grego Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 I am a classicaly trained pianist who has been playing quite a few different genres most (rock/pop/country and more)of which I just learned by doing. Recently I started playing salsa and delving into Latin jazz. I also teach piano privately to students ranging from 4 years old to 70 years old and I have a few middle/high school boys wanting to learn jazz and jazz improv. How does one teach jazz improv? I have started with the blues and have tried a few Aebersold books, but I feel like my students are getting as frustrated as I am. I would like some easy tunes for them to learn by ear and transcribe a few solos. Any ideas? Thanks for your input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SK Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Here's some possibilities: Get a good jazz theory book. Several members here can suggest good ones. I can recommend this excellent book by a former band member/friend: http://www.creativejazz.com/cji.htm Learn basic improvisational skills, chords and how to reharmonize songs. Listen to jazz recordings. Ask your students who they like, and have them bring examples of their favorite recordings and music to the lesson. Get a Real Book for access to charts for most standards. Check out Lot2Learn on YouTube for instructional videos. If you ever decide you don't know more about jazz than some of your students, recommend they seek a jazz instructor. Jazz instruction exists for all levels of students. Good luck. CD: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/stevekessler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazz+ Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 dbl post Find 675 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GovernorSilver Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 My jazz piano teacher had me working out the book "Jazz Bits & Pieces" by Bill Boyd, in addition to the book he had me use for my piano basics. Boyd's book is a collection of composed pieces that introduce the flavor of jazz, as opposed to a jazz theory book. At the very least, it's something you can put your students on to buy yourself time to develop your own jazz skills or find a jazz piano teacher to send them to. Heck, when I find my own copy (still packed away in a box somewhere, post-move), I'm going to dive back into it. Except this time, for every tune in the book, I'm going to write chord changes and a bass line, record/sequence them, and solo over them too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe P Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Grego, One indispensible yet basic thing my teacher taught me was what he called the "60 Chord System". It is comprised of five chords for each note: the Maj7, the dom7, the min7 the half diminished and full diminished. He told me to play them starting with the Maj7th, drop the thumb for the dominant, drop the third finger for the min7, drop the 2nd finger for the half-diminshed and finally drop the thumb again for the full diminshed. He told me to start on G and play it on all the white keys ascending and then back down to Ab and play it on all the black keys ascending in less than 60 seconds. Starting out (1978 ) it was a real challenge, but now I can do it in about 20 seconds. To this day I have every one of those chords muscle-memoried. It is a good sized chunk of what your students will see on Real Book charts. Good luck. Regards, Joe Regards, Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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