Cocktail piano fake book

This jazz piano tutorial is about how to use a lead sheet. I would have been happy if it was even about how to create cocktail piano arrangements from just chord diagrams and a melody. A fake book is a collection of lead sheets used by jazz musicians. The pianists studying in the group learn how to read and play standards from lead sheets and fake book, using chord concept. Im terrible in my confidence at improvising, so i sympathize. To be a cocktail pianist is improvisingplaying from a fake book, a must. Knowing how to make the five basic jazz chord types from any given note is fundamental to your evolving understanding of playing piano by chord concept.

A piano improvisation handbook for beginners that will serve as a starting point for those who feel as though they would like some encouragement in this area is. Quickly and easily learn to play popular songs in piano. Misty fly me to the moon happy birthday over the rainbow unforgettable what a wonderful. They learn to create simple cocktail piano arrangements with a using open chord voicings to harmonize melodies. With cocktail you can just start with your chords and your lead and sort of put together an arrangement on the fly.

The music included in the piano guys fake book are all absolute classics in those genres, all either in their original key of cmajor or transposed to cmajor for ease and fun of playing. Of course, that assumes you know how to form chords a chord dictionary can help you with that. Cookies this website uses cookies to personalize content and to analyze our traffic. Quickly and easily learn to play popular songs in piano fake books. Piano improvisation handbook learn to play cocktail piano. A fake book is a collection of musical lead sheets intended to help a performer quickly learn new songs. It should be noted the songs do not show the bass clef for piano students, so they will need to know how to compose chords based upon the chord name. Thus, a cocktail pianist can be thought of more like a part of the overall stage of. I am looking for volunteers to translate this book into any language. Of course, there are an infinite variations on how to play those chords. Cocktail piano standards by softcover audio online sheet. Shell voicings, some light arpeggios, and maybe some light stride will get you pretty well covered and you can just built your toolkit from there. Learn some basic chord progressions before you learn standards.

P laying piano is one of lifes great joys creating beautiful music, entertaining family and friends and expressing your inner creativity. The real books are the bestselling jazz books of all time. Discover the secrets the pros have been using for years to learn new music quickly and easily. This gives me access to a large set of tunes in a relatively small amount of space. In this new cocktail piano video lesson ive taken the most common 1625 chord progression used in many jazz standards and teach you how to. Each perspective will reflect what that persons reference is. Piano rhythm downloadable course play piano with easy fake book.

In this article well take a look at some of the most requested cocktail piano tunes. Various 100 musthave jazz standards presented in larger notation with simplified harmonies and melodies, with all songs in the key of c, and introductions for each song, to add a more finished sound to the arrangements. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. Understanding the 251 jazz progression the most important threechord. Scott the piano guys favorite piano fake book houston, scott on. Play the melody with your right hand plus the roots of the chords with your left hand. One of the most important tools for your piano playing bag of tricks is a good supply of lefthand accompaniment patterns. Generally, the songs are written much more concisely, or are abbreviated with only the melody and chord names written in. When i started the channel, its main purpose was to promote my book, how to really play the piano, which covers various music theory and piano improvisation basics, but only mentions cocktail in passing. Professional piano techniques basic lefthand technique, open voicings, melody support, etc for cocktail playing 3. Moonlight cocktail moonlight in vermont moonlight on the ganges. Diatonic harmony by diatonic harmony, we mean the chords that can be created using the notes of the normal major scales. Learn to play 2 jazz piano intro runs cocktail, blues. The fake books listed here are written with good chord changes for studying, learning and playing standards.

This followup to the popular your first fake book 00240112 includes over 100 more great songs that even beginninglevel musicians can enjoy playing. Any time youre faced with playing straight chords or even playing melodies from a fake book which pretty much just gives the chord names, youre left to your own resources to supply an interestingsounding. If one of your goals is to learn how to play cocktail piano and understand how to read from a fake book, then this is the most important lesson to begin with. Its mostly an issue of learning how to decode chord symbols the way you might decode notes on regular sheet music. Playing from a fake book means you become your own arranger.

