Classical Technique Vs Jazz

Hi all, I'm currently studying a Bachelor of Music in contemporary performance. I'm a mature age student (36 y.o.) and have a lot of performing experience under my belt but no degree. I'm classically-trained but pursuing a career in professional musical theatre & cabaret. I also play in pop/rock bands sometimes. My current piano teacher at university doesn't like my piano technique & says I don't dig into the keys enough. He's a jazz player & admits that his technique & music reading is not as good as classical players. My concern is that to succeed in musical theatre you need impeccable technique & I'm concerned that if I follow my current teacher's advice re technique, my technique will suffer & end up going downhill. This is hard to explain but does it make sense at all?! All the piano/keyboard players working in music theatre seem to have come from a classical piano background originally & this is the area I want to work in. Are there major differences in classical technique vs jazz technique? And will my teacher's jazz technique be detrimental to me in the long run? Please let me know if you'd like any more info, thanks all

Hi I don't think so. It depends on repertoire you have to more or less develop different skills for every composition even within classics. To play eg Liszt & Rachmanninov you often need strength and I guess the same goes for Art Tatum and O Petersen. I've heard jazzplayers like eg Keith Jarret play classics live and the problem was not technique it was more that their system couldn't adopt to the "style" required. But I've heard jazzplayers that could like Chick Korea. Classical pianists are not composers like their jazz collegues and the learning process is certainly different. So in that meaning it is very different. Guess a Music Hall pianist has to play all kinds of music so probably you need to develop all kinds of techniques sightreading etc. Best way is to just play a varying repertoire and find out what kind of technique you need? Alan Frasers DVD and books I find very helpful as a base for all pianoplaying.

Thanks Eric

A difficult question because there are many wildly disparate approaches to classical piano technique, and from my work with jazz pianists I think the same holds true for jazz players. That's why I like my own approach - it doesn't discriminate between jazz and classical technique or between piano and harpsichord technique. It's back to fundamentals - how to touch a key. How does hand structure work? What are the functions involved? Anton Rubinstein dug in tremendously but he also tended to play dirty. What does 'dig in' really mean? Difficult to tell from this distance. I guess all I can really do hear is make a sales pitch! Buy my stuff! Read it, watch it! You'll figure some things out! All best, AFF