Our chapter meeting for April was held in the Group classroom at DSU, and UMTA President-Elect, Laurisa Cope presented a great class on Jazz!! We each had our own piano, plus headset, so we could play and hear ourselves, and the instructor, without hearing everyone else's pianos. It was great! Laurissa worked froma C Jam Blues base and gave us different aspects of Jazz to tryout. There were also some great handouts!! One was titled "10 Steps to Reading Chord Symbols" and was very informative!! However, my favorite was "Cracking the Code - A Jazz Pianists' Secrets Revealed!" by Laurisa Cope! Here are some of the secrets:
- The TRIAD is always MAJOR, unless they tell you otherwise.
- The SEVENTH is always MINOR, unless they tell you otherwise.
- Chords are independent of the key signature. (The melody is not independent!)
It was a great workshop with lots of variety to add to our studios!! Thanks, Laurisa!!
