§ Piano Sonatas

• Turns out, sonatas such as this one contain clever ideas, well packaged.
• This is perfect, because it's exactly the type of thing I like to play :)

§ Pop Piano Covers

• Owl City by Pianella Piano

§ Dances, Waltzes and Ragtime

• All the music I like playing has a strong rhythmic component.
• It should have cute nuggets of ideas, like waltzes and dances.
• Furthermore, it should have strong syncopation, like ragtime!
• I need to explore other styles:

§ Ragtime

Syncopated rhythms with steady left-hand bass patterns.

§ Boogie-Woogie

Driving left-hand basslines, often with walking bass patterns and bluesy syncopation.

§ Stride Piano

Left hand alternates between bass notes and chords, creating a "striding" sound, similar to ragtime but with more harmonic freedom.

§ Swing

Focuses on rhythmic groove with swung eighth notes, creating a lively, bouncy feel. Lots of space for improvisation.

§ Honky Tonk

Ragtime-like piano style, typically played in bars, featuring lively rhythms and a “barroom” feel.

§ Bebop

Fast, complex, with intricate chord changes and syncopation. It emphasizes individual improvisation.

§ Funk Jazz Standards

• How to play Funk Piano by the jazz piano site
• Vamp: repeating pattern with chromaticism (by eg side slipping).
• Use dorian, myxolydian modes.
• Rhythmically interesting.
• Bassline is most important part.

§ Rhythm

• Slower tempo.
• 16th notes (1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a)
• Backbeat, so snare on 2 & 4
• Emphasis on "The One"
• Strong 'downbeat' feel on 1, 2 and 4
• use of syncopation.

§ Left Hand

• Bassline that hits the root note strongly on beat 1
• Use 16th note feel
• Use syncopation
• The 2nd and 4th 16notes give the 16th note feel, since 1st and 3rd 16th notes sound like 8ths. This also makes it sound syncopated.

§ Right Hand

• Use 16th note feel
• Use syncopation

§ Most Common Standards

• Superstition — Stevie Wonder
• Chameleon — Herbie Hancock / The Headhunters
• Watermelon Man — Herbie Hancock
• What's Going On — Marvin Gaye
• I Wish — Stevie Wonder
• Brick House — Commodores
• Pick Up the Pieces — Average White Band
• Get Down On It — Kool & The Gang
• Cissy Strut — The Meters
• Give It to Me Baby — Rick James
• Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine — James Brown
• Get Up Offa That Thing — James Brown
• Flash Light — Parliament
• Freedom Jazz Dance — Eddie Harris (Real Book standard)

§ Standards

• The Chicken — Pee Wee Ellis (via The J.B.'s / Jaco Pastorius)
• Mister Magic — Grover Washington Jr.
• Too High — Stevie Wonder
• Tutu — Miles Davis / Marcus Miller
• Cold Duck Time — Eddie Harris
• Some Skunk Funk — The Brecker Brothers
• Red Baron — Billy Cobham
• Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) — Sly & The Family Stone
• If You Want Me to Stay — Sly & The Family Stone
• Shakey Ground — The Temptations
• Pass the Peas — The J.B.'s

§ Jazz Voicings

• Jazz Voicings in Under An Hour by Jeremy Siskind
• don't want doublings (same note played twice, lower and higher). Can be using the fingers to play more colorful tones, also, it shuts down the resonance of a sound.
• Some use doublings on purpose, but we avoid them.
• Don't want to just have a stack of thirds, sounds a litle less sophisticated.
• We want to avoid the minor 9th (octave plus half-step), as it sounds crazy dissonant.
• The essential tones are te 3rd and the 7th.

§ Type A/B Voicings

• Only uses essential tones. Learn inversions of these (Type A: 3rd below) followed by (Type B: 7th below). When playing E A D G C chord sequence for Cmaj7 (III-VI-II-V-I). This leads to a smooth ascent.
• NOTE: sounds crazy dissonant?

§ Thickened Line Voicings

• Kinds of voicings that are useful to enforcing a melody.

§ Thickened Line: Closed Position / Shearing Voicing

• The melody notes are bottom and top.
• Use "mary had a little lamb" to play this.
• Play on the bepop scale

§ Thickcened Line: Drop 2 Voicings

• Start with a closed position voicing, get rid of the lowest/bottom note, and move the second note from the top down an ocatve.
• These are 'lighter' sounding than closed position voicings.

§ Thickcened Line: Drop 3 Voicings (Can Learn Later)

• Start with a closed position voicing, get rid of the lowest/bottom note, and move the third note from the top down an ocatve.
• Not as harmonious as drop-2. Can be mixed with drop-2 for a more 'colorful' sound.

§ Modal: So What Voicing

• Pick a mode, say, D dorian.
• In modal jazz, all notes are 'equal' (so there is no 'essential tones', or 'chord and non chord tones').
• Play 3rd or 4th intervals from the mode .
• Stack 4th, 4th, 4th, and 3rd from within the mode. 5 notes in total.
• For example, in D dorian, we can play low:D G C F E, which is 3rd 4th 4th 4th 3rd from the mode.
• Can start on any note from the mode. Starting from C, we get low:C F E B G.
• These two make the classic 'so-what' call and response pattern: low: C F [RH: E B G], low: D G [RH: C F E].