Free Jazz Sheet Music? Yes, yes, yes. There Has Never Been a Better Time
The situation today with free jazz sheet music is actually quite funny. You go to the store and find jazz piano books to be the most expensive than any other genre, and then you go to the internet and find all the best riffs, with awesome quality completely free! The rise of the Web has dramatically changed the availability and presentation of piano music for anyone who wants to learn piano. Old-fashioned methods of sheet music publication has been in the decline in favor of Web-based documents and image files such as .pdf’s, eBooks, along with other formats.
For anyone subscribing to regular piano lessons, it’s just so much fun to download your music and to start playing it right away. Whether you have a grand piano or only a digital keyboard, it doesn’t matter! You can get top quality scores online.
A lot of people ask us how they can acquire free jazz music sheet music, legally. And we remind them that a piece must be published no later than 1928 to be regarded as public domain and have free access to the general public. But, consult a lawyer to be sure about the current copyright laws! So, some Art Tatum scores pose no problem, but living jazz pianists like to protect their sensitive artistry, so you’ll either have to buy the book of their songs at a store (or download it), or be a little more clever…
most recent Jazz piano music
- I Wanna Be Loved – Elvis Costello
- Eighty One – Miles Davis
- Fascinating Rhythm
- Love Me Like a Man – Diana Krall
- Cantaloupe Island – Herbie Hancock
- Let’s Do It – Cole Porter
- Felicity Rag – Scott Joplin
- When the Moon Is High – Dave Brubeck
- Let’s Get Lost – Diana Krall
- Don’t Blame Me – Art Tatum
- Baby, Baby All The Time – Diana Krall
- Why Should I Care – Diana Krall
- The Cradle – George Winston
- You Are My Sunshine – Ray Charles
- Recuerdo – Dave Brubeck
Jazz Transcriptions
It’s knowing how to sort through the millions of piano files that people make or distribute that helps you to find the top free jazz piano sheet music to help you with your piano instruction. I’m sure you’ve run across cool book jazz books in the music store, which are basically transcribed, note by note performances of Oscar Peterson’s or Thelonius Monk’s greatest hits.
Transcriptions like these are cool, because you can start playing them right away and sound like your favorite jazz pianists, but they are notoriously expensive and don’t really teach you jazz fundamentals, to help you create your own jazz riffs and quite possibly even great hits.
The internet has enabled hundreds of thousands (I dare say millions) of free jazz sheet music files available of all varying levels of difficulty. The biggest problem is finding the music that you want, for the instrument that you play, AND have it be legal. You probably won’t find the latest and greatest jazz music in sheet music form like you saw in the music store, although you can piece the riffs, piano tabs, chord patterns together that you find for free and create your very own free jazz piano sheet music. Or just grab a midi file of your favorite artist, and use software to create your own piano files.
Reading Jazz Piano
Reading free jazz piano sheet music is a skill all in itself. You have to be like a great carpenter, knowing which tool to use on which piece of wood for best results. Jazz piano demands the mastery of major and minor scales and chordal progressions. Don’t underestimate how helpful basic music theory can be in later being able to play complex riffs and multi-chords structures. Having a firm grasp of simple music theories can be of huge assistance to the jazz pianist who later wants to perform more complex riffs, melodies and polytonal harmonies.
To stay inspired, just imagine your reciting a poem or story to your listeners while performing.
In addition to this, performing jazz music (whether your own music or the music of others) requires excellent physical shape in addition to being in good condition. Before practicing, try to stretch out the major muscle groups as pianists tend to get tense during performances. Everyone should do regular exercises, jazz pianists are no exception. The goal here is to strengthen the various muscles of the hand to avoid serious injuries and other nasty stuff like carpal tunnel syndrome.
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