Yamaha Education Blog »
Viewing Posts matching 'piano'

I'm delighted to announce the nine ensembles shortlisted to take part in the Yamaha Jazz Experience competition finals, hosted by Cheltenham Jazz Festival on 1 May 2010. Jazz FM broadcaster Helen Mayhew joined leading jazz educator Richard Michael and me, Yamaha's education liaison manager, Bill C Martin, to make the selection at Yamaha UK headquarters in early March.

The finalists for each category (ages as on 1 September 2009):
11 & under 15: Blue Lizard (Manchester Music Service); Pimlico Junior Jazz (Pimlico Academy); Blue Shift (Guildhall School of Music & Drama Junior Department)
11 & under 17: St Ignatius Jazz (St Ignatius College, Enfield); Dumfries Youth Jazz Group (Dumfries Youth Jazz); Time Team (Northampton Music & Performing Arts Service)
11 & under 19: Tomorrow's Warriors Biggish Band (Tomorrow's Warriors, London); Friendly Bacteria (GSMD Junior Department, London); Chetham's Jazz Sextet (Chetham's School of Music, Manchester)

Jazz ensembles from all over the UK - from Shetland in the north of Scotland, down to Devon on England's south-west peninsula - entered ensembles for the competition, with a chance to win gigs at Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Ronnie Scott's, The 606 Club and The Bull's Head Jazz Club in south-west London on 1 May 2010, along with a total of £9,000 worth of Yamaha prizes for their school, college or community centres.

To enter, participants had to set up a jazz ensemble comprising piano (or keyboard/vibes), bass, drums and optionally up to five additional performers. They had to prepare a blues and either a jazz standard or a piece of their own choosing, with impro at its heart, video their best performance of them and send them to Yamaha them to Yamaha.

Then in early March 2010 two of the distinguished Yamaha Jazz Experience judges, Helen Mayhew (jazz broadcaster, Jazz FM) and Richard Michael (2009 Parliamentary Jazz 'Jazz Educator' award winner and Yamaha Jazz Experience workshop leader), joined Yamaha's Bill C Martin for the difficult job of choosing only nine ensembles to take part in the competition finals in Cheltenham.

Helen, Richard and I had a fantastic time watching and listening to the wonderful video entries, from every conceivable kind of educational and music institution and from all over the UK. I was particularly pleased to hear entries from some of those teachers new to jazz who took part in our Jazz Experience workshops in 2009, and who have clearly moved their own skills on tremendously. We were stunned by the overall quality of musicianship in the entries, which made it very difficult to choose only nine finalists! We want to thank all the teachers and music leaders who have clearly put in so much work with their ensembles and, even if they haven't got through to the finals on this occasion, they may be consoled to know that Helen has noted names and will be on the lookout for emerging new jazz stars, no doubt to feature on her Jazz FM programme, 'The Yamaha Jazz Jam', in the future!"

On 1 May the nine finalists will perform before a distinguished judging panel of: Julian Joseph (internationally acclaimed jazz pianist and Jazz Experience workshop leader), Andrea Vicari (jazz professor at Trinity College of Music, professional jazz musician with Andrea Vicari Trio, director of Dordogne Jazz Summer School and Jazz Experience workshop leader), Liane Carroll (inspirational jazz singer, winner of 2008 Parliamentary Jazz 'Musician of the Year' award winner), Helen Mayhew (jazz broadcaster, Jazz FM), Peter Ind (Jazz Experience patron and legendary jazz double bass player) and inspirational jazz educator Richard Michael.

The judges will announce the winners at the event.

We would like to thank the Yamaha Jazz Experience venue partners, Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Ronnie Scott's, the 606 Club and the Bull's Head Jazz Club in London. We wish all the finalists the greatest success.

As an experienced keyboard/piano player but a relative newcomer to jazz piano playing I decided last year to start the journey to get my jazz piano playing working. Following a week at a jazz summer school in 2008 I've kept up my practice during most evenings but have not yet found a regular practice routine that I feel is really moving me on.

