I highly endorse this book for singers and sure wish it had been on the scene when I was growing up.”
— Sheila Jordan, jazz singer

  Finally, a clear, step-by-step approach for serious singers who want to improve their grasp of jazz harmony and gain a deeper understanding of music fundamentals.

  Learn to accompany yourself, write lead sheets, understand the structure of the music, and improve your scatting.

  The Jazz Singer's Guidebook covers all the instrumental, theoretical and ear training requirements that you need in order to gain control of the music you are singing!

  The Jazz Singer's Guidebook will change how you hear music and make you a better singer, as well as give you the tools to develop your singing in directions you may not have thought possible.

Topics covered include:

- The basic piano skills necessary to accompany yourself.
- The harmonic basis of the melody of songs
- How to vary melodies
- How to develop a greater awareness of the important harmonic details of songs.
- How to write a lead sheet and how to evaluate the chord changes that are on a lead sheet
- How to hear tensions and chord tones on chords
- How to know and hear the appropriate chord scale for each chord change
- How to improvise from chord scales
- Ways to improve your intonation for scatting
- Plus hundreds of suggestions and exercises for scatting, composing, transcribing, understanding jazz vocabulary and increasing what you have to say as an improvising musician.

  Includes audio CD demonstrating many of the exercises in the book!

Sample Page #1 | Sample Page #2

Sample Track #1 | Sample Track #2

142 pages, $26

 

I highly endorse this book for singers and sure wish it had been on the scene when I was growing up. No 'shoo be do be's' in this wonderful new book. David Berkman is a wonderful pianist and human being. How great of him to take the time to get a book like this together for us. Bless him.”
— Sheila Jordan, jazz singer

David Berkman is one of the top jazz pianists working today and he brings his experience as an accompanist and as a teacher of jazz voice students to this incredible book - not only very useful to singers, but to educators alike!! A must have!”
— Dena De Rose, jazz vocalist, recording artist

I have a vision for you, and for some of you this is radically different than what your musical life has been like up until now. I imagine that you can spend hours productively studying, singing, playing the piano, analyzing harmony, writing changes, and ultimately arranging and composing interesting music. This isn't something that is reserved for genius singers, or something that only pianists and arrangers have the license to do. It's a kind of practice that you can do, and you can see steady progress and musical growth through doing it. This sort of practice can change the way you hear music and sing it. It will make you more fun to work with and it will enrich your musical life.”
— David Berkman