Piano Fingering For Beginner Jazz Standards

[Nivaldo]

@Hayden

Sometimes when playing ballads I change my fingering whilst the note is held down. For example I play the melody note with my thumb, index finger, or 3rd finger, and then switch it to my 5th finger whilst the note is still held down.

It’s difficult to write this movement with finger numbers so I omitted those movements from the fingering in the charts. If something seems unusual or difficult to finger, please reference the video files where you can see exactly how I’m playing those passages.

Indeed, I have been studying your playing of sections A and B of Moon River…lots of interesting nuances/differences across the different times you play the same sections…it’s an experience all on its own.

Thank you for all that you do for us!!

[BogusPomp]

I think fingerings are pretty important for beginners. I am just starting out with piano and I have been taking lessons for a couple months. I am coming from a classical background so I want to see how jazzers think about hand positions.

[Nivaldo]

Hi @Hayden,

On Section B of My Foolish Heart, specifically bar 12th, I see myself dropping the Eb chordal tone in Am7(b5) so that my RH is hitting “only” C-G-C. For my RH, hitting both the Eb and G at this stage is a in-between fingers stretcher that has been difficult. Since I am dropping the 5th but keeping the 7h the resulting sound is not bad.

The reason for this digression is that I am wondering if you keep a “bag” of fingering alternatives when encountering difficult hand configurations. Since you mentioned in your last seminar that you were not yet sure which of your choices you were going to pick, would a seminar on fingering strategies be a good idea?

[Hayden]

Hi @Nivaldo

Great question!

@Nivaldo

On Section B of My Foolish Heart, specifically bar 12th, I see myself dropping the Eb chordal tone in Am7(b5) so that my RH is hitting “only” C-G-C. For my RH, hitting both the Eb and G at this stage is a in-between fingers stretcher that has been difficult. Since I am dropping the 5th but keeping the 7h the resulting sound is not bad.

I have recorded a quick video for you below on the B Section of “My Foolish Heart”.

In short, one of the reasons to keep the note “Eb” in the right hand over A-7b5 is that when we move to D7, the note “Eb” becomes the b9 of D7. This is implied in minor 251s where the V7 chord often contains the b9 as it’s part of the harmony.

Moving the “Eb” into the left hand over the A-7b5 sounds nice as you correctly point out. However, from a voice-leading standpoint it’s perhaps better to keep it in the right hand so that we can keep that note over the D7 to add some extra colour and tension.

I explain more in this video:

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@Nivaldo

The reason for this digression is that I am wondering if you keep a “bag” of fingering alternatives when encountering difficult hand configurations.

The golden rules that I follow are:

1. Play the root with the left hand pinky

2. Play the melody with the right hand pinky

3. Fill in the chord tones (3rds and 7ths) somewhere in between. Usually we only have 2 or 3 possible options of how to voice the 3rds and 7ths, so try them all and see which one sounds best.

4. If desired we can add additional tones such as extensions (9,11,13) or alterations (b9,#9,#11,b13) and these will typically be placed in the right hand when playing spread voicings.

Melodic Considerations

The melody of each song/jazz standard is different and often the melody note will inform my fingering and voicing choices. We can most definitely use the melody note as our guide to find a suitable voicing.

For example if we have a minor chord with the 5th, 11th, or 9th in the melody, the 3 important minor voicings that we cover in our Chord Extensions course will work well:

• 5th in the melody over minor chord - play a So What Voicing (lesson here)

• 11th in the melody over minor chord - play a Kenny Barron Voicing (lesson here)

• 9th in the melody over minor chord - play the Herbie Hancock Voicing (lesson here)

Check out those 3 lessons where I explain how this process works.

By learning these 3 voicings in all 12 keys it will greatly speed up your ability to find suitable voicings. As I outline in the lessons the key is to analyse the scale degree of the melody note.

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@Nivaldo

Since you mentioned in your last seminar that you were not yet sure which of your choices you were going to pick, would a seminar on fingering strategies be a good idea?

Yes I can host a seminar on this and walk through the process above.

What songs/jazz standards would you like me to cover?

[Hayden]

Hey @BogusPomp

Welcome to the community area!

@BogusPomp

I am coming from a classical background so I want to see how jazzers think about hand positions.

Fingering in jazz piano is certainly more flexible than in classical piano because we have more freedom to interpret and arrange tunes and jazz standards.

In addition to the tips that I have shared in this thread, I recommend to learn as many jazz standards as possible and with time the fingering choices for different types of voicings will become more intuitive.

I recommend new students to start with the Lead Sheet Fundamentals Learning Path which covers 9 jazz standards.

You can also find our full jazz standard lesson index here, organised by difficulty.

Above anything else, pick the songs/jazz standards that interest you most. Analyse and emulate my fingerings in the lesson but remember that fingering can often be a personal choice in jazz piano.

There are some conventions to follow such as the numbered list that I shared with Nivaldo above - and so follow the steps that I outline there if you’re ever unsure:

Play the root, play the melody, and fill in the 3rd and 7th somewhere in between.

If you have any more questions or would like additional guidance just let me know.

[Nivaldo]

Goodness! @Hayden, this is a dream answer! I’m serious…to have your attention, expertise and good will is truly, truly priceless! The recording and explanations are an incredible blessing. I will be reading, re-reading and applying all your recommendations. (I’m editing my response with this addendum here: the idea of recording a video to help explain all the different nuances is genius - 8 minutes of insightful explanations accompanied by beautiful exemplifications! Please don’t ever tire of doing this …precious…and to make this addendum a shameless abuse of your good will I here remind you of the idea of recording a video of you playing all 9 standards on a single run to serve as inspiration/learning/emulation).

The standards I will be interested in covering in the possible seminar are the ones I am learning now: My Foolish Heart, My Funny Valentine, Misty, Autumn Leaves, and Moon River. As you have said, it’s a numbers game and I’m learning as many as my mind can take.

[Nivaldo]

Hi @Hayden, I want to follow up on this a bit more because it brings to the forefront a gotcha issue for me…my over-reliance on the transcripts because I have difficulties replaying the videos ad naseum until I can finally understand all you’re doing…

With that in mind you can see on the image of the transcript above that there is only a rest for the RH on D7. My strategy before introducing this topic to you is illustrated by my annotations. Get rid of the difficult Eb on the right hand but make sure to emphasize the 7th to 3rd during the “rest”. (It is an F#…my annotation is not representing that.)

Also, because I am a total newbie on music theory I was not aware of the importance of sustaining the 5th for the D7…with one added limitation that I did not realize that the Eb would influence D7 solely based on the carried resonance of the note (it is a rest in the transcript).

So, a “perfect storm” of sorts. I am renewing my efforts of focusing on the video performances no matter how my eyes and brain try to avoid it.

Thanks again for the attention

[Hayden]

My pleasure, @Nivaldo.

@Nivaldo

I here remind you of the idea of recording a video of you playing all 9 standards on a single run to serve as inspiration/learning/emulation).

Yes sure, would you like this as just a video of me playing an acoustic piano? or in the tutorial layout with the light-up keyboard?

@Nivaldo

The standards I will be interested in covering in the possible seminar are the ones I am learning now: My Foolish Heart, My Funny Valentine, Misty, Autumn Leaves, and Moon River. As you have said, it’s a numbers game and I’m learning as many as my mind can take.

Okay great - I will schedule a fingering seminar for later this month.

@Nivaldo

it brings to the forefront a gotcha issue for me…my over-reliance on the transcripts

I’m not a advocate of using transcriptions. I personally never used them when learning jazz harmony.

My personal advice is to avoid them completely (although I don’t think many students follow my advice here!!) and instead focus on the voicing shapes and visualising the chord tones.

