The #1 Book To Learn Jazz Piano- guidance and help: Introduction
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2023
- Ask any jazz pianist to recommend a book to learn jazz piano, and the number one book that gets recommended is The Jazz Piano Book by Mark Levine.
But this book is seriously confusing for jazz beginners- I'm here to guide you through this really confusing book!
In this video, I go through the introduction of the book. I cover:
- How to use the book and if we can learn jazz from a book!
- Unlike classical music theory, jazz theory has not been standardised
- Prerequisite skills needed before starting with this book
- Quick history of fake books/ real books, which ones are recommended in this book, and which ones I personally recommend
- Which chord symbols and notations this book prefers to use
- I clarify the terms 'chord' and 'voicing', where I seem to be in disagreement with the book! I also define open and closed voicings
I promised you could download a sheet to translate British- American music terms, you can download it here (it also contains foundational reference information that I give to my beginner students that will help you with the next few chapters!)
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Watch chapter one here: • Chapter 1- The #1 Book...
I am available for private online lessons, if you're interested you can contact me here: heartofthepiano.com/contact/ 
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So funnily enough, I'm from the Bay Area, and actually studied with Mark Levine at the Jazz School in Berkeley about 25 years ago. We used the Jazz Piano Book, of course, and if I recall correctly, the course also assumed that you had the jazz knowledge that you had come there to learn. I was quite an experienced musician, formally trained, and it was still tough slogging. Eventually I found that playing the jazz tunes out of the Real Book, over and over with other musicians, was the best way to become competent at playing jazz. But I've gone back to the well and studied bits of this book many times over the years since then.
Great video - looking forward to this series!
Great video!
Interesting discussion - this book is a great book.
The Real Book is the original illegal fake book. I bought this book 35-40 years ago. I literally met someone on the street at night. There also 2nd and 3rd Real Book editions.
I'm an amateur, but the problem is that I should have spent more time trying to learn tunes myself by ear and I should have spent more time memorizing tunes. Anyone starting out should definitely regularly make an effort to do both.
Great video... and I have this book (and many other Jazz Piano books). Would be curious as to your suggested e.g. top 5 or 10 jazz piano books.
I personally did not have much luck learning jazz from books in general, but RUclips videos and podcasts were incredibly useful!
This means my jazz piano journey was very slow until the internet and RUclips! 😄
This series will be very helpful to me. I tried learning with the Jamey Aebersold vol 24, but honestly, those jazz books are different from every single book I have already read in my entire life. For me, they are all confusing and not made for someone like me who can barely sight read
Great video, thank you.
RE: chords and voicing being the same - is it due to the improvisatory nature of jazz (and that the same piece is rarely played the same way twice) that the two terms are considered the same by Levine?
I don't know - I'm new at the jazz thingy!
Thankyou!
Chords & voicing, I don't think this is because it's improvisatory, but more that jazz music theory is like the wild west- it's not been standardised in the same way that classical music theory has been and is used in less 'rigorous' ways than the way classical musicians use theory.
Hey man. I agree with Mark Levine about voicings and chords. Joe Pass would call them grips. Technically they arent the same thing but as you demonstrated "This is a C major Chord, This is a C major Chord." You were playing voicings. You are always playing a voicing because its just the organisation of the chord tones. Even 135 is a voicing. It's a root position voicing.
I understand why because "chord" is non specific. Voicing is very specific. When you speak about a voicing you are referring to a specific sound that other types of voicings won't give you. And I guess it just makes sense for some reason. Ah l..I tried...lol
Joe Pass was also very specific about voicings as all Jazz players probably are. He said "be careful of books that have 100s of voicings." "You'll only use a handful of them and for this type of music the rest of them are just innapropriate. If I'm playing and you play a G7b9 with the flat 9 in the bass I don't want it!" 😂😂 Rest in peace, man that guy was a hoot.
Of course though pianists need way more voicings than guitarists (I play guitar as well) because 6 strings and 4 fingers with limited stretch only let you have an incredibly limited set of options compared to the piano 😝
Great video - BUT i have never heard of a Penta-scale (!!!)😢And i went to Music college and everything…..
Pentascale is a word that piano teachers teaching beginners like to use a lot 😄
What Open Voicings just simply means outside the octave? OMG. So not 9 11 13 but voicing even of a triad or shell outside the Oct .... OMG.
Uhm... At minute 4, why do you assume that there are classical pianists who cannot sight read or, much much worse, cannot even read sheet music? Reading music is the number one fundamental skill that is taught at the conservatory when you're little. Sight reading is taught later on. If you don't know how to do either, then you're not a very good pianist to start with. Mark Levine (pronounced le-veen) can't help with that ;)
Thanks for your comment,
I think conservatoire-trained classical pianists are going to be a tiny percentage of people who use this book- almost all amateur pianists I know even at a high level would have issues sight reading at the level of the examples in this book!
And yes I did do a face-palm when I watched a workshop with him and discovered I'd gambled on the wrong pronunciation of his name 🤦♂️