That is, until I started to work on the listening activities that almost every jazz musician will tell you are the key. But what do they mean by 'listening'? And what should one do, having listened? Well, the idea is to listen repeatedly to a piece of music you'd like to learn, so you get to know not just the notes but every nuance of the performance. 

So, having heard the late Will Michael's amazing piano solo, 'Elegy', which jazz star, Julian Joseph, played as a tribute to Will at his Ronnie Scott's gig in November 2008, I set out to learn it. Jazz musicians speak about transcription but they don't necessarily mean writing something down. There's nothing wrong with writing down the music that you've worked out but the notation doesn't contain enough of the original performance to allow you just to read it. So sketch it out if you need to but treat the notation just as a guide, not as 'the music'!

With 'Elegy' I started by working out some of the harmony and melody - just a short section initially, over a period of 2-3 weeks, whenever I got a moment to listen on my iPod. When I felt I'd got it, I played along at the piano to check. As time went on, constantly referring back to Will's wonderful performance, I was able to add additional sections of the piece and more and more of Will's performance detail - expression, ornaments, phrasing, chord voicings, tempo fluctuations, his expressive use of rubato, etc. I soon found that even my performance had begun to come alive!

After a while I did get to the stage where I felt the need to write something down to guide me but I am clear that working it out first by ear is the key; sometimes it may be tempting to write it down straight away but I must resist for as long as possible! When I did finally need to capture on paper what I had done so far, even then I only sketched it out, using the manuscript pad and pencil I now keep permanently by the piano.

I've now got to the point where I can give a reasonably convincing performance of this and at last week's Jazz Experience workshop, played part of it to Will's brother, Richard, who was leading the workshop. He was very moved and suggested that I tell people about the transcribing process I had gone through, so here I am!

This whole so-called 'transcribing' process really is the best way to learn the language. Listening and copying is the way we all learn to speak, so of course it works! My plan now is to tackle some sections of piano improvisations by some of my heroes - maybe from McCoy Tyner's 'Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit' or Herbie Hancock's 'Cantaloupe Island' to begin with. Thanks, Will, for showing me the way!

Yesterday I spent a wonderful afternoon at Chappell's music shop in Wardour Street, London, with Yamaha jazz artists Julian Joseph and Tim Garland. If you're just getting into jazz but haven't yet heard these guys, you really should! The occasion was to record a short video clip with each of them on two subjects:
1) what first got them into jazz
2) what improvisation practice advice they would give to music teachers who can already play their instruments well but who are taking their first steps in improvising.

The insight of these two amazing musicians is stunning! We kept the camera rolling afterwards while they chatted about a range of jazz-related topics that are essential viewing for anyone who wants to improve their improvising. We will post a link to highlights from the video here in a few days but teachers should enrol on one of the Jazz Experience workshops to get the full picture and begin the journey to really get your improvising working well. Once on that journey you'll have access to some great new ways to inspire young people musically and to help them unleash their own personal and musical creativity, in whatever genre they wish to apply it. 

To join the project, download the application form and return it to Bill Martin at the email address on the form. 

My week at the Jazzwise Summer School seems eons ago, now. But I've made good use of the copious notes I made during some of the sessions and have developed a robust practice routine for my jazz piano playing which seems to be producing results.

I can usually manage an hour-or-so's practice probably 3 evenings during the week and a bit longer at the weekends. In that time I have been focusing on working on really getting inside individual scales for 'What Is This Thing Called Love?' and transcribing a couple of solo piano impro pieces. If there's time I go back to work started a couple of months ago on 'My Foolish Heart'.

I'm really enjoying the process as my fluency at impro increases day by day.

The summer school taught me that ensemble playing and jamming with other musicians is a great way to progress quickly. And yet those opportunities aren't currently available to me. It would be great to find some 'minus-one' type jazz piano practice materials - say with just bass and drums or maybe with a lead instrument too. That would allow me to practise the ensemble pianist's comping role as well as some soloing. But to my surprise I've been unable to find any audio or MIDI file backing tracks that will do the job. Of course there are lots of jazz playalongs available but most of them still ask you to pan the stereo mix hard left or hard right (to remove the piano form the mix). Problem is that I haven't seen a home stereo system with pan settings on it for years. Certainly my mp3 player doesn't allow it.

