jazz piano course Now it's YOUR turn to be the life and soul of the party!. Click Here 👈 [Music] do you want to play jazz ...
jazz piano course
Now it's YOUR turn to be the life and soul of the party!. Click Here 👈
[Music] do you want to play jazz piano but you don't have a clear road map of what to practice well in today's lesson I'm going to show you exactly what to practice so that you're no longer confused about how to reach your piano goals you'll learn the five pillars of jazz that you should practice every day a clear outline for what to practice for the next 12 months the exact exercises that you should be practic practicing for your playing level how to know when you've passed each exercise and my top tips and tricks to accelerate your learning and if you go through this practice plan for the next year I promise you'll see massive results in your jazz piano playing so let's go ahead and dive into the lesson so we're going to go through each of these five pillars and I'm going to show you exactly what to practice for your playing level so you're going to learn a beginner level an intermediate level and an advanced level now if you're not sure which level you're at I do encourage you to watch all three of the levels so that you can decide for yourself which level is most appropriate for you all right the Five Pillars to becoming a well-rounded jazz pianist are scales chords voicings lead sheets and improvisation and as you focus on these five pillars you'll also enhance your skills in other areas like technique Rhythm ear training sight reading accompaniment composition and a bunch of other areas is all right pillar number one is scales and whether you want to play the [Music] blues okay or more traditional Jazz okay it all starts with learning scales because scales are what give you the harmonic language of jazz tunes so all of the chords and jazz tunes and all the melodies come from these parent scales and so if you learn the scales you're going to have a much easier time playing jazz by the way if you're enjoying this video please hit the like button and if you're new to the channel be sure to subscribe for more videos just like this so if you're a beginner pianist what should you practice when it comes to scales well the most important scale for you to learn is your major and minor scales and you might already know your major scale in the key of C it's all white notes but if you have a teacher that's told you to practice it like this this is not what I recommend there's actually a much better exercise to practicing your major and minor scales that will help you become a jazz pianist by the way I wanted to mention that the lesson sheet music is downloadable and printable you can also change the key of this entire lesson with the click of one button with our smart sheet music so I'll put a link to that below here's how the exercise goes it actually sounds really [Music] cool this is an amazing exercise because you're not only learning the notes of the scale and building your Technique but you're also learning all of the chords that come from the scale you're learning how to swing your right hand which is really important in jazz and you're practicing one of the most important rhythms in jazz called the charlon so for the exercise you're basically coming up the C scale and then you're going to the next next chord the D minor on the F and then you're going to come down on the E minor and then on the F you're going to go to an F chord does that make sense and then you're going to do a little crossover B and then you're going to play the same exercise but continue your chords in the left hand so g a right and then B and then on the F you go to your c chord then you play the same thing but this time you're going to go down with your chords so we have B and then a g you see that here's a little crossover to the F here's the E chord okay and then the D chord and the C with the F in addition to your major scale you also want to make sure you can play your minor scale because in jazz you use a lot of minor scales when you're soloing okay it's a very important scale to learn so your minor scale is actually very simple you start with the major scale you lower the third note you lower the sixth note and you lower the seventh note and you have what's called a c natural minor scale but again I don't recommend that you practice it it like this because you're just working on your Technique instead it's much better to play this [Music] exercise and once again with this exercise you're not only mastering your minor scale the fingering and your Technique but you're also learning all of the chords that come from your your natural minor scale and this is very important if you want to play jazz because remember the chords in jazz come from your scales now when it comes to practicing your major and minor scales I recommend that you focus on one key each month so for the first month you'll focus on the c major and the C minor scales I recommend 5 to 10 minutes of practice each day and your goal Tempo is 80 beats per minute now once you've reached your goal tempo Tempo and you've practiced for the month then in your next month I recommend that you focus on a new key so you can try a key like f and practice your major scale right and then your minor scale until you reach your goal of 80 beats per minute and if you do one key each month then by the end of the year you will have covered all 12 of your major and minor scales by the way if you want to do a deep dive on your major scales and you want to learn them in all 12 keys with the best fingering and exercises to master your scales plus all of the chords that come from your scales and how to use them in Tunes check out our beginner foundations learning track in this learning track you learn everything that you need to know about your major skills and mastering them playing them in different keys and playing really fun tunes that use these skills you'll also learn about ear training and hand coordination so I'll put a link to this learning track below all right if