Page 1 of 3 free jazz fake book in pdf posted in helpful guitar resources. This is not a book on improvisation that is meant to be read in an armchair. This site is good for jazz piano in general, and also covers cocktail piano. Nearly two decades ago, hal leonard created the ultimate fake book, a collection of more than 1,200 songs which lived up to its name and set the standard for all fake books that followed. How to play from a fake book keyboard edition kindle edition. Ive come across a book called how to play from a fake book. You can find a pretty complete list by taking one piano.

When it comes to cocktail piano, people may have different perspectives of what we are talking about. Nov 20, 2014 a piano improvisation handbook for beginners that will serve as a starting point for those who feel as though they would like some encouragement in this area is available. Scott the piano guys favorite piano fake book songbook ebook by scott houston. This book has been arranged with intermediateadvanced pianists in mind. I first added a video about cocktail piano to my youtube channel in 2010, and i was surprised how popular it was. Can one be a cocktail pianist using regular sheet music memorized. A b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w y z 100 tunes every musician should know 100tunes 100 more tunes. Include chord tones in the right hand as well as the left hand. This guidebook is brief and is accompanied by a short video that demonstrates the easy approach presented. Fake books are one of the best ways to practice piano because they require you to go beyond just playing chordsif you really want what youre playing to sound good, you have to vary your chord progressions, add in some melody and transitions, and. The best fake book ever various composers the latin real easy book various composers. At the listed web sites you can find fake books and sheets to thousands of songs for guitar and for keyboard. This popularity is most likely due to its simplicity.

I am a classical pianist and have been playing for over 20 years. To be able to develop your own stylish piano arrangements from songs you first need a good fundamental knowledge of harmony. I just play stuff really slowly and then a lot of the pieces can slide when its background music. The ultimate jazz fake book c edition hal leonard online. So were very familiar with which tunes are the most popular among players and audiences. Cool, jazzy arrangements of 23 mostrequested standards at the piano lounge, including. Nov 03, 2016 in this article well take a look at some of the most requested cocktail piano tunes.

That said, we can think of cocktail piano as being more of way of playing that compliments a certain ambience, one in which people can eat andor drink, communicate with each other, and simply enjoying themselves as the music coming from that piano serves as a genuine compliment to what is going on without serving as a spotlight performance for. Play the melody with your right hand plus the chords, in root position, with your left hand. Also worth noting is a lot of good cocktail pianists who use fake. Great lefthand accompaniment patterns for the piano or. This mustown collection includes 635 songs spanning all jazz styles from more than 9 decades. As someone mentioned it is pretty simple, play the chords with the left hand and the melody with the rh. Heres the jeffrey chappell stepbystep method for approaching a fake book lead sheet.

And you will find very powerful search sites, covering the contents in hundreds of fake books. A fake book also called a real book is a collection of lead sheets used by jazz musicians. This fake book includes 74 popular song arrangements from scott houston, the piano master of pbs. Now that you have learned the cocktail jazz piano arpeggio, its time to the learn the blues arpeggiorun. Read cocktail piano jazz piano solos series volume 31 by hal leonard corp. The easy jazz standards fake book 100 songs in the key. Your left fifth finger will always play the root of the chord, and you will play the interval of either an octave, seventh, or fifth in that hand. They are socalled because they allow a jazz musician to fake it even if heshe doesnt know a song. Various this mustown collection includes 635 songs spanning all jazz styles from more than 9 decades from traditional to swing to modern jazz, carefully chosen chords with common practice chord substitutions, lyrics to accomodate vocalists, easytoread music, and composer and performer indexes. But until now, it typically took years of lessons and persistence to be able to sit down and play popular songs when the opportunity arises.

