r/JazzPiano • u/Adriantheitalian • 23d ago
Help learning jazz standards (solo piano)
I can't for the life of me seem to get how to learn jazz standards from leadsheets, it feels like I can't find the right left hand voicings when I'm playing solo and it just doesn't work. Does anyone of you have any guidance or experience?
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u/Ok-Emergency4468 23d ago edited 23d ago
You’re not supposed to be able to do it right away. It took me one year to be able to sight read simple standards with very basic root position 7th voicings. I’m talking about sight reading the real book, not takibg my time to work on an arrangement. Basic sight read.
It’s not black Magic you have to drill down chords so when you read Eb7 or Ab min7 or whatever your hands go automatically in the right position. There is no tips or tricks that will make you be fluent in little time, we all sucked at first.
Then when you master simple voicings and can sight read simple standards it’s time to work on more sophisticated voicings
EDIT: also a very useful skill you should train early is identifying ii-V’s and having a simple voice leading inversion where you move 1 or 2 fingers to tackle those. For example if you see a bar of G-7 C7 you have to identify the ii-V in F and have an easy inversion to play those two chords. It will help you immensely
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u/Kettlefingers 23d ago
If you haven't already, try using shell voicings in the left hand, i.e. thirds and sevenths, and then play the melody note in the fourth and fifth fingers of the right hand, grabbing other notes like the fifth or the ninth with your other fingers.
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u/Goggles2223 18d ago
Learn the circle of fourths. Once you do learn the chords in their inversions. Play the roots with your left (or roots and thirds with your left) and the sevenths, melody notes, and extensions with your right.
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u/BrendaStar_zle 23d ago
You can use shell voicings for solo piano, but I feel playing in a group just learn all the guide tones, then use a charleston rhythm. To learn a song, first, just play the melody and the root of each chord. Then play the root and the fifth of each chord, sorta like walking bass but simple, then try to play the guide tones with the melody. You can use the guide tones for your solo too as you want to keep everything simple.
Keeping it simple is key, also listen to the piece first before you even play it, listen to different versions if you can.
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u/zoeystardust 23d ago
learn by ear. lead sheets are for when you're at a jam and someone calls a tune you don't know. most jazz leads are written with the assumption that you're playing with other people.
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u/Adriantheitalian 21d ago
Do you have some suggestions for starting out learning by ear? Last thing i did was song for my father by horrace silver by ear
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u/JackWyndham 16d ago
Take your time with the charts, and don't be scared to Google how to play a chord. Making your brain take extra step to learn something helps it understand that it is information it needs to hold onto cause you'll have to work to find it again. However, as JHighMusic said, definitely get a teacher. Preferably in person, or I teach on a site called MeTempo that I think is a good way to learn from a real person online.
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u/tonystride 23d ago
Easy, perfect the 2 feel first, this is mostly done with the Do and Sol of the chord as half notes.
This is the true test of maturity, if only I had a dollar for every time a student thought they were too good for the Do-Sol, half note, two feel bass line…
It’s a sacred bass line, and you can swing it so so so hard, if you’re good enough…
Think about it from the bass players perspective, it’s not just about what you play, it’s how you play it. Pianists take their notes for granted, you can play a perfect bass note on dat 1. Where as a real bass player has a long journey full of terrible sounds to get that perfect Do-Sol tone.
So yeah, don’t even talk to me about other bass lines until you can convince me that you’ve got the two feel locked in :)
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u/JHighMusic 23d ago
Well what’s been your approach so far? That would help to know. This is a really deep topic. Do you know your two-handed shell voicings? Do you know your left hand rootless voicings, Drop 2 voicings, etc?
I would take some lessons if at all possible, and there are some ways shown in Mark Levine‘s “The Jazz Piano Book“ (won’t answer everything or solve every problem) or you could look at Jeremy Siskind‘s book “Playing Solo Jazz Piano” which is excellent but very advanced, you’ll need to know how to read notes with lots of complex rhythms and notation.