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Got tough music to learn? Get inspired, not intimidated.

Take the Wheel

By Music examples by Tom Brislin and Michael Gallant

Teaching a beginner’s piano lesson on McCoy Tyner is somewhat like showing someone how to drive for the first time in a Ferrari. There’s a lot going on, plenty to ogle over, and it’s also quite easy to get intimidated and give up before you even get started. Jazz piano students eager to burn like Tyner are often steered towards the works of more bluesy or tonal pianists such as Horace Silver, Sonny Clark, or Wynton Kelly, who are all quite burning in their own right, though they have recorded piano solos that are easier for beginners to grasp. But it can be fun to sit behind the wheel of a Ferrari sometimes, even if you don’t know how to drive it yet.

That sound

The jazz of the 1960s must’ve been pretty influential, since we’re still calling it “modern” forty years later. Great bands such as the Miles Davis Quintet, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and the Bill Evans Trio struck a magic balance of group identity and individual expression. One such group was the legendary John Coltrane Quartet, the pianist of which for many years was McCoy Tyner. It was in this group that Tyner and Coltrane employed one simple interval that changed the sound of Tyner’s playing and jazz itself for years to come: the fourth. By constructing chords in fourths instead of thirds, Tyner was able to change the function of chords, and they no longer had to behave according to the rules of jazz harmony. Tyner and Coltrane extended this concept to their melodic improvisations as well, and the result was an entirely new sound that allowed for unprecedented freedom and expression.

Play Audio and MIDI

These audio and MIDI files correspond to the lessons and solo transcription beginning on page 40 of the July 2006 issue of Keyboard. All files performed by Michael Gallant.