I'm a hobbyist pianist who has been playing primarily rock and blues music for about 2 years, and classical before that for a few years. I have a beginner grasp of music theory (I know my major, 3 minor, and blues scales, and work on ear training and understand intervals). I thought to branch out in my playing (especially improvisation for cocktail-style piano) and get some further understanding of music theory by reading through the Jazz Theory book, however, it's pretty tough to get through for me. Given this book is nearly straight theory and has very few exercises, should I be working through other books more my level before diving into the heavy theory?
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1What parts do you have problems with? It will get hard to get through if you don't have the concept of modes and scales down, so that could be one thing to study if you encounter problems. I believe the idea of the book is trying to build a very strong foundation for jazz improvisation, so it is quite thorough. E.g. Hal Leonard has books for certain styles of piano, which are somewhat easier to digest, maybe try one of those out?– Meaningful UsernameApr 6, 2015 at 10:17
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Thanks, I will give those a shot. I have read through just the first section on 3 note voicings and tried those on a few pieces. Then I hit the next chapter on sus/phyrigian chords and I'm just finding it hard to piece everything together. I know one answer is grab a lead sheets and practice, practice, practice - but I suppose I'm just looking for a method that might hold my hand a bit more.– tarunApr 6, 2015 at 15:46
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2In the book he tries to have you apply the theoretical material to tunes. If you don't have a real book or one of the real book apps, download one and look up the tunes he suggests working on. And don't forget to flip to random tunes on your own and try the exercises out on tunes that catch your eye when you're just flipping through.– aaaaaaaaaaaApr 7, 2015 at 14:23
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2Also note that although cocktail-piano audiences may appreciate colourful re-harmonisations of familiar tunes, they still want to hear the TUNES, not your jazz improvisations on them!– LaurenceApr 8, 2015 at 10:40
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Bought this book several years ago, and made a list of discrepancies, which just grew and grew. Plenty of unexplained points, and inequality between the text and the dots themselves. I also bought his Jazz Piano book - still in its wrapper, and will probably remain so. Try Bert Ligon's Jazz Theory Resources - much better to digest.– TimMar 26, 2020 at 8:02
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4 Answers
Yes. That book, while being very good, is not paced well for beginners. It throws a ton of hard-to-learn stuff at you right away. I'd recommend supplementing it with other books that perhaps have more written out examples to work with as well. I wouldn't say it's good as an only book.
The thing about learning jazz is that I could sit down with a new player and in a half hour show them exercises that would take five years to master. But that doesn't mean that's a good idea...
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1It's not piano specific, but I think the best I've seen for the beginner to intermediate improvisor is "Jazz Improvisation: The Goal Note Method". That's the one that really broke the wall for me. HTH! Jun 26, 2017 at 18:30
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1His Jazz Theory Book is the same. He throws you into the middle of things, doesn't bother to define his terms well and makes many assumptions that are by no means agreed upon or well explained. Definitely not for beginners. Feb 12, 2018 at 17:38
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@Stinkfoot - I'd argue that it's not for anyone else either. As an educational tome, it falls well short of doing the 'education' bit - way too confusing. My theory's not too bad, but I kept questioning stuff all through.– TimOct 21, 2020 at 9:55
Have you tried Charles Austin's An Approach to Jazz Piano? It's probably the most comprehensive jazz piano/jazz theory book out there, and it starts with "rock" type harmony and moves on from there. I found "The Jazz Piano Book" assumed a lot of cultural knowledge that I didn't necessarily have at the time, when I was starting jazz piano, as well as introducing ideas in a weird order, and at the time I just needed a really thorough explanation of all the things from first principles, and ways to put them into practice.
I've had the Jazz Piano Book for 30 years and just started looking at it very slowly and just a little bit at a time.
I think it is a great book. There is just a huge amount of material that is presented in a very compressed manner so taking it very slowly and methodically is helpful.
For instance - in one chapter on melodic minor chords he shows 5 different left hand voicings for a Dmin7b5 chord. It takes up only about 1/8 of the page. So it is easy to read it and skip over it but what one really needs to do is to learn all 5 voicings in 12 keys. So that is 60 different chord voicings each of which looks different and feels different from each other. The real goal is to be able to learn what each of these voicings looks like, feels like, and sounds like. This takes awhile. But while learning all these chord voicings one can also try and use them in songs out of a real book so one can learn what they actually sound like in context.
I found that it is definitely worth it because by doing it slowly and somewhat painstakingly, over time I began to see the mathematical (not calculus, just arithmetic!) relationships among the various chords and scales. And those relationships stay in my mind.
Levine's The Jazz Piano Book is more of a textbook than a How To, so no wonder you are finding it hard work. Given that your stated aim is to get into 'improvisation for cocktail-style piano', perhaps start by obtaining jazz piano arrangements of some cocktail-style tunes; you are bound to learn something just by playing them, and the cocktail quaffers are unlikely to care whether the solo is yours, Hal Leonard's or Mulgrew Miller's (Levine is a big fan).
Next, it's a matter of experimenting with different chord voicings and slipping in a few substitute chords to put your stamp on the tune. It's probably best, when starting out, to confine your experimentation to the solo section, rather than the head, so as not to cause too many ripples in the martinis. As Laurence Payne says,'...they still want to hear the tunes...'
The next step is pretty much mandatory: Get The Real Book Software, which contains a lifetime's worth of jazz tunes and three lifetimes' worth of 'definitive' recordings. You then listen, listen, listen, transcribe, transcribe transcribe and play, play play. Then transcribe some more. You can cut to the 'cocktail' chase and skip over the more frenetic tunes; that will leave you more time for transcription. Transcription is critical because it is your link to a century's worth of innovations by jazz giants.
Sooner or later, the listening and transcribing will put you in a position to make more sense of the theory when/if you return to Levine's book.