The only thing would be to edit the audio playalong on my PC/Mac to pan the mix to remove the piano. That would probably be highly illegal and in any case is not how I'd prefer to spend my precious practice time. So I've decided to go along to my local Saturday morning jazz jam session (the nearest one to me is in Sheffield, though there are many such events dotted around the country). 

Despite this small obstacle I'm really enjoying the process of discovery and of getting my piano playing working again. It's prompted me to replace my old digital piano with a new Yamaha YUS3 Silent - allowing me the delight of playing a gorgeous and tonally rich acoustic piano again but still with the ability to practise silently on headphones, in order to maintain family peace!

This is the final blog about my time spent as a piano student on the Jazzwise Summer School 27 July - 1 August 2008.

So we've reached the final day and the daily schedule (Theory Class - Jamey's Musicianship Class - Combo - Masterclass - Combo) was revised slightly to allow for a 10-minute performance slot for all 15 or so combos, from 1:30pm. I'm sure I wasn't alone in that my attention today was mostly on mental preparation for the performance. So my questions during the theory and masterclass sessions were geared to getting advice/ideas that would help me with our combo's performance of Duke Ellington/Juan Tizol's 'Caravan' (that's us above). We'd agreed on an arrangement for the intro and 'head', an order for the soloing and a treatment for the ending.

For this piece, I'd learnt that the opening C7b9 chord (sustained for much of the A section) can be found in an F harmonic minor scale (starting on the 5th): C Db E F G Ab Bb. So I'd explored a range of harmonic and melodic shapes which I'd hopefully deploy in some way when comping and when it was my turn to solo. From my days as a pro keyboard player, the old pre-gig nerves returned, like an inevitable though unwanted visit to the dentist's. Fortunately my old pre-gig de-stressing routine also kicked in automatically, with some deep breathing to control my heart rate, which helped me keep my thinking clear and muscles relaxed and in control.

1:30 came and as the first combo bravely kicked off I reflected on how well everyone had done. Without exception, and from whatever instrumental skill level we'd each begun the week, everyone had progressed audibly. Jamey Aebersold's superb curriculum had been a central part of this - and I recommend his playalong books, available from Jazzwise, without exception. We'd all learnt how to develop a creative facility with these scales, way beyond just playing them ascending and descending. We'd learnt how to shape a solo so it tells a story; we'd learnt how to restrict material initially and focus in on thematic development - themes taken from within our own soloing or borrowed from the previous soloist - a kind of musical Chinese whispers.

As it turned out the piano was to be the first solo, straight after the whole combo had played the head. The count-in came and then the drum intro filled the void. Before we knew it the rhythm section was laying down the groove and the famous middle-eastern flavoured melody began. The objective for a jazz musician is to become so familiar with the scalic and harmonic material that using them during a solo is almost a subconscious activity, with well rehearsed fingerings and shapes that may therefore seem to come from elsewhere. Well, like most of us on this course, my subconscious was not yet pulling its weight, still leaving my brain to the donkey work! However, my solo came and I remained in reasonable control, beginning with a phrase based around that wonderfully characteristic augmented interval (Db - E), before building the energy a little. As the B section kicked in, with its extended periods on dom7 chords I remembered some of the exotic alterations I'd learnt and practised this week. So out came my F7#11 chord (from the Lydian dominant scale) - basically the LH can just play A(3rd) and Eb(7th) while the RH plays a G major triad with G (being the 9th), B(#11) and D(13). My soloing was then based mostly around RH arpeggios on the RH chord shape with some occasional passing tones or chromatic notes to help create my musical narrative.

Our frontline players all did superbly but the sense of relief when the applause finally came was palpable!

What a week! My milestones this week:

• Looking forward to being able to improve the jazz side of my piano playing (Sunday)
• Grappling with the de-skilling nature for an accomplished musician, when working outside one's musical comfort zone (Monday)
• Feelings of frustration at not being able to play immediately what I wanted to play (Monday but decreasing)
• Extending my knowledge about harmony and melody in jazz (every day)
• Having some great guidance on how to develop my jazz playing further (every day)
• Dealing with the nerves before our final combo performance in which we were all required to take a solo (Friday)
• Confirming that these psychological obstacles and how we overcome them are as much a part of the learning as the jazz itself
• Being reminded that music teaches us skills that truly enhance our lives and - if we work hard - it can enhance the lives of others too!

