Gama <none@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:<BCD8B647.375E9%none@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>...
> Are you reading a Berklee harmony book?
>
> Gama
> http://www.dreamtracks.com/
>
No, I'm self-taught and I'm reading a book entitled "Jazz Keyboard
Harmony" by Phil DeGreg, published by Jamey Aebersold Jazz. Its a
great book if you're into comping, but I really want to play old
standards with melodies, like songs taken from the Ultimate Jazz
Fakebook. Songs like "Autumn Leaves" or "All the Things You Are" or
"Misty". I like DeGreg's automatic II-V-I voicing exercises in all
keys, but I'm having a heck of a time applying it to solo piano
arrangements. The hard part is inserting the melody since the
exercises were designed more for comping, say with a jazz trio, rather
than with a melody inserted by the right hand fingers. Like how do you
keep your melody finger gyrating while your chord voicing fingers are
locked in a fixed pattern ready to pounce on the ivories in time with
the steady beat of a metronome? Its almost like patting your head and
rubbing your tummy at the same time!
For example, Chapter 3 is entitled "Four-Voice Shell Extensions". The
author provides the following 2-handed example but he doesn't tell
you how on earth you're supposed to insert the melody:
Key Left Hand Right Hand
Em7 E D G B
A7 A C# G b
DM7 D C# F# A
Then he goes on to another example like the following:
Em7 E G D F#
A7 A G C# F#
DM7 D F# C# E
And on to other examples - shell voicings, guide tones, 3-note
rootless voicings, 5- voice shell extensions, 4 - note rootless
voicings, 4-note open position voicings, etc. Nowhere does he explain
how or where I'm supposed to stab my ever-curious melody finger at the
keyboard (though I know when - on the 1st and 3rd beat).
In the foregoing examples, I know that they are the same progression
with different extensions (5-9-5 in one and 9-13-9 in the other). But
this is just pure theory - I'm looking for him to tell me where to
stick my melody finger while I'm doing the I-V-I exercises outlined
above.
This seems to be a problem with with all the jazz instruction books I
have - books by Levine, Amadie, Beale, Edly, Dobbins - all full of
theory signifying nothing, i.e., no clearly described step-by-step
real-time fingering exercises a la Martha Stewart. I hired a teacher
once who promised everything but delivered nothing - a classical
pianist jazz artist wannabe.
Thanks for letting me vent,
Frustrated
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