you are an intermediate level pianist and you want to play jazz with confidence then you need to practice your scales but I'm assuming that you already know your major and your minor scales if you don't then you definitely want to do the beginner exercise so if you're on the intermediate side the best scales for you to practice are your modes and your modes are the scales that you use on particular types of chords like if you have a C Minor 7 chord you can use a scale called your Dorian scale okay or if you have a chord like a C7 you can use your C mixian scale this is why the modes are important because you can take different chords and use different modes to solo over them so quick review on your modes if you play a C major scale starting on C we call this C ionian and then then if you play the same scale starting on D we call this D Dorian and e frian and f lydian and g melidian and a aolon and finally B locan now this is a great way to get started learning your modes but a better way of understanding your modes is by which notes you alter of your major scale so if you play your C major scale and you lower the seventh you have your C mixian scale and if you lower the Third third now you have the C Dorian scale and we have C aolan and then we have C Fran and then you have C locen and then finally if you take your C major scale and you just raise the four you have what's called C lydian and so you want to practice each of these seven modes if you want to be comfortable soloing in jazz so I'll play the exercise for you and then break it down so we're going to come up the scale C ionian notice we have a C major 7 in our left hand to match the scale then we're going to add one flat coming down for C mixian here's the B flat okay we'll do a little connector here on the B flat now we're going to add another flat our E flat making it C Dorian notice we use a C Minor 7 in our left hand and we're going to add another flat making this C aolan okay now we're going to add another flat the d flat making the C Fran and then we're going to go locen coming down with the G flat and we're going to match the chord here okay and finally we're going to end with c lydian with that F sharp and we finish coming down this is a great exercise because it makes you really understand your modes for each key and also switching between your modes very quickly which is something that jazz musicians do when they're soloing now I recommend that you practice this exercise for one month focusing on the key of C major I recommend that you play this for 5 to 10 minutes per day and I want you to reach a goal tempo of 100 BPM once you've done all of this then in the next month I recommend that you focus on a new key so you can go to the key of G major and then practice all of your seven modes using the same exercise this way by the end of 12 months you will have mastered all of your seven modes for all 12 keys by the way if you want to do a deep dive on mastering your musical modes we have some really good courses on each of the most common musical modes including your Dorian mode your aolan mode mixian lyan modes so I'll put a link to those courses below all right if you're an advanced pianist and you want to master your scales to play jazz some of the best scales to use are what are called altered scales and when you listen to a jazz pianist you might hear them play a phrase like this what are those cool scales that I'm playing well they're called altered scales and there are three altered scales that you really need to know if you're an advanced jazz pianist and they are the whole tone scale which is basically all whole steps the dominant diminished scale which is a halfstep whole step scale it's kind of a strange looking scale and then finally your altered scale which is a lot like your dominant diminished scale except we're going to put an A flat in there on the top and these scales sound amazing when you use them to improvise over a dominant seven chord for example I can take each one of these scales and play them over C7 and it'll sound really cool like here's the whole tone scale here's the dominant diminish scale and here's the fully altered scale [Music] so here's the exercise that I recommend you practice to master these scales I'll play it for you and then break it down so what I'm doing is I'm playing each one of these altered scales coming up on the C7 chord and then I'm resolving to an F major chord using the F major scale so for the first one we use C altered that's that whole tone scale I'm going to come down and then end with a little line on F okay and then we do the same thing this time using dominant diminished slightly different and then end with the same line on the F okay and then finally we're going to use the C fully altered scale slightly different and then end with the same line now I recommend that you practice this for one month in one key so practice on all of your C altered scales I do encourage you to practice this for maybe 5 to 10 minutes per day and a goal Tempo is 110 BPM so once you've hit that goal Tempo you've practiced it for 1 month then in the next month pick a new key so you might go to a different key maybe the key of B flat okay well what's the five chord and B flat it's an F7 so you practice your faltered skilles resolving to B flat by the way if you want to learn all of the scales that I like to use when I'm soloing over different types of chords we have a really great course on this topic called scales for improv on Seventh chords I'll put a link to that below all right pillar two to playing jazz piano is to master your chords and if you're a beginner pianist and you want to play cool Jazzy chord like this well guess what all of the chords that we use okay in jazz they come from major and minor chords and if you can't play your major and minor chords then you won't be able to play some of these other jazzier sounding chords now your yearly goal is to be able to play all 12 of your major chords minor chords and chord inversions and if you listen to most teachers they'll say okay here's