Need advice for teaching a first year high school jazz pianist? Second, if the score has him comping chords, simplify them to triads. Even if there is a part written out, you may want to make a comping arrangement if the original part is too difficult.
You’ll need to teach each chord separately.
- For example, if you have an arrangement around the 12 bar blues in Bb, you’ll need to teach at least the Bb, Eb, and F major triads.
- However, since it’s jazz band, there may be other chromatic passing triads as well.
After you’ve reduced the chords to triads, create voicings that stay, as much as possible, within one hand position.
- Or at least limit the number of hand positions as much as you can.
- The next semester, or even next year, you can start working on seventh chords.
- Extensions (such as nineth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords) will probably have to wait a year or two down the road.
- If there are single note (i.e., melodic) passages, limit them to one hand to begin with. You can work on hands combined playing in later semesters.
When you’ve created your arrangement, print it out and give it to your student. Color coding the music will help your ADHD and dyslexic students. The following link talks about music notation software that can color code the notes for you: