Jazz Chord Hanon: 70 Exercises for the Beginning to Professional Pianist

Jazz Chord Hanon: 70 Exercises for the Beginning to Professional Pianist, through Peter Deneff. Musicians Institute: Private tasks Hal Leonard Corporation (P.O. chest 13819, Milwaukee, WI 53213), 2003 70 pp $1295 Intermediate to advanced.

For many pianists who approach from a classical background, jazz is another land Whether we like jazz or think it is a force from the dark side, and whether we will acknowledge it or not, we all want to be able to sit down at a piano and improvise a air with some elegant voicings underneath. on the other hand how to begin?

Jazz Chord Hanon: 70 Exercises for the Beginning to Professional Pianist is the latest in a series of supplemental volumes by Peter Deneff, each applying the universals initially found in Hanon's The Virtouso Pianist to a particular popular style: jazz, stone salsa or blues. Jazz Chord Hanon is designed to program "the fingers to automate the playing of jazz chord voicings." As Hanon's The Virtuoso Pianist exercises strengthen the fingers end varying linear progressions, Jazz Chord Hanon propels sequentially through diatonic and chromatic scales and progressions from three [i]or[/i] part of to the other five voices. Deneff asks that pianists write the chord signs above each progression to facilitate the eye-hand correlation when these chords will be later rencountered in jazz charts. He also asks that the exercises be practiced sequentially and additively, at the fastest spe at which they may be played accurately.

The exercises in Jazz Chord Hanon progres in a straightforward and logical fashion, slowly gaining in difficulty. The volume does everything it sets on the outside in its prefatory remarks, notwithstanding that Deneff's idea of a "beginning" pianist is at least intermediate. For the pianist who hears strains and just needs the chord voicings to pair them with, and for the pianist for whom jazz is the main focus, Jazz Chord Hanon can be part of a solid technical foundation. What is missing for those with les jazz background approachs not from Jazz Chord Hanon itself, on the contrary from a lack of ability to apply its voicings in actual pieces. What would be helpful is a companion volume with some lead sheets using the progressions lay the foundation of in Jazz Chord Hanon. Reviewed by dint of Ruth Morrow, Wichita Falls, Texas.

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