a C major chord and then you have these inversions so this is called first inversion and then this is called second inversion and then if you play minor chords you have C minor root position and then you have first inversion and then second inversion and this is a great way to get started with inversions but I don't think it's the best way to practice them if you want to play jazz it's much better to practice them like this okay doesn't it sound so much more interesting and you're not only learning your inversions but you're swinging the notes in your right hand and you're playing them over different chords in your left hand so it sounds a lot better so basically what I'm doing is I'm just playing each inversion I'm playing a little Charleston rhythm in the left hand and then I go to the next inversion Charleston Rhythm and I finish okay and then I play the same thing coming down you see that and then you can do the same thing for minor okay same Rhythm one and two and three and four and and then you bring it down right same thing so I recommend that you focus on one key for one month so in month number one focus on the key of C major I recommend that you practice this 5 to 10 minutes per day and you really want to hit a goal tempo of 90 beats per minute once you've practiced this for 1 month and you've hit your goal Tempo then in the next month you can try a new key so you can jump to the key of D and practice the same thing and after you do this for 12 months you will have learned all of your major and minor chords in all inversions in all 12 Keys all right if you're an intermediate level pianist and you want to master your chords to play jazz the most important chords in jazz and I mean like 99% of jazz tunes use a chord type called seventh chords and it really doesn't matter the tune if you're doing you know Fly Me to the Moon the way you look tonight if you look at the lead sheets and you look at the chords you're going to see all of these seventh chords and so if you want to play jazz you really need to understand seventh chords now there are five types of seventh chords that you're going to see 99% of the time you have what's called a C major 7 you have a c dominant 7 you have a C Minor 7 you have a c half diminished 7 and you have a c diminished 7 and there's a really good exercise that will help you master each of these seventh Chords it's called the inverted seventh exercise and it sounds like this basically I'm starting on a C major 7 chord and I'm going down in fifths so I'm going to go to C to F and play an F major 7 you see that and this is an inverted F major 7 and then down from F A fifth to B flat play B flat major 7 and then B flat to E flat I play an E flat major 7 and you continue this cycle so next is a flat major 7 to a d flat major 7 g flat major 7 B major 7 you're basically going around your circle of fifths is your a major 7 D major 7 finally down to G major 7 now I recommend that you practice this for 5 to 10 minutes per day and you set a goal tempo of 100 BPM and each month I recommend that you focus on one type of chord so in the first month you're going to do your major seven chords and then in the next month you can do your dominant seven chords does that make sense and then in the next month you could do your minor seven chords so this is going to take you five months to master now in months 6 through 11 there's another really good exercise that you can practice to master your seventh chords and it goes like this for this exercise I'm practicing all my seventh chords but I'm playing all of the dionic seventh chords that belong to a key and so this is another way to practice each of your seventh chords is to mix them up so we have C major 7 D Minor 7 E minor7 F major 7 and so you can practice these all the way up the scale and then the other thing that I do is is I break the right hand up in triplets triple it triple it triple it triple it triple it you see what I'm doing okay and then I also do a Charleston rhythm in my left hand 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 now I recommend that you practice this for 5 to 10 minutes per day with a goal tempo of 150 bpm now if you practice two keys per month then after 6 months you will have practiced all 12 of your dionic 7th chords in all of your keys once you've practiced this exercise then you'll have one more month where you can review both of your exercises by the way if you want to do a deep dive on Seventh chords and really Master them check out our level four foundations learning track in this learning track we have fulllength courses where you'll learn how to master each type of seventh chords you'll learn essential exercise how to apply them to Tunes we have a really great lead sheet course where you learn how to use seventh chords on lead sheets lots of exercises over the 251 chord progression plus you can learn how to start identifying seventh chords by ear with our ear training courses so I'll put a link to that learning track below all right if you're an advanced pianist and you want to play Beautiful Jazz chords like this then you must understand chord extensions and chord alterations extensions and alterations are basically the notes that you can add to simple chords like this to make them sound like that and there are some simple rules to extensions and alterations that will make them much easier to understand basically if you have a major seven chord or a minor seven chord you can add three different extensions to these chords the D the F and the a we call these the 9 the 11 and the 13 now if you have a dominant seven chord like a C7 there are four alterations that you can add to this chord which are called the flat nine the sharp n the sharp 11 and the flat 13 now as a quick side note on Major seven chords typically you won't add the 11 in and on minor seven chords you typically will not add the 13 so what you want to do is you want to practice playing chord progressions using extensions and alterations and so here's the exercise that I love to use with my students I'll play it for you and