I understand this is a slow process and involves a lot of pausing, rewinding, slowing down the video etc… but I feel that this is the best way to learn jazz harmony.

The transcriptions are provided as students request them, but as you mention always be conscious of developing an over-reliance on transcriptions.

@Nivaldo

With that in mind you can see on the image of the transcript above that there is only a rest for the RH on D7. My strategy before introducing this topic to you is illustrated by my annotations. Get rid of the difficult Eb on the right hand but make sure to emphasize the 7th to 3rd during the “rest”. (It is an F#…my annotation is not representing that.)

Yes please note the 7th falling to 3rd is present in the left hand (G falling to F#).

In the beginner lessons we don’t directly discuss and explore chord alterations to keep the lessons focused and accessible. To answer your previous question as to why the Eb is better voiced in the right hand, we had to dip into that theory.

@Nivaldo

Also, because I am a total newbie on music theory I was not aware of the importance of sustaining the 5th for the D7…with one added limitation that I did not realize that the Eb would influence D7 solely based on the carried resonance of the note (it is a rest in the transcript).

Yes it is a rest in the transcription because this is a beginner lesson, so it was intentionally omitted.

We explore minor 251s and chord alterations in the following 2 courses:

• https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/left-hand-voicings/
• https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/altered-harmony-upper-structure-triads/

These 2 courses are both in the “Essential Jazz Harmony” learning path which contains what I deem to the most important theory topics for beginner/early-intermediate jazz piano students.

@Nivaldo

So, a “perfect storm” of sorts. I am renewing my efforts of focusing on the video performances no matter how my eyes and brain try to avoid it.

Thanks again for the attention

My pleasure.

As I have mentioned in the past, once you have learnt 10 or so tunes, the process of choosing voicings will become much more intuitive.

You will likely forget some of the arrangements as you learn new ones, this is normal. As the years pass some tunes will stay in your repertoire, others will drop out.

For now just focus on learning as many new tunes as possible to expose yourself to lots of different harmonic situations.

Best,
Hayden

[Nivaldo]

Hi @Hayden

@Hayden

Yes sure, would you like this as just a video of me playing an acoustic piano? or in the tutorial layout with the light-up keyboard?

Hhm, I just cannot make up my mind on this one. My original desire was to listen to your your renditions of the 9 standards…I have completely fallen in love with them. And when you mention an acoustic piano than that sounds like a dream. But the possibility of seeing the fingerings in detail makes this an agonizing decision. I will punt to you and what you think is the best way to leverage this request. If you decide on the former I will be thinking of a way to import this to iTunes and listen to it in my car, assuming I have your permission of course.

@Hayden

My personal advice is to avoid them completely (although I don’t think many students follow my advice here!!) and instead focus on the voicing shapes and visualising the chord tones.

This is a MAJOR recalibration for me Hayden…this is arguably the biggest lesson for me to take from this interaction.

Thanks for all the links embedded in your responses…great help!!

[Nivaldo]

Hi @Hayden,

I wanted to follow through on the topic of transcripts over-reliance. I have spent the last couple of days going over the Misty tutorial (cocktail piano improv) and doing my level best to try to understand the sequence in which you are hitting the chords/notes. As you say, it is a painstaking process…and I realize that I end up writing down the sequence of chords and notes one line at a time with a column separating RH an LH and going down the page to represent sequence…something like:
F C | A E
D |
| C G
C G | E B
… (I invented this sequence…just to illustrate)

Then it dawned on me that I have seen in YouTube a song being represented by chords and notes going down the screen in the sequence they are played. I Groked and found out that this representation is called Falling Notes and was originally championed by Synthesia. I also found out that there are several apps (some free) that can generate Falling Notes from MIDI files.

