Special Piano™

5 Comments

1. I’ve been playing jazz piano for about two years now, and have had great success with The Jazz Piano Book (as one might imagine). The next book that has served me well is Post-Bop Jazz Piano – The Complete Guide with CD!: Hal Leonard Keyboard Style Series, which is from the same series as the Jazz Blues Piano book under review. So, when I began looking for a book to help me sound bluesy, something noticeably lacking from my skill set, I gravitated toward this book for that reason and because my piano instructor didn’t have this book (although he had many others in the same series). I have to say, that overnight, this became my favorite book to work from. There are a lot of reasons for that. First is that this book contains a good dose of easy-to-digest jazz music theory and explanation. The student can choose to skip over this and concentrate on playing the exercises, but I chose to read everything carefully and to try and understand and apply it, and I found it very useful. I was also quite pleasantly surprised when I found myself playing a ii-V-I progression (the backbone of jazz music) in a fashion I had never been shown before (with a moving bass note changing the mode of the chord). I was fascinated, and it made it easy for me to work on doing it in all twelve keys (which is normally drudgery), and to quickly press on in the book. As I played through the exercises, read through the material, then reached the exercises that are on the CD, I kept working on the suggested chords. Because I’m not a raw beginner, the first twenty pages went very quickly, and all of a sudden I found myself at about twenty pages in on exercise 9 practicing a straight up blues lick. That’s right: two hours and I was playing blues. Very, very exciting. Like all piano books, including a number I have reviewed, this still requires practice and stick-to-itive-ness, but this book provides some small rewards on every page, which I find quite motivational and desirable. I can easily picture myself working through this entire book in a relatively short period of time. Beginning piano students will still need to work on some of this material with an instructor, but anybody with a good technical foundation in piano and at least a small amount of jazz knowledge should be able to work through most of this by themselves, thanks to the useful and well executed CD. Although there are many options and levels available, if you want to sound jazzy or bluesy, without a lot of fuss and without spending a lot of money or time, I really think this book is the best and simplest place to start.
   

   Reply by Eric C. Sedensky — July 27, 2010 @ 12:31 pm

2. I’m having a lot of fun with this book/CD, especially the piano, bass and drums pieces with accompanying written music for the chords. One can improvise along with the CD music with the right hand, and learn how to comp with the left in due time.

   The book conatins a little music theory, a little of which is good. But some of it is,in my view, unnecessary to enjoy jazz blues.

   The combo book/cd is well worth the price!

   Reply by Kirtland E. Hobler — July 27, 2010 @ 12:56 pm

3. This is a great book that I picked up! It goes through what few other books do…the Jazz-Blues styles of the twentieth century without “dumbing” it down. This book includes important information about scales and modes, inversions, voicing, harmony, progressions and patters, left-hand vs right-hand, styles, comping, and even soloing…anything that is used in any type of jazz-blues. It goes through Swing/Big band, Jump blues, Bop, Hard Bop, Cool Jazz, Soul Jazz, Jazz/Rock Fusion. The book moves quickly but provides the information that is important for those of us looking to play. It comes with a very handy CD which allows to hear what it’s supposed to sound like. Mark Harrison is a wonderful teacher in this book and I highly recommend it.

   Reply by LBWheels457 — July 27, 2010 @ 2:47 pm

4. I find this book the perfect follow up for the other one Blues Piano from same author, which I consider a master piece. I just started and I am very happy with it.

   Reply by Private — July 27, 2010 @ 5:23 pm

5. This is a great book and CD for the jazz beginner. I’m pretty much self taught in piano, in my sixties, and not very accomplished. However, Harrison’s book and CD (along with the book How To Play Popular Piano, by Monath, which focuses heavily on using the left hand strictly for chords and the right hand for melody)has helped me enjoy playing more than ever and really begin to enjoy playing jazz. You can move around easily in Harrison’s 80 tracks in the CD for practice and listening. There are Jazz Solo pieces at track 72 and beyond that are fun to listen to and try to play and let me see how close I am to really being able to play the improvisational jazz like I want to. The bass and drum accompaniment is very good. I have other beginner material, but the quality of Harrison’s music is the best I’ve found for this purpose. There is plenty of theory and advanced material, but I’m able to pick and choose what I’m interested in. I highly recommend it for the beginner. Of course, the better your skills at reading music, the more helpful this book will be. For me, the best part has been learning 7th chords for the left hand while using the jazz scales for improvisation.

   Reply by Harper St.Charles — July 27, 2010 @ 5:32 pm