then break it down I'm basically playing a two five 1 chord progression in the the key of f but instead of playing ordinary seventh chords like this I'm going to add every possible chord extension to each of these chords so for the first one that G minor 7 I'm adding the ninth and the 11th then on the C7 I'm adding some chord alterations okay these are basically all of the alter notes I could add on a C7 chord and then I resolve to my F chord but again I'm adding all of the possible chord extensions so I have the 13 here and then I have the nine then I'm going to shift the same thing up so instead of starting on the C I'm going to start on the F and do the same thing so we have G minor 11 and then C7 there are my alter notes alter notes and I resolve once again to my F chord so I'm playing the same chords I'm just moving it up to explore different inversions of these chord chords and then finally you can bring it up again okay G minor 11 here C7 there are my alter notes and I end on my F major 13 just like with the other exercises I recommend that you focus on one key per month you can practice this for 5 to 10 minutes per day and I recommend that you set a goal tempo of 75 BPM once you've hit your goal Tempo and you've practiced it for a month then in the next month pick pick a new key so you might go to the key of E flat and practice your 251 in E Flat and by the end of 12 months you will have practiced adding your chord extensions and alterations to all 12 of your keys using the most common Jazz progression which is your 251 by the way if you want to do a deep dive on chord extensions and chord alterations then I recommend that you check out our level five foundations learning track in this learning track you'll learn all about extend extensions and alterations and specifically how to apply them to basically every type of chord you'll learn how to combine notes the best voicings how to use them in chord progressions in lead sheets you'll also learn about hand coordination plus how to add passing chords and reharmonize basically any chord progression so I'll put a link to that learning track below all right pillar three of playing jazz piano is mastering your chords and if you're a beginner jazz pianist you might be thinking you know Johnny I don't think I can learn jazz chords there is way too much going on but you might not know that you can actually get started playing jazz chords by using some very simple chords called chord shells and they're super easy to play so a chord shell is basically when you take a jazz chord like a major 7eventh chord and you remove one or two notes from the chord usually you remove the fifth from the chord the G and you end up with this partial chord or a chord shell now there are two ways to play chord shells one is to play the root and the third on the bottom and the right hand plays the seventh okay this is called a closed position chord shell because it's contained within an octave the other way to play a chord shell is to play the root with your left hand and play the seventh and the third with your right hand you get this beautiful chord this is called an open chord shell because the outer notes are further than one octave apart and so you can do this on each type of chord like on a C7 chord you could play your chord shell using a closed position chord or an open position chord or a C Minor 7 okay same thing you can play a closed position chord like this or an open position chord so there's a really good exercise to help you master your chord shells and it goes like this I'm basically playing a 251 chord progression in the key of C major so I'm starting on a two chord then going into a five chord and then a one chord and I'm using these seventh chords that we often times play in jazz but instead of playing these ordinary chords I'm playing them as chord shells so for the first chord I'm playing my D Minor 7 chord shell then for the G chord check it out I play it like this this is that open position G7 kind of sprinting the notes out and then I end on my C major 7 chord isn't that beautiful and then you can do your open position 251 so I can start up here on my D Minor 7 notice I'm spreading the notes out from the original chord then my G7 there it is kind of looks like a root position chord and then on my C major 7 I end here and once again this is that open position C major 7 chord now I recommend that you practice this for 5 to 10 minutes per day with a goal tempo of 150 bpm and I recommend that you focus on one key per month so in this case you're focused on the key of C major once you've practiced this for one month then in the next month go to a new key and practice your 251 in that key using your cord shells and by the end of 12 months you will have PR practice all of your cord shells in all 12 keys by the way if you want to do a deep dive on cord shells we have two really good courses on these topics including our chord shell and guide tones exercises course and our play piano lead sheets with shells and guide tones and in these courses you'll learn how to master these cord shells how to use them in Tunes so I'll put a link to those below all right if you're an intermediate level pianist and you want to master your Jazz chords there are a lot of of different chords that you're going to play in jazz but one of the most important types that you'll play at an intermediate level are what are called rootless voicings and they sound like this they are these beautiful crunchy chords that you use when you're accompanying Jazz and you can even use them in the left hand for a melody you hear those crunchy chords those are rootless voicing chords now there are two types of chords for rootless voicings there are AV voicing chords and B voicing chords so on a C major 7 if you add the ninth to this chord and get rid of the root you have your a voicing it is a rootless voicing chord so there's no root in the chord now if you put the seventh on the bottom you have What's called the B voicing so a a voicing B voicing you can do this on your other chord types as well