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Building a Jazz Vocabulary Paperback – January 1, 1995

by Mike Steinel (Artist)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 83 ratings
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(Jazz Book). A valuable resource for learning the basics of jazz from Mike Steinel of the University of North Texas. It covers the basics of jazz, how to build effective solos, a comprehensive practice routine, and a jazz vocabulary of the masters.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    182 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Hal Leonard
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 1995
  5. Dimensions
    9 x 0.42 x 12 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0793521610
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0793521616
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hal Leonard (January 1, 1995)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 182 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0793521610
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0793521616
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.34 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9 x 0.42 x 12 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 83 ratings

About the author

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Mike Steinel

Mike Steinel

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Mike Steinel is a jazz trumpeter, composer, and novelist who for forty years taught jazz style, theory and improvisation to students of all ages. In 2019, he retired from the University of North Texas, one of the pioneering programs in jazz studies.

Mike is the author of numerous instructional books on music, and over one-hundred musical compositions in various styles. He has performed throughout the United States and Canada as well as in Europe, Africa, and Asia. This is his first published novel

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
83 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Christopher Wilson
5.0 out of 5 stars Can't put it down
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2015
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Awesome read & awesome learning/teaching tool
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Dennis E. Kaperick
5.0 out of 5 stars 1
Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2007
Verified Purchase
Very well organized with a wide variety of presentations of the material. A finely structured presentation of several jazz basics with exteensive permutations of each.
2 people found this helpful
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Adam Paul
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Reading Material for the Woodshed
Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2006
What attracted me to this book was the idea of mastering a large number of melodic units, not just licks or phrases, but "get down to the essence of it all" core building blocks, and learning them in every key. The book presents this concept about "cells" and does a fairly good job in organizing the material so that the student can set up his or her own practice plan and get off on a path that should lead (hopefully) to great success. The presentation of the cell concept by Steiner makes an important contribution to Jazz study and at the same time results in a very compelling piece of educational material--at one point in the text, Steiner breaks down Coltrane's towering Countdown solo into a small handful of component cells. Fascinating stuff.

What's good about the book. The exercises start out very simply so that even the beginner can get on the ride. At times the reader is left to connect the dots, but for the most part every thing is here to put together a meaningful study plan. The student is provided with several sets of chord progressions (or alternately Key progressions) that are very handy. The practice sets of musical cell exercises are gradually expanded to include longer runs, patterns, and sequences where the student is constantly prodded to work through all the keys and progressions. The practice suggestions are quite numerous and thoughtful. There are definitely some golden nuggets of knowledge to be found here and the material should be very helpful in developing a productive practice routine.

Some critical suggestions. For the serious artist, I am not yet convinced that we have stumbled onto The Holy Grail. This book must be only part of one's immersion into the world of Jazz. The author covers a lot of important points but at times I wanted the discussion to be more thorough. For example, I would have liked a justification of building musical ideas from cells that was based on the aural and artistic experience of the musician, rather than a somewhat sterile development of the concept based on intervals. In one sentence in the book, Paul Hindemith is referenced as having had previously using the term "harmonic cell," but this is hardly an exploration of the development of Steiner's concepts within the Jazz idiom. The exercises at the end could have contained more suggestions about how the students practice sessions might develop or what the student might notice or start to become aware of as he or she progresses.

I do think that this book should be in your backpack as you head into the woodshed. This book successfully accomplishes what it sets out to do, albeit at times with an economy of words. I can't think of a reason why you would not want to buy this book.
27 people found this helpful
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Carlos Mendivil
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2007
Verified Purchase
The exercises are really helpful. Just bear in mind: You will need a looot of time to go over all of them
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Dean Dicorcia
2.0 out of 5 stars More theoretical than practical
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2007
Verified Purchase
Man I hate to thrash somebody's book, but after dusting this thing off today to see whether I could get anything new out of it, I feel duty bound to save others from the frustration I experienced.

I got a bachelor's degree for guitar performance, and I have played in rock, blues, country, dance, variety, etc band since I was a kid. I have always felt like I have the right kind of mind for improvisation - I improvise well in those other genres - but I never got bit hard to make a serious study of jazz about 2 years ago. This book was the only book I bought to supplement transcription as my tutor.

So - yeah, first mistake right there. If you want to avoid my bad experience, be smart and buy a bookshelf's worth of books.

Now that I am off the ground as a jazz improviser (tho I wouldn't say good by any broad set of criteria - give me a decade to work on good), I can say that this book seems mislabeled.

I think the ideas in the book are novel and informative, especially for a composer who wanted to analyze jazz solos and make sense out of them - maybe develop a vocabulary of motives and develop them in a familiar classical composition process - but I don't see this a great tool for the woodshed in its current form.

For a new edition, I would like to see less - none, in fact - of the totally abstract permutation stuff like intervals on p19, and much more of the cookbook type stuff starting on p139.

