Does anyone teach jazz piano? [Bob asks]

[Bob]

Does anyone here teach jazz piano? 
   
What is your general approach for this? (You can't just teach out of a book for jazz, but they won't know all the theory to understand what they're doing as a beginner)

\@_ . . .       .        .           .

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Do you use any published book in your jazz piano lessons?

What ages are you teaching?  Do they already know the theory?  Has anyone taught a brand new beginner jazz piano to start?

[ChristmasCarol]

Does anyone here teach jazz piano? 
   
What is your general approach for this? (You can't just teach out of a book for jazz, but they won't know all the theory to understand what they're doing as a beginner)

\@_ . . .       .        .           .

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Do you use any published book in your jazz piano lessons?

What ages are you teaching?  Do they already know the theory?  Has anyone taught a brand new beginner jazz piano to start?

I teach jazz to all ages.  My general approach is to teach them 12 bar blues chord progression, then I have them learn riffs as fast as they can take it by showing them one at a time.  Eric baumgartner's series called Jazzabilities is pretty cool.  For instance I have an eight year old playing a blues bass line.  First she plays just the root of the chord along with the bassline until she gets the rhythm.  Then I add a lick and have her play that for a week.  She was awkward as hell for a couple of weeks and then voila she was boogeying.  A 50+ year old I'm teaching wants to be able to improvise, so we are working with faking - chord construction - exercises to speed and strengthen his technique and a lot of humor.   The book 1000 keyboard ideas is a pretty good layout of materials.   https://www.apassion4jazz.net/chords.html here's a cool link for a student for jazz info that''s free.  Another book I like "Improvising blues Piano by Martan Mann.  I'm always looking for more good stuff.  basically you can't teach any two students the same in this medium.  It's an absolute blast however when you here someone start to get it.

[Bob]

Ah cool. 

So you start with 12-bar blues.  I'm guessing the blues scale over that to improvise, too?

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I'm guessing you start filling out the chords more in the left hand.  Then what?

Do you have an order of the ideas you teach?

Thanks!

[ChristmasCarol]

Ah cool. 

So you start with 12-bar blues.  I'm guessing the blues scale over that to improvise, too?

\@_

I'm guessing you start filling out the chords more in the left hand.  Then what?

Do you have an order of the ideas you teach?

Thanks!

Yep - the scale too.  The Book I mentioned has them presented nice and clearly.  The order depends on the innate talent of the student.  The jazzabilities series has a great order.  Left and right hand capacity varies hugely from one student to another.  My middle age student went on tilt just yesterday when I asked him to play "When Sunny Gets Blue' with the melody in the left hand - chords in right.  Mind you we were talking about the first two measures only.  So, some of it is trial and error, kind of like feeding baby birds.  Teaching requires a constant mental temperature taking I find.  With jazz that is even more obvious.  I'm looking for more good arrangements constantly.  Recently found Eric Baumgartner's "Jazz it Up" series - Christmas.  Nice tasty intermediate arrangements.  Classical Jazz piano solo's by Phillip Keveren is very nice.  Then for myself I have "The Giants of Jazz Piano" lest I get too full of myself.  Let's just say it starts out first number with an Art Tatum arrangement.   

[reinvent]

Bob,
There is a book for beginning improvisers called, "The Real Easy Book" by Sher Music.  It's starts with a lead sheet and then the accompanying page shows which scales are necessary to master in order to improvise with the song.
I think it's one of the best for beginning in teaching Jazz.  You learn a little theory as you learn the song. (Blues scale, diminished scales, etc)
   I used this when I first began jazz.  It was a big help.
  I mostly liked jazz, but didn't know much about playing it before I bought the book. 
    - Helen

[Bob]

Ah, I have the Real Easy Book (haven't looked at it though... or yet I should say).  I heard there was a real Easy Book 2 out as well.


ChristmasCarol,

Do you teach reading from a fakebook too?  or just improvising their own stuff on the 12-bar blues?

Are those intermediate arrangements fully written pieces in a jazz style (or fakebook?)?

thanks!

[ChristmasCarol]

ChristmasCarol,

Do you teach reading from a fakebook too?  or just improvising their own stuff on the 12-bar blues?

Are those intermediate arrangements fully written pieces in a jazz style (or fakebook?)?

thanks!

With real beginners I stick with the 12 bar blues for a bit.  Then I find out a song they like and start introducing ways to play the song.  Course it needs to be a song with maybe four or five chords at first.  I have shown a big fat fake book to some students as a way of showing them what's out there.  It's too much.  So I copy down a couple of pieces.  I give all my students a notebook with a cover with my name on it and a picture of a piano.  It has plastic sheets so I can bring new sheets and create a visible repertoire for them.

The intermediate arrangments are fully written pieces. 

[musiczone]

I like to use a series originally published by ABRAM{I think} but now available in the US through Hal Leonard called Jazz Piano Pieces.Its not for beginning students but I like it for beginning jazz students.

[pianoannie]

I like to use a series originally published by ABRAM{I think} but now available in the US through Hal Leonard called Jazz Piano Pieces.Its not for beginning students but I like it for beginning jazz students.

