It really helps when students post their favourite versions of the record so that I can get an idea of the style and feel. It’s also a nice way to share the records with other students.
If you want to improvise over any tune Robert, you need to know the chord changed inside out, completely by muscle memory in your left hand. Then you will be in a position to explore improv.
Looking at a lead sheet and reading chord changes will distract you from your right hand improvised lines and melodic ideas.
I’d recommend playing through with left hand voicings until you can play them at tempo without thinking.
I’ll soon be going through this entire thread and categorizing all submissions by style and feel (bluesy tunes, ballad tunes, up-tempo tunes, Latin tunes etc… )
With 2 new PianoGroove tutors onboard and more to come, we will be able to deliver tune requests much faster moving forwards.
I’d like tutors to deliver the tunes that they know well, and that suit their style of playing.
I’ll post an update in this thread once I have categorised all requests.
Would love a lesson on Wee Small Hours of the morning. Randy Halberstadt plays a great version and just heard a lovely one by Oscar Peterson a few days ago… thanks!
Tuomo is working on the following 5 tunes that have been requested by students:
On Green Dolhpin Street
Everytime We Say Goodbye
Emily
You Must Believe In Spring
Naima
And my upcoming standard lessons are:
Just Friends
Waltz For Debby
What A Difference A Day Makes
But Beautiful
Yesterdays
With our growing team of teachers, we will be able to move through tune requests much quicker… so keep the suggestions coming.
Soon I will create a new table of standards to vote on. I will start by compiling all of the suggestions in this thread.
Some of you might remember in January when I declared my goal to get all of these tunes recorded this year. An ambitious goal… but I’m feeling confident that we can get there Cheers!
May I suggest ‘let’s face the music and dance’; I believe this would help us all with the swing feel and upbeat accompaniements in the left hand. However, I may be wrong so will leave it to you.
Thanks for these suggestions… we will certainly cover all of these tunes.
I’ll add them again here for quick reference:
Let’s Face The Music & Dance
Charles Aznavour’s “She” ( Elvis Costello)
You Are So Beautiful (Joe Cocker)
Lover Man
I’d estimate that within the next month or so, we will be finishing up the table above. We can then add all of the other suggestions in this thread into a new poll, or multiple polls based on style… ballad - uptempo - waltz - latin etc…
We also have more teachers joining us shortly and so I envisage that we will greatly speed up the time from lesson request to the lesson being published.
Cheers!