A related question, Hayden: in Over the Rainbow, iRealPro has the traditional intro before ‘breaking’ into the main body of the tune. Any way to skip that intro (I am working on my own using your instructions)? I suspect not, except if that tune can be edited (which I did not try) or somehow mute the intro (while playing my own that has to be in sync, of course). As we would say in my native country: “the one who asks, does not wonder aimlessly.”
Thanks. Smole
P.S. I have decided on my course of action from now on: since it is very, very unlikely I will ever play except for “my own soul”, I am now turning my attention to every and all lessons in the PG course to playing solo piano. There is plenty of material in this domain, I am set for who knows how long.
You can also select one bar, then hit ‘play’, and that is where the backing track will start from. I didn’t demonstrate this in the video above, but it follows the same concept just without dragging to select more bars.
I hope this helps answer your question
I can certainly relate to that Smole! Playing solo is my main passion and where I get the most enjoyment from.
It may be worth noting that many jazz musicians consider improvising over ballads to be one of the hardest types of jazz performance.
This is because when playing on our own in a solo setting, it reveals all of our flaws and inaccuracies.
On the contrary, if we are playing in a band with other musicians, there is less attention on you, and also the rhythm is being driven by the drummer, which takes one of the roles.
When improvising solo piano, it’s common to play a stride left hand to establish the rhythm. I think it would be nice for us to revisit some ballad tunes in this style and explore some exercises and concepts for creating simple but effective improvised material.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I knew that asking you I’ll get a practical advise. Both for the iRealPro and for my next phase of study. I will add recording myself (video or audio) that Dan enabled me to do with his also excellent advice and guidance; that will help with overseeing the accuracy of my playing.
Thanks a bunch, again, and now to work…again. Love it, Smole
"When improvising solo piano, it’s common to play a stride left hand to establish the rhythm. I think it would be nice for us to revisit some ballad tunes in this style and explore some exercises and concepts for creating simple but effective improvised material.
I will plan a series of lessons on this "
Could not agree more now that I am using stride piano style with Tenderly, Over the Rainbow, and Just Friends. Will continue, of course, I seriously follow all your suggestions/instructions. Best, Smole
What you explained in response to my question, iRealPro calls “Looping”. You are, of course, right: a very useful feature for a persistent student to use with practice. Best, Smole
Brilliant article there Smole, I’m just reading over it all.
And “Looping” is a more succinct and logical term than my “Select & Repeat”
Wonderful.
The goal is to be able to play the left hand stride without having to focus much attention on it… so that the left hand almost instinctively knows its way through the changes.
This frees up the mind and allows allows us to focus and immerse ourselves on right hand melodies.
It’s something I’ve been working on so we can attack it together. Looking forward!
I recently came across this and thought it might be useful to put a link on the Resources page, especially for new members–or those with questions about iReal Pro.
Hi Hayden and everyone, I have finally downloaded the iReal Pro app, and am very excited about working with it. Do you know how I can add an extra bar of count-in to a song ? I went into Edit Song, but not sure what the icons are ? Many thanks for your help.
Just to share that we can use our ireal pro from our android phones in our Windows PC it works like a charm.
Just installing bluestacks (still free) and connecting with our same gmail account that we use in our phone, no need to pay a second time.
Ireal pro really a great app when not finding in all your charts , try a search in the forum there are thousands more in it
sharing chords get not any problem of copyright so no problem at all to share whatever you have transcribe - only melody have copyright . Thats one of the secret of this enormous library
i am using the sandbox to share charts for jamming it is so convenient and nice done
I am a bit frustrated… I just joined “pianogroove.”
got started with piano jazz/impro. Out of no where I see
iRealpro… I cannot seem to download in my windows PC.
Very frustrated -please help.
I would recommend installing the iRealPro App on either your iPhone or your Android mobile device (depending on what brand mobile device is) and then hook this up to a speaker either with a direct cable or via Bluetooth.
The 3rd option is the most difficult to set up, and I have no experience doing this. Perhaps some other community members can help out here. For ease-of-setup I would recommend using one of the iRealPro mobile apps. The iRealPro also works great on mobile and it’s simple and intuitive to navigate, load the songs, hook up to speakers etc…
The 1300 Jazz Standards has been updated to 1400 standards. Here’s the link if you missed the email: Jazz 1400 Standards (irealb.com)
They recommend you delete the old 1300 tunes to avoid duplicates in your local file.
Thanks for sharing this @BrianP - I have updated the link in the original post.
On a related note, the iRealPro “Holiday 100” playlist contains backing tracks for all of the Xmas tunes that we cover on PianoGroove and many more too, that playlist can be downloaded here:
They also have tonnes of practice drill backing tracks for common chords and progressions, here’s a thread containing the download links to various drills:
If i can help you just ask . where are you blocking ?
We need to install bluestacks on our PC and then it is related to our android account and our gmail so you will have all the android applications you got on your phone , on your PC
You can download the iRealPro app here: https://www.irealpro.com/ - simply select the appropriate download for your operating system (Mac, Windows)
It’s a 1-time purchase for $19.99 and definitely worth the investment to have all of these backing tracks and chord charts in your pocket wherever you go!
I have the app on both my MacBook and my iPhone and I believe the 1-time fee covers both installs.
Once you have downloaded the software, you can 1-click install the ‘jazz standards pack’ which contains all of the songs that we cover on PianoGroove - see below.
There are also packs for blues, Xmas songs, practice exercises, and much more.
"
it works like a charm.