If you are going to play a blues song from your fake book or lead sheet, you want to play a run that that has a blues sound. This mustown collection includes more than 625 tunes spanning all jazz styles from more than 9 decades from classic to swing to modern jazz, carefully chosen chords with common practice chord substitutions, lyrics to accommodate vocalists, easytoread music, and composer and performer indexes. Discover delightful childrens books with prime book box, a subscription that delivers new books every 1. George shearing has a book of his piano solos of these. Well look at the basics of chord extension, basic chord substitution. Top ten jazz piano books lately, someone had asked me my opinion on music resources, like dvds and music books, that i would recommend to them whether it was for purchase or visiting their local library for their own research. Once youve learned how to use a fake book, you will enjoy a new level of playing experience removed from the constraints of the realized accompaniment. As my my long term 710 years goal is to be a cocktail pianist i am still in the beginning stages i was wondering if we could compile a list of songs every cocktail pianist must know. Rather than playing from someone elses sheets you have to make your own arrangement. Each song in a fake book contains the melody line, basic chords, and lyrics the minimal information needed by a musician to make an impromptu arrangement of a song, or fake it. They are socalled because they allow a jazz musician to fake it. I am either playing the tunes as i know them from memory or reading them from a fake book because i dont normally play the tune and need the fake book to guide me. I guess technically cocktail is usually improvised, but not in the same sense that a jazz solo over changes is. I personally always have a book with me, but its not one with written out arrangements.

Cocktail piano is a collection of new, elegant arrangements. The piano guy is big on improvising, the key to playing blues and jazz. Fake books are basically a condensed version of full music scores that consist only of one note melody lines with chord symbols. Become a member of pianowithwillie and get 247, unlimited access to this lesson and hundreds more for one low price.

Can you drop your hands on a ii v7 i in g or bb without much thought. Next time your friends see your piano and say, play misty for me, impress them and really do it. Youve had classical training which means you know a lot of different accompaniment styles and of course arpeggiosscales already. Mellencamp all my life karla bonoff amazing grace traditional angel eyes hiattkoller annies song john denver. You consent to our use of cookies if you continue to use this website.

Most requested cocktail piano tunes cocktail piano lessons. Dec 07, 2005 this site is good for jazz piano in general, and also covers cocktail piano. In my early days of playing, this fact was extremely frustrating because i desperately needed to express myself through piano. A piano fake book allows you to read and play music on your piano. An introduction to cocktail piano bills piano pages. Sample cocktail piano list 1,2,3,4 higgenson 100 years john ondrasik a love until the end of time connors holdridge a whiter shade of pale brookerreid aint even done with the night j. When i started the channel, its main purpose was to promote my book, how to really play the piano, which covers various music theory and piano improvisation basics, but. Feb 19, 2017 this jazz piano tutorial is about how to use a lead sheet. The easy jazz standards fake book 100 songs in the key of c. Dec 15, 20 along with the good advice here, ill add. How to use a lead sheet fake book the jazz piano site.

But unlike your typical books, which contain the score as written by the composer or arranger, a fake book is more of a reference for the songs. Fake books are often massive collections with notated melody line, chord symbols, and complete lyrics. How to play from a fake book learn how to play piano. This is a wonderful book for students with some limited knowledge of their instrument. Love theme from st elmos fire david foster movies piano level 8. We begin by using simple jazz chords and learn how to split them into openvoicings. Usually each tune has the basic chords for the song, the melody, the basic form. Ive used book of arrangements by dan coats for a couple of weddings. A fake book is sort of a cheat sheet collection of jazz songs all in one handy book. The fake book format itself is pretty easy, just melody notes and chords.

Im writing this note because i love tunes and, in particular, i like reading them in fakebooks. For the very most cocktaily songs, it will be a lot of the same stuff. I was asked by some friends if i would play the cocktail hour at their wedding i dont usually do that sort of thing its generally just a hobby for me alone and i agreed. How to play from a fake book keyboard edition neely, blake on. If your local pbs station features shows by the piano guy, he teaches the fake book method.