Additional Blog: Music Genre Research

As I delve further in expanding my repertoire, I decided to start learning about every music genre I can, starting with jazz. I picked up a book about the jazz genre itself one day over the course of the summer at a yard sale, just because I thought it would be an interesting read. This book was The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to Jazz by Loren Schoenberg. Little did I know that it would be quite informative in many ways, not to mention pertaining to my senior project, which is on piano. So far, I have read the extensive history behind it, from its roots in late 19th century New Orleans to Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole throughout the 20's-50's up until now. 

Within this book that I have been reading are also techniques specific to the piano when playing jazz music, such as the stride, which consists of left hand movements that alternate between single or lower octave notes and higher, fully fingered chords with improvisation. Among some techniques mentioned, there is also a section describing the variations of jazz, such as Be Bop, Cool, Swing, Fussion, Bossa Nova, and Dixieland Jazz. When finished with this book, I will continue to find other sources to learn more about jazz, and maybe even try to find method books on how to play jazz, or attempt to improvise.