In this lesson, we’re going to create a solo piano arrangement of the well-known standard ‘On Green Dolphin Street’, written by Bronislau Kaper.
Lead sheets are a useful tool when starting out with jazz, but by learning tunes by memory, it will benefit your playing in a number of ways.
The tune is written in ¾ so it’s played with a waltz feel. We interpret some of the tune quite freely, in particular in the introduction and the ending.
A selection of well-known festive arrangements. Share these jazzy Christmas tunes with your friends and family over the holiday season.
We will examine the minor line cliche in the A Sections and then discuss the use of suspended chords in the bridge of the tune.
Now you have an understanding of a basic improvised line, we will now take it a step further with non diatonic passing tones and chromaticism.
This tutorial introduces the ‘locked hands’ technique. This style involves playing left hand voicings simultaneously with an improvised line.
Michel Legrand’s ‘What are you doing the rest of your life’ is a challenging tune to learn and contains some difficult-to-navigate chord changes.
Blue in Green is an unusual tune. The 10-measure form is much shorter than most jazz standards and so it’s repeated numerous times in a performance.
Written in the key of Eb Major, Tenderly follows a 32 measure A – B1 – A – B2 form and has an impressionistic character similar to early Debussy.