I just ordered some of these books!  They arrived yesterday and I was looking through them this morning.  Actually they're published by ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music), and as you said, available in the US through HL.  The title of the HL books is "Jazz Piano The Complete Method."  It includes the jazz pieces, aural tests, quick studies, jazz scales, and a CD, all for 12.95.    These various components are in separate books as published originally by ABRSM, I believe.  HL makes it a very economical package deal.
I am just recently trying to teach myself jazz, hoping to eventually teach some jazz improv to my students.  My initial impression of these books is that I need some additional foundation to put under it.  I only ordered levels 4 and 5, thinking that I surely wouldn't need the very beginning books (LOL).  Actually I'm not sure if I need to get the first 3 levels to help me, or (what I'm leaning toward) Jazz from Scratch, which I believe correlates with "The Complete Method."
I think "The Complete Method" looks terrific, regarding its contents and thoroughness, but it does not seem to be self-instructional.  I think it's designed for a teacher who already knows how to improvise to use with a student. (or else I just really stink at figuring this stuff out!)
I like how the book starts each piece with it fully notated (the "head"), then goes into an improv section, which has bass part written, chords written above the measures, and a set of RH notes from which to devise the improvisation.  For me I just don't know enough yet to work out an interesting improv part, but for anyone who has spent much time listening to jazz and who has a good ear for it, it would probably be pretty easy.

[Bob]

A series that looks very useful is

Blues Keyboard

and

Jazz Keyboard


There are beginning, intermediate, mastering levels for each.  So six books listed up there.

published by Alfred.

Tricia Woods authored the first two levels for Blues Keyboard.  Merril Clark is listed for the Mastering level of Blues Keyboard.

I don't have the Jazz Keyboard books in front of me.



I haven't gone through these (yet), but they look very good.

[musiczone]

Pianoannie,I would recommend you starting out with the first grade even if you already play well just to get comfortable with the coordination aspect of these pieces.They're harder than they look.I would also suggest looking into the recommended listenings listed.Its very important that you have a feel for how these pieces originally sounded.Jay

[pianoannie]

Pianoannie,I would recommend you starting out with the first grade even if you already play well just to get comfortable with the coordination aspect of these pieces.They're harder than they look.I would also suggest looking into the recommended listenings listed.Its very important that you have a feel for how these pieces originally sounded.Jay

Thanks jay,
when you say the "coordination aspect" of the pieces, do you mean the rhythm between the two hands, or how the various parts of the book coordinate together, or
Also, have you seen Jazz from Scratch?  Do you think that would help me with this series?

[musiczone]

Pianoannie,I'm talking about the rhythm between the two hands.I have had students with several years of classical training who had a lot of trouble at first with the rhythm. I'm not familiar with Jazz From Scratch, what is it? Jay

[pianoannie]

Pianoannie,I'm talking about the rhythm between the two hands.I have had students with several years of classical training who had a lot of trouble at first with the rhythm. I'm not familiar with Jazz From Scratch, what is it? Jay

I've seen Jazz from Scratch on several websites along with the ABRSM Jazz The Complete Method series.  The cover of JfS matches the covers of the other books, so I assume it is to be used in conjunction with the series.  I don't know what it contains though.

Oh btw, in my last post, I typed 3 question marks, but they showed up as a sad face.

[musiczone]

pianoannie,I will try to check it out.My local supplier (Theodor Presser) just closed down so its hard for me to just browse around like I usually do.Jay

[Bob]

One of the fascinating things I find about jazz is how much more it emphasizes of the music.  In classical music, you can just play what's on the page, but with jazz you're supposed to know all the chords, which note if what part of the chords (like whether it's the root, 3rd, 7th, etc.), what other chords can be subsituted or extended in which way, etc.  It's seems like more musical skills are emphasized in jazz.  It's the only place I've found ideas about learning pieces of music like that too.  Things like the idea that you don't know the piece unless you can improvise over the harmonies.  You could do that with classical music too, but I just don't hear that idea coming up too often.

[Brian Healey]

I don't know how you start teaching jazz to a beginning piano student. I've taught pianists who are new to jazz, but they had already been playing the piano previously. Here's what I've found:

Like everyone else has said, blues is a great place to start. In term of improvisation, maybe starting with the blues scale and then moving on to other possibilities within the blues form.

Besides the blues, the first real jazz tune I ever played was "So What" by Miles Davis (just playing dorian scales). Tunes like that are a good place to start also because they don't involve lots of harmonic shifts.

Definitly start ear training and twelve-key training as soon as possible. Like transcribing solos, and taking a specific pattern from a solo and practicing it through all the keys. When you have a student learn a tune, make him or her learn it from a recording and not from a fake book. Find out what players the students likes and help him to figure out what makes that player's style so unique. I think key fluency and ear skills are what separate the excellent players from the so-so players when it comes to jazz, more so than technique. I've heard jazz pianists with tons of technique that play drab music, and then there are players like Monk that make your hair stand on end just from a single well-placed chord.

[Bob]

What do you give the student to practice each week?  What are they supposed to be doing?

Or, is it more like the type of piano lessons where the student works on one piece for awhile until they get to a certain point of mastery?