Monday, June 13, 2011

Jazz Piano Study - Beginning INTERMEDIATE

      I've posted a few Jazz Piano Brain Teasers recently and realized that they are too advanced ( I can barely play them myself)  for some students and less experienced  followers of PuppyDogMusic, so I'm posting this one for you - you know who you are.
     The skill involved in this exercise is extremely useful in practical playing of pop music and jazz.  In jazz, triads are a good way to visualize and isolate a group of upper structure extensions of a complex jazz chord.   In less complex music, successive inversions like this crop up all the time.  The study should be expanded to any two major triads a whole step apart ( as in this example ), or a half-step apart ( such as Gmaj and Abmaj) and to minor triads.  A particularly useful combination is a Maj triad and a minor triad that is a whole step up ( such as Bbmaj and Cmin).  The second passage below is an example of the same exercise with broken chords in both directions.
   As usual, this should be done in all keys and without using music, visualizing the inversions and always noting the sound of the top note and how the quality of the top note has everything to do with what degree of the chord it is.....
  The logic here is that we alternate 2 triads moving up to the nearest inversion.  Play up a couple octaves then go down to where you started. And remember to keep your thumb OFF of the black keys, unless it's an emergency.  If God had wanted us to use the thumb on a black key she would have made it longer.  There are no emergencies here....

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