Hello all.

I'm post grade 8 on the piano and wanted to start on some jazz. Having not seen the music on the syllabus I don't know what grade to start at. Can anyone recommend a grade for me to start looking at - i feel grades 1 and 2 would probably be a bit pointless, but would 5 be too hard? Also, I have no experience of improvisation.

Any suggestions or info would be much appreciated!

Anna xxx

If you have no experience of improvisation, then Grade One is certainly not pointless. Improvisation is required in all three pieces at all grades, as well as in the Quick Study near the end of the exam.

Perhaps you could get a jazz person to play some of the material to you and then you could try it out.

Preparing for jazz exams is certainly fun, but it requires a few different skills to normal exam pieces.

Maybe buy the Grade Two book and then judge where to go from there?

Let us know when you enter yourself!

Thanks very much for your great advice John. Didn't think you'd have to improvise for grade 1!!! Looks like that'll be where I start then. I'll let you know how I get on!

Anna xxx

I was surprised when I first looked at doing jazz that improvisation isn't just a free-for-all, there are certain "rules" to bear in mind, like which key you play in or which scales you use. And as you probably know from the syllabus, the scales are different from the classical scales - eg Dorian, Mixolydian and a few others (I don't *think* you get these even at the higher classical grades, but I could be wrong). Even the way you play the scales is different - they're swung, but they're swung on the offbeat (not sure if that's the correct way to describe it, but in a dotted rhythm, you tongue the second of the quaver pair, not the first as you might do with "normal" swung quavers). So I wouldn't rule out doing G1 or G2 just to get a feel for it, and then maybe jump a few grades if you think it's OK.

But I should say that I'm more of an enthusiast than any sort of expert on the subject, far from it, so I hope someone will correct what I've said if any of it is wrong



Edit: I've just noticed that you're a pianist, so maybe best not to "tongue" the piano keys

Interestingly, you do get some of these if you're doing Trinity grades...(well you do on guitar)

I think the skills are very different...I was going to do Grade 5 jazz exam which is said to be of a higher standard than G5 classical (apparently...) but then I switched to classical, without any problems, and it certainly wasn't too easy I think that technically you'll find the stuff easy, but it's very different, and there's a lot more you can learn from the jazz books...