I now understand where this book was coming from, but I simply didn't benefit much from it.
8 people found this helpful
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Cayenne
5.0 out of 5 stars This one lives in my gig bag...
Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2000
Described in one word: useful!
If you were going to teach someone to read, would you start out by having them memorize and repeat great speeches from history, or would you teach them the alphabet and how to recognize common words and phrases?
Building a Jazz Vocabulary takes the latter approach and is a very cleanly organized book in which each section contains a brief explanation and expository exercises that illuminate a fundamental feature of the language of Jazz.
Topics covered include intervals, chords, scales, progressions, and solo building, among others. Perhap the gem of the book is the excellent coverage of cells and the development of melodic line.
One of the real advantages of Building a Jazz Vocabulary is that the exercises are not mindless transcriptions or the painfully mechanical contrivances that all too commonly fill up endless pages in many music books. Instead, each topic is covered with just enough explanation to make sure you get it intellectually and just enough examples and exercises to allow you to see how it works in practice. The topic then ends by providing enough suggestions on practice and application that you can proceed on your own for a lifetime or two.
As a result, this is the rare kind of music instruction book where you *will* want to have your instruments in hand, but *will not* just be reading exercises off of a page.
A couple of things to be aware of, this book doesn't do a lot of hand-holding; it's written in an easy to understand manner but it is definately for adults and does presume some existing knowledge of music and music theory. Additionally, it covers 'vocabulary' only in the sense of notes and phrases. Coverage of intonation or rhythm is very brief.
FWIW, I'm a somewhat experienced musician and play a number of instruments, primarily guitar and violin. My wife is a relative novice and plays tenor sax. We both love this book. I'll be getting her a copy for her birthday. Do I love my wife? Sure! But mostly, getting her a copy of her own is the only certain way to ensure she keeps her grubby fingers off of mine!
- Cayenne
132 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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yukohase
5.0 out of 5 stars Good for learning
Reviewed in Canada on January 22, 2021
Verified Purchase
I've just started reading it. It is good so far.
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PATTY
5.0 out of 5 stars Volume completo e chiaro. Da non perdere.
Reviewed in Italy on November 9, 2021
Verified Purchase
Volume molto interessante e completo.
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ducom pierre
2.0 out of 5 stars Bof
Reviewed in France on December 4, 2018
Verified Purchase
Bof, les patterns ne sont pas très motivants
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HEY2
4.0 out of 5 stars これでいけそう、と思わせる教本
Reviewed in Japan on August 11, 2018
Verified Purchase
ジャズのアドリブについてはいろいろな本に頼ってきたし習いにもおったが、どれも今ひとつだった。
しかし、この本は全く違う。
アドリブの最小単位を2拍のセルとし、それをいわば単語として語彙を増やし、文章を作っていけるようにするという発想でアドリブを教えていく。
単にリックを覚えるというやり方ではなく、あくまでも自分で作っていくというやり方がいい。
One person found this helpful
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Lerchen
5.0 out of 5 stars Ausgezeichnet!
Reviewed in Germany on August 27, 2013
Verified Purchase
Das Buch - eigentlich Notenheft - ist in jeder Hinsicht zu empfehlen. Die Zahlreichen Übungen und Noten-Sheets lassen den Text besser nachvollziehen. Es ist kein Buch wo man etwas auswendig lernt, eher lernt man zu verstehen, was man spielt oder zu spielen hat, wie kann man eigene Ideen auf einem Tasten-Instrument umsetzten, zeigt die Möglichkeiten an und lässt das Wesen der Improvisation in Jazz zu verstehen. Es sind sehr viele Beispiele für die Melodieführung, bzw. wie man die Melodie in Jazz umschreiben/ umsetzen kann. Sehr hilfreich sind auch die vielen Beispiele für die Harmonie und die möglichen Akkordfolgen. Für Anfänger nicht geeignet. Wenn man mit dem Buch gut zurecht kommen will, muss man sich nicht nur mit Noten vertraut gemacht haben. Man muss auch das Quintenzirkel kennen, ohne lange nachzudenken, und die Akkordfolgen (Quinten-, Quarten-,Terz- und sonstige Verwandschaften erkennen). Die Jazz Symbol-Sprache sollte man auch schon kennen. Dafür ist die Neue Jazz Harmonielehre von Sikora sehr gut geeignet. Man muss auch ganz einfach schon etliche Jahre Klavier, Keybord o.ä. spielen. Wenn einer diese Voraussetzungen erfüllt und Jazz frei spielen will, für den ist das Buch wirklich sehr gut geeignet. Ein besseres Jazz Lehrbuch habe ich bislang noch nicht gesehen. Es ist jedoch ganz klar ein Übungsbuch, die Theorie ist zwar hier auch in Umrissen enthalten, die Grundlagen und die Symbole für Akkorde muss man aber schon woanders gelernt haben.
6 people found this helpful
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