A TWO-VOLUME PIANO METHOD, BY JOHN COLIANNI
VOLUME ONE: MAXIMIZING KEYBOARD TECHNIQUE, WITH THE MATTHAY EXERCISES
Price: $35 Venmo @John-Colianni-1
with your payment, list your name and email address, for digital download
Volume One is an adaptation of the Matthay technique method for pianists, based on a recreation of my own instruction as a piano student. In this book, with text, notated exercises, illustrations, and a video
demonstration link, the Matthay exercises are presented in step-by-step practice assignments. Matthay(pronounced ma-tay) is a little-known technique system, but it has proven its merit with the select group of pianists who’ve adopted it. This method has served as the foundation of my own technique, and, as a student, Matthay brought significant improvement to my technical skills, rapidly and lastingly, but without the requirement of long hours of practice. Matthay studies promote speed and quickness, accuracy, touch, sensitivity, strength, dynamic range, and endurance at the keyboard. This method focuses extensively on posture and positioning at the piano, which is important to all applications of Matthay. In fact, the Matthay method involves the player’s conscious involvement of many parts of his or her body. From the upper back and shoulders, power and force is channeled outward as a targeted flow of energy, moving down through the upper arms, forearms, wrists, hands, and fingers, all the way to the fingertips on the keys. As the method explains, this philosophy of weight management and balance will allow the hands and fingers to maintain a light and supple state, enabling advanced agility, dexterity and strength. This book presents an array of Matthay applications, including:
>The 9 Steps, which are the method’s core exercises, embodying Matthay’s most basic ideas and principles of physical movement at the piano;
>the school of Quiet Hands, which promotes a policy that restricts extraneous movement in the wrists, hands, and fingers during keyboard executions;
>the Hand Touch method, which heightens the player’s sense of touch and attack;
>the Interval Training regimen, for managing spans and awkward jumps between notes and registers;
and other applications. The use of Rotation, a technique building keyboard application characterized by slow and exaggerated motion, is the Matthay method’s most widely employed exercise device, and an important part of most of these routines. The mission of the Matthay study: to expedite your fiercest and most advanced levels of keyboard execution and expression.
Volume Two: Improvising At The Piano Price: $35 pay to Venmo @John-Colianni-1
with payment, list your name and email address, for digital download
Volume Two: Improvising At The Piano, is devoted to developing your skills as an improviser of Jazz piano, and related forms and styles. You’ll learn about the way popular songs are structured; the relationships of melody, bass, harmony and rhythm to each other in popular music’s songs and styles, and how to use that knowledge to build your own piano interpretation of a song, step by step; how to write a lead sheet and simple arrangements, for yourself or other players; developing your understanding of what improvisation at the piano means, in varieties of musical contexts; how to read and interpret written music effectively; how to interpret and improvise on any song you desire, with no reference to written music whatsoever; Jazz soloing concepts; accompanying of singers and other instrumentalists; working and interacting in varied professional situations; and there’s a section that illustrates numerous piano styles, with notated examples and descriptions (Blues, Country, Rock, varieties of Jazz, etc.). There is also a video presentation link, to demonstrations of some of the steps and applications from both books. The subject matter you’ll be working with in Volume Two is largely a course in improvisationally-based musical applications and concepts, but also deals, as necessary, with various aspects of technique. This method is based on my early lessons in suburban Washington, D.C., with the well-known piano instructor, Lester Karr. The special and concise course of theory and perfomance I was instructed in at that time (which was not a strictly Jazz-based study) was aimed at fulfilling my desire to develop as an improvisational player; this volume is dedicated to doing the same for you.
If you want to acquire better “chops”, get better at improvising, and you want to improve and enhance your musicianship in all the areas these two Volumes cover, then these books are for you!
Jazz Piano Instruction: The John Colianni Piano Method, Vols I and II
I N T R O D U C I N G . . .The John Colianni Piano Method
Vol I & Vol II – $35 each
To order the method, send $35 per volume, with your email address, to John’s Venmo:
@John-Colianni-1