Exercises:
I’ve been alternating between the foundations practice planner and extended chords & voicings practice planner on a daily basis.
I’m finding major scales challenging when playing with both hands simultaneously. Perhaps I should concentrate on a single key for an extended period before switching.
In the extended voicings exercises, I tend to skip the Herbie Hancock, Kenny Barron, and So What voicings, primarily working on basic extensions.
Today, I composed a short “etude” exclusively using Herbie, Kenny, and SW voicings to learn how to use them.
Considering major scales, yes, staying with one or two keys for a longer time is very helpful; I would recommend to take two keys that have different fingering, for exmample C major and F major, play them very slow at first, until the fingering for both hands becomes effortless, then increase tempo little by little. Then, when you really feel like you can play them (hands together) without having to think about the fingerings, move to next two.
Good thing about major scales is, once you learn C major really well, the same fingering applies to several other scales, G, D, A, E, B, as well as several minor keys as well!
Thanks for the tips. I think I really need to try to focus on only two scales at a time. It makes sense to do exactly what you said, and choose scales with different fingerings.
Once I have mastered the basic versions of the scales, do you think it is beneficial to practice scales with different interval patterns? Or what kind of exercises do you recommend?
After learning basic scales, there are many ways you can go forward; I recommend to move to Hanon book, and start going through first 20 exercises, then do them in different keys.
Remember when practicing scales:
Goal for learning scales is to be familiar and fluent with all keys, as well as have some technique development.
Best way to learn both of those things is jazz language; chord tones and melodic patterns that not only teach you about the keys and technique, can also be directly applied to you improvisation.
Here are some pages/videos on the subject of chord tones and jazz language:
Yes, I have heard of Hanon. I found a website with the 20 Hanon exercises you mentioned. I’ll have to try them out once I’ve learned the scales in all the keys. Thanks for the links to the tutorial and seminars on jazz language and chord tones. I’ll definitely watch them at some point.
I have been focusing on practicing the C and F major scales the past few days. Both hands work fine separately, but the muscle memory is not yet there when playing with both hands together. At the same time, I have been practicing arpeggios in the keys of C and F.
In terms of chords, I have done the following exercises:
major 251’s with type A, type B and closed voicings in the right hand (ii-9 - V13 - Imaj9)
major 251’s starting with so what and kenny barron voicings
For the reharmonization challenge, I have started working on a version of the song “Can’t Help Falling in Love”. It has a beautiful melody that seems to offer many possibilities for reharmonization.
I have been trying to listen to as much jazz music as possible. It is great that because I haven’t listened to much jazz music before, a whole treasure trove has opened up to me that I was not aware of. There is jazz music outside of Take Five song. My most inspiring discovery lately has been Keith Jarrett’s Standards Vol. 1 album. Incredible piano playing, but what was really amazing was the trio’s playing together. I read that they didn’t practice the songs at all before going into the studio. The result of two and a half days in the studio was three albums of music.
I completed the April reharmonization challenge. My piano playing wasn’t great, but anyway the goal was to learn reharmonization. Playing with accompaniment was challenging. In some places, I noticed that I always play the chords on the downbeats. This quickly gives the song a tango-like feel, and I don’t mean that in a good way.
I have continued to practice the C and F major scales. They are starting to go better, both hands together as well. I was thinking of moving on to the G and Bb scales next. I will keep the C and F scales for maintenance practice. I made myself a note of the 20 Hanon exercises that I have been using to add variety to the scales. I have continued to do the same harmony exercises (ii-9 - V13 - Imaj9) with different voicings.
I’ve been expanding my scale practice and am currently studying the C, G, D, F, and Bb major scales. The scales in the C → G → D direction feel a lot easier because the fingering is the same as in the C scale. Bb, on the other hand, is completely different from F.
I watched Hayden’s seminar “Sus Chords for Beginners” as a recording and am trying to apply what I learned in this month’s community challenge (Jazz ballad).
In addition, I made a short jazz etude inspired by Tuomo Bud Powell’s post. I used the chords from “Georgia” as a base, and I created a melody inspired by Bud’s song “Celia”. I used iRealPro for the backing tracks. I can only say that playing with “swing” is really difficult.
A nice tune for applying sus chords is “I Fall In Love To Easily”.
It contains many dominant chords with the root in the melody for which the sus13 voicing works perfectly. I find that this voicing opens up lots of inner voice possibilities, in particular the ‘sus to altered dominant’ movement. It’s a short tune too, just 16 bars long!
I covered it in a tutorial some time ago that you can find here:
And more recently in a seminar which you can find here:
Thanks a lot for the tips! I hadn’t decided yet which jazz ballad to arrange for the challenge, but I Fall In Love Too Easily seems like a great fit for this purpose. I’ll have to check out that tutorial and seminar. The Sus to altered chord progression sounds really cool. I haven’t been able to identify what’s happening there before, but now I might be getting a bit of a grasp on it.
You mentioned in the end of your post, that playing with swing is difficult, and I just wanted to give my thoughts on the swing feel:
You played your 8th notes in a very triplet-oriented, but I have found that 8th notes in jazz are actually a little different.
Although jazz is grounded in triplet-feel, when it comes to soloing (especially from the 1940’s on), the swinging 8th notes can be pretty much straight, and accenting makes the swing.
For example, if you listen carefully, in ‘Celia’ all the notes are pretty much straight, but the accenting creates the swing feel.
Here’s another example of great swinging 8th notes, check out the sax solo!
You’re definitely right. It’s really hard to figure out why my playing sounds wrong and doesn’t swing. Part of it is of course due to my technical shortcomings. I analyzed a small section of Bud Powell’s playing on the song Celia. And you know what, it’s exactly as you said. Bud really plays his eighth notes rhythmically somewhere between straight eighths and triplet eighths. I took a screenshot from Logic that shows this clearly. Maybe I should make myself a custom Bud-o-meter ™ metronome that I can use to learn to swing like him.
Then there’s the accentuation of the notes. That feels completely backwards and totally different from what I’m used to.
Easy and fun way to learn to phrase correctly is just listening a lot, I have noticed that just by listening and imitating we can learn these things naturally, and that combined with practice will show results pretty quickly.
My practice has been progressing well. I created a cheat sheet for myself as a memory aid for piano practice. I compiled it from the practice schedules of the Fundamentals and Extended Voicing courses. Sometimes I forget how to play ii-9 to V13 to Imaj7, etc.
In scla practice I have progressed to three accidentals in major scales. I still only play minor scales and Dorian mode with my right hand.
Somehow, I feel like I’ve been focusing a lot on studying jazz harmony, maybe even too much. Studying jazz harmony is exciting because there’s so much new to learn. I’m thinking of focusing on playing songs in June, instead of learning new chords and voicings, and working more on rhythm and improving the independence of my left and right hands. Practice June 2024v2.pdf (40.3 KB)
I analyzed a small section of Bud Powell’s playing on the song Celia. And you know what, it’s exactly as you said. Bud really plays his eighth notes rhythmically somewhere between straight eighths and triplet eighths. I took a screenshot from Logic that shows this clearly. Maybe I should make myself a custom Bud-o-meter ™ metronome that I can use to learn to swing like him. 
