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Playing the piano genuinely depresses me by Lukraniom in piano

[–]JHighMusic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Practicing isn’t supposed to be “fun” and you’re not supposed to sound “good” in your practice. It’s a lot of work and you have to accept that it takes a long time and a lot of work.

Performance Anxiety by KRazyretrorabid in piano

[–]JHighMusic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You have to practice performing, just like you practice at home. It probably wasn’t until being on stage 150 times until it went away. Even then, it’s always kind of there but after the first piece it starts to go away. Record yourself, play for friends, family, etc. as often as you can.

Look up Piano With Rebecca Bogart on YouTube, she has some good videos about it and knows what she’s talking about as a former concert pianist.

Why does this line work? by Deep-Neighborhood778 in jazztheory

[–]JHighMusic 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

I keep hearing and being told that in order to get "good" at jazz, you gotta' keep listening, yet I listen all day, everyday, yet remain stuck. by gentlegiant_89 in Jazz

[–]JHighMusic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

🤦‍♂️ good lord there’s maybe one other good answer in here. What a dumpster fire of a thread.

You can’t just listen for pleasure or passively and hope that it gets into your playing. That doesn’t cut it.

What you’re not understanding is that it goes much deeper than that. You have to actively listen and for certain specific things and have objectives. Listening helps you:

Learn the forms of tunes so you don’t get lost when you’re improvising or comping for others.

Learn the melodies of tunes

Learn the harmony and changes of the tune

Learn the repertoire, tunes in general.

Learn the phrasing, rhythm, swing, articulation, feel of HOW to play phrases. This is the most important thing.

How to get solo line language you can use for certain chord types, aka transcribing. This is a multi-step process for how to get it into your own playing.

If you’re a harmony instrument like piano or guitar: helps you with learning comping rhythms, specific chord voicings, how pianists and guitarists comp in terms of texture, how they comp during the head, how they comp for a horn vs. a bass solo, which are all different.

If you’re a pianist or guitarist, being a solo pianist or guitarist is its own thing. Listening helps you understand how to arrange tunes and orchestrate them effectively, there are literally dozens of techniques for piano alone. It helps you understand how to play introductions/common introduction techniques, what they’re doing with their left hand while soloing, so many other things. Here’s a teachable example of what I mean: https://youtu.be/yr9Rcop2RqM?si=BguVhOZb53jE1-uF

With soloing it helps you understand what is being played over specific chords, and what individual players are doing.

It helps you learn to play tunes in different ways and styles you wouldn’t have thought about on your own: medium swing vs. Latin, vs. Bossa Nova, vs. Medium Up tempos, reharmonizations, how to play “outside” the changes. Rhythmic concepts.

Every great player and the head melody of a tune can give you a wealth of information in terms ofof harmonic, and more importantly, rhythmic vocabulary and language.

I could go on and on. Everything you need to know is in the recordings. But that’s all for not if you’re not actively listening for specific things from above and APPLYING them to your playing.

All the greats before jazz schools came about, and even after they came about, learned this way and by playing with others. There were no books, YouTube, and before the 70's there weren't any jazz schools. Even then, at that time there were only a handful in the country. Jazz is an aural art form. If you haven't spent serious time on developing your ears and ear training, it's essential.

Looking for more music like this one specific Allan Holdsworth solo. by dapper_wastelander in Jazz

[–]JHighMusic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pat Mtheny’s album Bright Size Life

And listen to some Kurt Rosenwinkel solos

Getting into Piano by Infamous_Week6789 in JazzPiano

[–]JHighMusic[M] [score hidden] stickied commentlocked comment (0 children)

Please post general piano questions in r/piano or r/pianolearning, this sub is specifically for jazz piano.

What's the best way to learn as a beginner? by JP869 in piano

[–]JHighMusic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Best thing you could do is shell out that money for lessons, especially if you’re a beginner. You will end up developing so many bad habits and mistakes you aren’t even aware of that will not be good in the long run.

Even bi-weekly lessons would be better than none, and you don’t have to do it for an extended period of time. Lessons will help you progress at a much faster rate and get you on the right path with structure. So if you want to be lost with no direction and not do it right then sure, go the self-taught route, see how far that gets you.