Yamaha, as a major partner with Jazzwise, had provided some early booking bursaries and concessions as well as some much appreciated Yamaha pianos for use during the course. We do this because we think it is important to help people of all ages learn more about the music that inspires them. Inspiration was in abundance this week and I would personally like to thank Charles Alexander and his staff at Jazzwise, along with the superb faculty of world-class jazz educators from the US and UK. Finally a big thank-you to Jamey Aebersold for his vision in creating some pathways that enable anyone to take their first steps in jazz, at whatever point and age they choose to begin them.

For this participant, it's revived my (lapsed) love of playing the piano and I've found a new musical avenue to explore that I'm sure will give me a lifetime of challenge and reward. For instrumental and class teachers who feel that they have hit a glass ceiling with their own skills in jazz - especially now the new KS3 Music guidance requires style- and instrument-specific skills - I can't recommend this course strongly enough. You'll make some new friends, be totally challenged on a deep personal and musical level and emerge with some new skills and ways to develop them further which will transform your musicianship and teaching. It will also remind you (in case you needed it) why you got into music in the first place. Go on, you deserve it!

For me this was a breakthrough day for my own playing. Denys Baptiste's skilled direction of our Combo session this week brought us to a point where the rhythm section (including piano) was finally beginning to really gel and members of the combo beginning to listen to each other a much more. The front line - our 4 saxes and trombone players - are all very good players in their teens and Denys helped them interact a lot more during the performance, listening more closely to each other's solos and passing melodic fragments from one solo to the next.

My personal brick wall at the start of the course has been 2-handed comping and even this began to come together today. The course maestro, Jamey Aebersold dropped into our rehearsal a couple of times and gave me some superb guidance on both soloing and comping - thanks Jamey! As well as the tunes where the chords come thick and fast - particularly challenging for a fledgeling jazz pianist sightreading the chords in the unfamiliar tunes and having to choose good chord voicings and suitable scales for impro on the spot! - Denys had us play a modal piece with extended periods over each chord. The horns found this particularly challenging as a musical result happens only when you do more than just find notes that fit. Denys was very helpful in getting them to think about shaping a solo and not giving away all their ideas in every repeat. Modal jazz seems to demand perhaps a more meditative approach, where restrictions can reap rather special dividends. This is something I can now take away and develop further.

My study of McCoy Tyner's playing over the past couple of years, really helped me in the modal piece. I found some of the voicings with much less brain work and I was for the first time able to concentrate on building what I think was my most interesting solo so far this week. (Note to self: practise doing this with tunes with a faster harmonic rate too!)

I loved Dan Haerle's piano masterclass today. Dan really focussed on 2-handed piano voicings that use a complete major or minor triad in the right hand. Fore example, an A13b9 chord had us using root and 7 in the LH (A and G) while the RH played an F#maj triad over the top (provinding the 3, 13 and b9) - a fabulously exotic sound, which his excellent book 'Jazz Piano Voicing Skills' is now in my growing pile of great publications to take home and work on. (Additional note to self: leave the credit card at home next time!)

The day culminated in a concert by our tutors (some shown here, course leader Jamey Aebersold centre, on sax) - stunning and inspirational players all! It showed us how some of the best US and UK jazz performers can paint a wonderful melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and textural picture, drawing of course on their immense experience, technique and profound musicianship. They provided a great musical model for all of us on the course, which I'm sure we'll have in mind when we give our more modest final combo performances during tomorrow's final concert.

I was stunned to hear that Yamaha's Clavinova electronic piano range celebrates its 25th birthday this year! The original instruments were based on the old FM synthesis, the heart of the DX7 synthesiser, but by today's standards sounded more electronic than piano! The latest Clavinovas though are quite a different story and are these days permitted in exams for most exam boards - high praise indeed.

If you have used Clavinovas in your teaching at any time in the past quarter century, tell us a bit about it here.