Product Description
The Piano Flow series
is for intermediate players wishing to improve their skills in improvisation,
arrangement, and playing by ear. Playing from a lead sheet is a very different
skill than reading or memorizing a pre-existing arrangement. Piano
Flow provides a precise notated pathway through fourteen cumulative steps,
beginning with the melody alone and culminating with a full arrangement. In the
course of this journey, the development of free-flowing musical thought is
emphasized.
To succeed with this method, be sure to follow all given
directions. Also, a knowledge of major and minor triads and dominant seventh
chords is helpful, but notation is also provided.
The value of this Piano
Flow guide is not in the completed arrangement of the final steps. Indeed,
many piano players could perform the final arrangement with ease, and yet gain
nothing from it in terms of freely flowing musical thought. Though some of the steps may seem easy and
trivial, they are meant to guide you along the kind of thinking which can lead
to a completed arrangement of any song with minimal time or effort. The final
arrangement provided is not in itself particularly flashy or impressive (though
your own arrangements may be!), and Piano
Flow is meant to augment, not replace, your continued study of challenging
notated works.
Over time, other melodies will be incrementally added to the
Piano Flow series, containing essentially the same
instructions as this one (revised for clarity and precision as needed). The
eventual goal would be to collect perhaps 10-20 melodies into a single volume
with full notation. After the accomplishment of that goal, further supplemental
volumes could easily be added containing only notated melodies with lyrics and
chord symbols; users of the supplements would be ready to create their own
arrangements, using the provided melodies for convenience.
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.