Stride & Swing Piano - Hal Leonard Keyboard Style Series (Book/Online Audio)

As one reviewer mentioned, all transcriptions are by the author "John Valerio".Since this is a "How to" book for playing stride piano, I don't believe that's a big issue. The songs of the masters need to be simplified at the students' level. Once one masters this book, then get the original music sheets of the masters.Who is this author "John Valerio"?John Valerio is a pianist, composer, and author from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has performed with several outstanding jazz artists including: Lee Konitz, Jon Faddis, Stanley Clarke, Chris Vadala, John Swana, Gerald Veasley, Winard Harper, Ralph Bowen, Steve Gilmore and Jan Metzger.He earned a doctorate in Music Composition from Temple University.Valerio has played in many concerts and clubs as well as for numerous headliners in Atlantic City, Philadelphia and New York including Robert Merrill, Jerry Vale, Maurice Hines, Robert Klein, Eddie Fisher, Chita Rivera, The McGuire Siters, Susanne Sommers, Bobby Rydell and Charo.He has published six internationally selling books on jazz piano for Hal Leonard Corporation including Stride and Swing Piano, Bebop Jazz Piano, Post Bop Jazz Piano and is currently writing Latin Jazz Piano.I recommend the Hall Leonard Keyboard Style Series. They are good.I'm not a Jazz fan. I play boogie woogie. Did stride piano evolve into boogie woogie? I got the book to help me understand this evolution.Musical genres come and go. They evolve. Music seems to subscribe to Darwin's "survival of the fittest". In order to boogie, I have to learn how to swing it, so I can make big strides. When that makes me sweat, I can always go back to an old rag. ;-)

This book is absolutely awesome! I intend to practice and learn Stride, Classic Ragtime, Swing, Cakewalk, Blues & Boogie Woogie, and New Orleans Jazz. When I sound like Fats Waller, I'll be satisfied. Oh, did I mention that Scott Joplin has a nice sound too?I am very happy with this course. You will not only play the above styles well, you're going to be a really good sight reader with all of the exercises. It takes you step-by-step until you're the coolest piano player in town. I guess that will be me! LOL!I almost forgot to mention that there is a CD included with 84 tracks. This way, you can check whether or not your timing and notes are correct. I LOVE IT! I didn't see the little CD icon on the upper left corner of the book. So, that was a really nice surprise!Well, it's time for me to stop typing. I have lots of fun work to do. Enjoy this book, learn the lessons well, and show off to your friends and family. They'll love it too.Have fun with this book.

We need cheerful music, especially in our day. Musicians who wrote this kind of music (back then) did a great job. My thanks to those who keep their works alive.This book is helping my piano playing improve, which I have neglected way too long. I liked the parts on stride, blues, boogie. I used to do boogie easily, but now I have new ideas, due to the book. The short section on blues, I wish were expanded, but it's helped me too. I can do the left hand stride much better with regular practice.In the book you deal with a lot of high and low notes, and must learn to recognize them easily. It helped me to read a basic "how to read music" primer, to re-acquaint myself with what I had forgotten. And reading that helped with high and low note recognition.The book is worth the price. Glad I found it.

I probably should pay more attention to the practice recommendations in these books, but often I am just looking for material that I hope I can learn to play reasonably well and enjoy playing. John Valerio is one of my favorites in this regard. I enjoy many of his sample pieces enough to motivate me to spend a lot of time practicing even when initially they have been well over my head. There are a lot of pieces in this book and the ones I have sight read or learned have all seemed at least solid intermediate with some being either advanced intermediate or early advanced. I particularly like several of the pieces in the Fats Waller section and spent well over a year getting to the point where I believe I can play my favorite passably.

You can register on theHal Leonard website to hear the songs played, you can even slow it down with the tool to practice along.I love this series by John Valerio! He explains technique well, and shows fingering, and history/background! He is a great teacher, and composes new music to include in his books.

For many years, I've tried to convincingly play stride and swing. I have the technique, but the styles eluded me. It kinda sounded like a stride left hand with a bebop line.Then, I read this book, and it all clicked.The examples given, along with the author's explanation, make it crystal clear.

As a life long guitar player making the transition to piano I know just what I want to study, and that is traditional jazz piano. Not being a fast reader, having the CD is a huge help in hearing what I'm aiming for. This book covers the essential styles from rag to swing - I don't know where else I would have found such a valuable learning tool.

Not a bad book but it's for advanced players. I wish there was something easier to intermediate players at least but is a good book.

The book itself looks great, am looking forward to diving into it. But no CD is included. Instead you get a link to download audio files. That’s fine, am happy to work with that, but sellers should really change the description.

Great for building up your chops repertoire.

Very useful introduction to ragtime and stride piano technique.

This is an absolutely superb book. Whatever level you are as a pianist, you will get something from it. Highly recommended

The content looks great, but the PDF version offered for Kindle is a totally amateurish scan. Pages are out of order, scanned in half-pages, image quality poor, musical staves split between pages -- this should not be offered for commercial sale. I've returned it for a refund and will order the paperback edition.