Dream Away: E-Z Play Today

This arrangement distills one of Sinatra's signature pieces into an accessible three-page setting that lets pianists inhabit the vocal line without requiring a band. Students get a direct look at how Sinatra shaped melody and phrasing, and teachers gain a tool for introducing jazz interpretation in a solo context.

Intimate and reflective, this arrangement wraps you in the quiet intensity Sinatra brought to his ballads. The piece breathes like a conversation with yourself, each phrase yielding to the next with the ease of someone who knows exactly what they want to say.

Piano students ready to move beyond classical phrasing into the subtleties of jazz standards; vocalists who want to understand how an accompanist shapes a ballad; pianists building a repertoire of American songbook material.

• Shape the melody with the kind of space Sinatra gave it in his recordings; resist the urge to fill every beat. Let silence do the work.
• Pay attention to the harmonic movement beneath your right hand. The left hand chord progression tells you where the emotional weight sits in each phrase.
• Listen to at least one Sinatra recording of this tune before rehearsing. Internalizing his approach to rubato will transform how you voice the accompaniment.
• Treat dynamics as a storytelling device rather than literal volume changes. The arc of the piece depends on tiny shifts in weight and color.

Slot this into a jazz standards or American songbook concert, or use it as a solo piano prelude to a larger vocal program. It also works beautifully as a warm-up study for understanding how to accompany a singer without overshadowing the line.

• Controlling rubato and tempo flexibility within a jazz ballad
• Interpreting a vocal line as an instrumentalist
• Voicing jazz harmony with attention to color and function
• Building narrative arc through dynamic and harmonic shaping
• Reading and realizing lead sheet notation