Jazz Composition: Theory and Practice Book/Online Audio

by Ted Pease

(Berklee Press). When you think of jazz composers, who comes to mind? Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Bob Brookmeyer. This book is about what they (and many others) do. Jazz composition has evolved into a disciplined art that often evidences great emotional depth and breadth of sophistication. Berklee College of Music legend Ted Pease demystifies the processes involved in writing jazz tunes and in composing episodic and extended jazz works. Jazz Theory and Practice is a by-product of Pease's 25 years of teaching jazz composition. The accompanying audio files help demonstrate melody, harmony and rhythmic elements of jazz and also includes a variety of music-writing exercises focused on learning these same elements to help you begin producing your own effective jazz compositions.

Genres: Music, Jazz

317 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2003

Reviews

[Richard Pohl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very fine and understable guide to composition in jazz idiom - it assumes that you already have enough knowledge of harmony/chord-scale theory so I'd not recommend it for newbies in music. Anyway, glad to have obtained this one.

[Stephen Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't buy a digital copy. My Kindle edition came as a PDF without any photos, musical examples or graphs. Most of the book was missing. Luckily I could get it from the library. The info is in depth but presented in an easily digested way. Pease includes fantastic lists of songs you can listen to as examples of each topic covered.

[Kevin]

real good