Art Of A Beautiful Ballad: Emmet Cohen Plays “Where Is Love?”

July 17, 2023November 11, 2023

Art Of A Beautiful Ballad: Emmet Cohen Plays “Where Is Love?”

Amazing jazz pianist Emmet Cohen knows how to make the piano sing during the tune “Where Is Love?” from Oliver! Let’s compare his 6 live performances of this beautiful ballad, to see what makes his takes so lovely.

Here’s my simpler chart of “Where Is Love” with lyrics (this may be important to help a ballad’s interpretation) in Emmet’s chosen key of A Major: Continue reading “Art Of A Beautiful Ballad: Emmet Cohen Plays “Where Is Love?””

March 29, 2021September 13, 2021

Big Ideas For Small Hands: How To Write a Full Sounding Piano Arrangement

Let’s take the lovely ballad Skylark (by Johnny Mercer/Hoagy Carmichael), and learn how to enhance a ballad’s melody with beautiful chords and a foundational bass line. In this video observe how I took a chart from an old fakebook and updated some chords more to my liking, a process called reharmonization:

Continue reading “Big Ideas For Small Hands: How To Write a Full Sounding Piano Arrangement”