Exploring Jazz Piano - Volume 1 (Schott Pop Styles) Paperback – June 1, 2005

Improvise the easy way, as long as you practice a little every day! Here's a hint: Write underneath or to the side of each and every note in this book. Practice regularly, as you see fit. You'll eventually be able to improvise like the professional piano players. Each book teaches how to improvise at the piano. Whether you buy 1 or 6. I advise starting with book one. Honest engine, this is the only one you really need, but if you're a perfectionist, buy the whole series. Only after you preview one! Good luck, you've got this one! Forrest Kinney and Christopher Norton are both associated with the Royal Conservatory. Christopher Norton Connections series are a little easier than the Forrest Kinney, (Author), Frederick Harris (Editor, Illustrator),Patterns series. Harris has even scaled the original 136 pages previous edition to about 46 pages. Patterns has more chords and progressions in the left and right hands, right from the start and throughout the books. These books allow us to learn at 3 to 4 times faster than normal piano practice lessons! Although at first blush, they can prove to present a slight challenge to newbie's! Just remember to write your notes of every single notes, be it one note or several, as in chords (4ths,5ths,6th... and so on. This helps with eventually memorizing all of the notes. Give yourself on average about 3-4 months, depending upon how often you're able to practice... Once you're able to play a few riffs or passages and sound kind of like a pro, your hooked and this new auditorial ability to recognize chords, scales, passages etc., should inspire you to practice even more! Just sayin :-) Here's a blurb I googled yesterday:How long does it take to master piano?Stages of Piano PlayingLevel of Playing Duration of Stage Practice RequiredBeginner 3-12 months 0.5-1 hour dailyIntermediate 1-3 years 1-2 hours dailyAdvanced 5-10 years 3-4 hours dailyExpert 12-20+ years 5-8 hours dailyMay 10, 2023ABRSM is now an awarding body for the Certificate for Music Educators (CME) qualification.

Tim Richards' book "Exploring Jazz Piano 1" is probably the most thorough tome that I have ever worked through on this subject. Most jazz method books tacitly assume that you have already been seriously studying music for several years, so they skip over the elementary and delve headlong into the tricks of the trade (which can be daunting for those with a patchy knowledge).This book makes no such assumption. If you don't have your basic theory and chops down when you begin this book, don't worry, you certainly will by the time you've finished it!For those who have been playing classical and/or pop, etc for some time and know about intervals, inversions, scales, etc, it can be tempting to skip over all the stuff in the beginning of the book and dive straight into the meat of the course. However, I would still recommend that even those with a good foundation take the time to look through those early pages - you'll very probably find a few "Easter Eggs" that the author has tucked into the pages all over this book. Little morsels of wisdom and cool stuff that you might not be aware of abound.Once you've gotten your feet wet, and begin looking deeper and deeper into this volume, you'll find a carefully crafted and logical progression of lessons that eases you smoothly into the jazz experience.Many styles are covered, and the transcriptions are priceless! The function of the LH is also dealt with as being equal in importance to the role of the right. This is not just a collection of RH bebop licks to be regurgitated and thrown about like so much musical confetti, it is a serious curriculum that takes you to where you need to be with the least amount of pain possible - so that you can soon begin make your own music using the detailed principles meticulously outlined within.If you really want to learn jazz piano, and you want to make sure that you know the subject inside-out "Exploring Jazz Piano 1" is one of the finest beginner's books I've ever encountered. Just buy it, you'll see!Jeff Brentauthor of Modalogy - scales, modes & chords: the primordial building blocks of music(music theory / Hal Leonard 2011)

This book assumes you're at least an intermediate pianist, but it also assumes you may have had only standard, sightreading classical music piano lessons. It initially goes over how to swing eighth notes, build chord triads, and so forth, but pretty quickly gets into playing music based on pentatonic scales, playing walking bass lines, using fake books, working with 7th and 9th chords, and much more. In other words, you aren't learning to sightread jazz music, you're learning to be a jazz musician. There are also some jazz standards in here to learn, but not just that--Tim Richards explains how they were created, how to solo over them, and how to improvise, and then on the CD he not only plays the music so you can hear what he's showing, but also you can get just the drum and bass part so you can sort of play with a jazz combo by yourself. Volume 2 builds on this volume, but also be aware of "Improvising Blues Piano," because this book (volume 1) builds on that book, and you might be best off starting with that book.My only complaint, but it's not enough to ding the book a star in this review, is that the binding came unglued on one side almost immediately.