I searched our forum for MIDI files and apparently there are some that are part of the lessons download section but I have not found any for the Reading Lead Sheet lessons for beginners on any of the 9 standards. Would it be possible for you to make them available? I am wanting to see the results of generating Falling Notes from your playing of the standards. UNLESS you tell me that I am in some kind of foolish errand…

Please let me know your thoughts…

[Hayden]

Hi @Nivaldo

Here are a few midi files for you to play around with:

• I’ll Be Home For Christmas Midi File.mid (4.2 KB)

• Tenderly Midi File.mid (5.9 KB)

• My Funny Valentine.mid (5.4 KB)

These MIDI files are available on some lessons but not all of them. The above MIDI files are performances which also include chord extensions and more advanced voicings than just R-3-7 spread voicings.

For the 9 jazz standards in the beginner section, it is possible to extract the MIDI files from the original lesson recording files. I’d need to locate the files and extract them so please check out the files above and let me know if it’s worthwhile for me to do that.

On a related note I’m working on a “Download Library” which contains all downloads and one can filter by file type (pdf, MIDI etc…) and also by document type (chord chart, theory worksheet, transcription etc…). I don’t have an ETA on this at the moment, but it’s on my to-do-list.

Best,
Hayden

[Hayden]

When using MIDI software to display these files, you will only see the light-up notes.

With the PianoGroove tutorial layout, the light-up MIDI keyboard is synched with my hands and so you can see how I am playing the chords and what fingering I am using. We also show the blue highlights on the lead sheet inside the video, so that you can see the exact part of the song being demonstrated.

With the raw MIDI files I think they can be quite difficult to follow - but please experiment with the sample files attached above and let me know if I can help further.

[Nivaldo]

Hi @Hayden

@Hayden

For the 9 jazz standards in the beginner section, it is possible to extract the MIDI files from the original lesson recording files. I’d need to locate the files and extract them so please check out the files above and let me know if it’s worthwhile for me to do that.

Excellent plan! I will start with My Funny Valentine which is not one of the standards I am learning at the moment and so this will be a good test to determine IF generating MIDI files for the standards is a worthwhile effort…totally agree.

I will report back once I have some answers. Thanks so much!

[Nivaldo]

@Hayden

Alright, I opened the My Funny Valentine MIDI file in the free browser-based app at https://app.midiano.com/.

Here is a screenshot:

My Funny Valentine file contains RH and LH info so this was a much better experience than using Tenderly who lacks it.

Here is another screenshot to show Funny Valentine’s settings:

I must say this is quite helpful for me…it’s automatically doing what I was painfully doing on a piece of paper using massive steroids

Hayden, I know your time is precious but if coming up with these files is not a big deal then I am certainly going to use them! Your to-do list is most certainly daunting…so, this will be ready when it’s ready…cool?

[Hayden]

Hey @Nivaldo

Awesome - I’m glad the files are helpful.

I will record the 9 performances that you requested and create the MIDI files at the same time.

I’ll post an update here when they are ready.

Talk soon!

[Nivaldo]

Hi @Hayden,

Please ditch the MIDI files but you may still need an extra lift to complete this project…not to mention time

Here is some press release material to inspire you:

[Nivaldo]

@Hayden …I am just jesting with you…there is plenty of material in PianoGroove to last a lifetime!!! There is no need for any of this…but I am looking forward to your next Seminar…it’s always good to see you “in person” and carrying on strong.

[Hayden]

Hey @Nivaldo

@Nivaldo

Here is some press release material to inspire you:

Thanks for suggesting this album setlist - most of my favourite tunes are in there!

I agree I must make a record at some point in the near future.

Leave that with me!

[Nivaldo]

I realize that I ended up going far afield the original topic of fingering. I just wanted to rescue that a bit by pointing out a segment on the lesson below between minutes 3:30 and 5:00. There is a very pointed explanation by @Hayden on the difficulties of trying to prescribe or assign a particular fingering configuration. And although a bit more advanced than the initial leadsheet lessons, it is still directed at beginners.

10th Intervals & Melodic Tips