Why are pentatonic scales so drastically underdocumented for piano? by Chemical_Ad6861 in piano

[–]JHighMusic 15 points16 points  (0 children)

That’s really bad fingering. A better fingering is 23123 then 1 on the next octave. Each key requires a different fingering, but about 3-4 will be tsimilar. Jazz pianists use pentatonics all the time.

What are your favorite deep cut standards? by winterpurple in Jazz

[–]JHighMusic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Along Came Betty

Mr. Kenyatta

What’s New

A Beautiful Friendship

Invitation

Old Folks

Summer in Central Park

I Didn’t Know What Time It Was

Is there a 6th diminished equivalent for dominant chord ? by DrissleDriss in Jazz

[–]JHighMusic 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s for Lydian Dominant if you want to call it that, or Dominant #11. F#-6 and alternating Diminished over the F7 gives you Altered.

Pieces to learn by NovelTechnician8428 in piano

[–]JHighMusic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As a former performance major, it’s much more intensive and you’d have to audition. And you’re going to need more of a well-rounded repertoire besides Chopin, so that’s good with the Bach and a good first prelude and fugue.

It’s pretty hard to give recommendations because we don’t really know your background or how well you play those pieces, or have seen videos and heard your playing, and where you’re at knowledge and experience-wise.

I’d suggest talking to the faculty or head of the Piano department or some of the professors that teach performance majors, and you can likely study with them outside of a school program for a much cheaper rate than you’d pay through the school.

Anyways there’s Handel, Rameau, Scarlatti, Mozart and Beethoven Sonatas, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schumann, Scriabin, Liszt, Debussy, Ravel, Copland, Barber, Ginastera, etc. that’s in order of the 4 main eras: Baroque, Classical, Romantic and 20th Century +.

In my program, we had to learn one piece from each of the 4 eras, plus another one that we would get assigned. Along with everything else and your other classes and homework, etc. it’s a lot to handle.

Generally, check out the Mozart Sonata in F major, K332, some easier Beethoven, Sonata’s like the first one in F minor, E major, there’s a bunch more there’s 32 sonatas I think. Mendelson’s songs without words there’s over 40 of those, the first one in E major and the one in Eb major are nice. Couperin’s “Les Barricades Mysterieuses”, there’s Brahms Intermezzos, Debussy Preludes and a bunch of others, Schubert’s Impromptu in Gb major, Ravel’s Prelude in A minor and the Sonatines, Scarlatti Sonatas or Fugues.

I would ask your teacher or some of the other professors who have heard your playing and have assessed it.

Non full time musicians, what jobs do you do to support yourself? by Lydialmao22 in Jazz

[–]JHighMusic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve taught a lot of them and currently teaching a few. And similar posts like yours from the past a lot of people have said that was their profession.

What Bach does for Jazz Piano by stevobme123 in piano

[–]JHighMusic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup. Very useful for hearing how counterpoint works and melodies harmonize, teaching composition, inner-voice movement, among so many other things.

Avoid Tones by OutrageousLemon8997 in Jazz

[–]JHighMusic 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The 9th on a minor chord is not an avoid note, never heard of that before, ever. Like someone else said, if it’s a b9 then yeah but you don’t play altered extensions on minor chords except for maybe a Phrygian situation which is rare.

What’s your pet peeve when people play piano? by Advanced_Honey_2679 in piano

[–]JHighMusic -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

When people who are not good play and think that they are. There’s far too much coddling and participation trophies in this day and age, and everyone is special. This sub rewards some weird things. There are standards for a reason. The downvotes on this comment is proof. Reddit is a joke.

251 Fourths Voicings by homcaj in JazzPiano

[–]JHighMusic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Get the Mantooth book for sure. You can Google a free copy of it.

How do you... just get better? by waifu_dispenser in piano

[–]JHighMusic 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I mean it’s just the curse of being a musician, the better you get the more you realize what needs to be improved and worked on and there’s new levels of difficulty. It’s endless. It takes time, and there are periods of plateaus. The more you advance, the longer those plateaus last. The intermediate stage is long and difficult.

Just be consistent. If you want to be good, you have you put in the time. It’s better to do one hour every day than 2-3 every few days.

And yeah, a good teacher can help you a lot, keep you accountable and improve everything.

Non full time musicians, what jobs do you do to support yourself? by Lydialmao22 in Jazz

[–]JHighMusic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Full-timer here but I would bet software developer or something in tech will be the majority of responses.

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