You can learn jazz from YouTube 1

After I completed my lesson videos for my jazz piano lesson "Lazy way to learn jazz piano", I have been picking videos that are available at You tube. And I have found that there are so many lessons that fits to be nice tutorials.

My plan is to relate my findings to you readers so that you do not need to go through You tube to find what you want. Yes, the selection is aimed to the very beginners and the matter that I was not able to tell because of limited video length.

The first one is this: Go here
and click on the "How to play piano: The basics, Piano Lesson #1" that is located left of the video screen.

If you haven't ever touched piano I recommend this video. A young guy talks a lot but saying things nice way. It is of 24 minutes long. They restrict it to see at You tube.

Yes, it tells you how to form your hand, how to position your hand against the instrument and your finger position.

I'd say that this is pretty thorough way to tell you the very beginning of your piano.

4 - How & when to pedal. Using explosive dynamics

Pedaling does require you to have good ear. It is too easy to play loosely. Yes, You can keep pedal pushed all the way from start to end of music. It can only be identified by your ear. If you do it too much, the sound become thick, dull and cloudy to your ear as well as to your audiences.

As the theory, you don't extend your pedaling beyond the bar you start to pedal. In playing jazz, to avoid clouding your chord, you should not use pedal beyond the limit of the chord.

And it is sincerely recommended that you use it just to give explosive effect to your sound. Which means you limit the use of it for a couple notes.

Above can be proven if you listen to Johon Lewis or Oscar Peterson. Red Garland uses pedal quite frequently when he play melody with chord.

The advice is that you should be able to keep your finger on a certain note so that you can play melody in legato. Thereby you cn keep your melody line clear and crisp.

Django, John Lewis solo

John Lewis plays DJANGO: solo: He also tells that he has met DJANGO during war in France. I couldn't have a chance to hear this tune played solo. The first time I hear this tune was with MJQ.

It is a minor tune but having 8 bars with major inserted in the middle. The transition was appealing. If you listen to the MJQ playing it, during early sixties I mean, Milt jackson was dancing on the vivraphone with his mallets. And it had been rather Milt Jackson who had impressed me of his exciting yet cool playing style.

It was late '80es I have listened his own quartet somewhere in suburban San Franscisco. The tone was definitely Milt, but I felt something was missing and was not excited. Probably due Jhon Lewis wasn't there.

Listen to this solo of Lewis. You might have watched this video and so did I. But I love this little gap that is John plays minor tune with medium fast tempo. I believe you'd love it, too.