are necessarily directly connected since some are based on combo style playing and some on solo style playing and another on comping. So let me explain this again.

1. Shell 1/7 Voicings are the Basis of Solo Piano playing style. It is merely a starting point for your fingers because in the end, in later lessons, we will fill in the inner voices inside the structure of a shell voicing.

So a shell voicing is great to start learning a tune for the first time. It is also good for practicing to solo with accompaniment since you can clearly hear the root and you are forced to define the quality of the chords through your solo (usually by integrating thirds into the picture).

2. In a later lesson, Shell Voicings are expanded into a two handed form, initially 2+2 where you are voicing the 7, 3, 9 as inner voices.

3. 2+3 or 1,7 + 3,5,9

Is a specific comping voicing that you can use to have full sounding chords using all the registers of the piano and it is not used to play with a melody. This is chords only. For example you do this when accompanying a singer or another soloist.

If you want to add the melody to solo piano than I would use 2 + 2 or 2 + 1 where I'm voicing the root, 7th, 9th, 3rd in a middle voicing and the melody note on top. In this case, you do not put the 9th on top to give you room for the melody note to be played with the pinky. I believe this was discussed in the Solo Piano voicing section.

4. Rootless Chords - In the end, you will need to really know rootless chords by heart as this is the foundation of most jazz voicings. From here you start to sound more sophisticated. So before anything else, even before Walking bass, I would make sure I understood how to construct ANY rootless chord voicing.

5. Walking Bass is part of a solo piano style to give a medium swing tempo to a tune. In real use, tunes are mixed between various styles. You might play part of a tune with 2+x, then Walking Bass, then Rootless chords with bass stride. This constant change is what makes solo piano interesting. So all these skills are part of it.

Just read each Lesson carefully and ask me questions about a specific lesson if it isn't clear as any other response out of context will be confusing. Like I don't know what your quote refers to actually.

As far as learning other tunes, I highly recommend learning shell voicings and 2+2 on All the Things That You Are. This is kind of a baseline tune that's difficult but you learn a lot about applying voicings to because it's much more complicated than AL.

The next step up from All the Things is something like Stella by Starlight.

I hestitate recommending tunes like O Danny Boy because these don't have the challenging jazz voicings that will really test your skills and make you improve.

These tunes I mention are all suitable for ballad style playing and non-swing.

There's a lot of answers here so if you want me to expand on a specific issue let me know.

What a GREAT review!!!! I came in when Lesson 8 came on the scene but I had to backtrack doing the earlier lessons in sequence, so probably got some lessons mixed up. Now I know what you mean.

OK then, I will try shell voicings & 2+2 for All the things you are.

The quote there is from the following link: p16, 13th post down.

http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?/topic/32/5653/16.html

Rosa

All I was saying there Rosa is that it is not literally 1,3,5,7 of each chord. The quality of each chord modifies each interval and then in the lesson I say what actual notes to play. So ignore this.

When someone says play the chord tones 1,3,5,7, it refers to the intervals of a seventh chord, not a literal translation since a 3rd could be b3 or a 7 could be a b7.

OKeeedooo, thanxs for the clarification.