like your C Minor 7 if you put a nine on the top and you get rid of the root you have your a voicing for a C minor and if you put the seventh on the bottom you have your B voicing same with your dominant chord it's like a C7 if you add a nine on the top and you substitute the fifth for the 13 and you get rid of the root you have a beautiful chord called a c e13 and if you put the root on the bottom sounds really nice so this is your a voicing for a dominant chord and then if you put the seventh on the bottom you end up with your B voicing okay this is a C13 it's a very Jazzy way of playing a C7 chord so there's a great exercise to mastering your rootless voice and chords and it goes like this so basically I'm playing a 2 5 1 chord progression in the key of C remember this is the most common chord progression in jazz and then I'm going to play my rootless voicings on the 251 so on the D Minor 7 I'm going to play that a voicing on the D then on the G ooh I'm going to play a B voicing on that G7 remember the B voicing looks like this okay 1 3 5 7 9 you put the 13 instead of the five and get rid of the root that's your G chord that's a b voicing and then my a voicing on my C chord and then I'm going to use a little six chord there as a substitute okay so that's the full chord progression 2 5 1 one and then I'm going to play the same exercise but I'm going to start on a b voice sing on the D so we have a two five it's the same chord as this one but it's an a voicing and then one is is a b voicing and one the other really good exercise is to practice your rootless voicings in your left hand and so a great way to do this is to mix it with your scale okay basically I'm playing the 25 one starting with a B voicing playing the C scale coming up and then here's my G chord okay and then my one chord c and then my sixth chord on the C and then you're going to bring it down so you're starting on an a voicing on the D there's your B voicing on the G A voicing on the C to your C6 chord now I recommend that you practice both of these exercises right and then the scale right and do them in one key per month so you're going to focus on the key of C major I recommend that you practice this for 5 to 10 minutes per day and that you set a goal tempo of 140 BPM once you've practiced this for a month and you've hit your goal Tempo then I recommend that you move on to another key and by the end of the year you will have practiced all of your rootless voicings in all 12 keys by the way if you want to do a deep dive on rootless voice and chords I recommend that you check out our level six Foundation Learning track in this learning track you'll learn everything that you need to know to master rootless voice and chords and we have fulllength courses on each chord so major seven chords minor seven chords dominant seven chords half diminished chords altered chords how do you play rootless voicings on each of these chords we also show you how to use rootless voicings in chord progressions like your 251 chord progression and how to use rootless voicings in lead sheets so I'll put a link to that learning track below all right if you're an advanced pianist and you want to master your Jazz chords I think the most important chords for you to learn are called qual voicings and they sound like this a qual voicing is basically a chord that is stacked in primarily fourth intervals so instead of a chord being stacked in thirds like we're traditionally taught you end up with these chords that have lots of fourth intervals in them and they have a very cool Jazzy sound to them so as an example instead of C major like this you'd play it e a d g and C all fourth intervals okay instead of a C minor chord like this like a C Minor 7 you'd play it like this ooh all fourth intervals and we're adding some notes to these chords like chord extensions and chord alterations finally on a dominant chord like this if you want to play a qual voicing you could play it like this okay fourth interval fourth interval fourth interval the best way to practice your qual chords are to harmonize each of the notes of your scale using a qual voicing so for example let's say you wanted to harmonize a C major 7 chord and you wanted to be able to use any Melody note of the c major scale well here's how you would harmonize it for the first note of the scale we play all fourth intervals down and you have a beautiful chord called a c69 okay the next one you play it like this okay fourth fourth and a fourth okay it's a c69 then like this okay fourth fourth Fourth okay for the F you're going to harmonize it like a D Minor 11 okay a little bit different then on the fifth you're going to harmonize it like this fourth fourth Fourth then on the sixth going to harmonize it like this lots of fourth intervals okay and then on the seventh we going to harmonize it like this fourth fourth Fourth okay beautiful so the full scale what about a minor seven chord like a C Minor 7 how would you harmonize each of these notes using qual chords well most most Melodies on a minor 7 chord use notes from the C Dorian scale so you want to be able to harmonize any one of these seven notes using qual chords so for the first Melody note the C we're going to play it like this this is called a C minor 11 then for the next one we just move the top note up then for the third the E flat going to play like this okay all fourth intervals really nice sound then for the F I'm going to play it like this fourth fourth Fourth then the G ooh really pretty fourth fourth Fourth the a we're going to harmonize as a D Minor 11 so we're going to just change the chord a little bit because it harmonizes better then the seven harmonize like this fourth fourth Fourth okay this is a C minor 11 chord and finally same chord that we started with for dominant seven chords I recommend that you use your C Mixel in scale and so you're going to harmonize each note of the scale like this starting from the C lots of fourth intervals fourth fourth Fourth by the way this is an augmented fourth okay next one top three notes move up next one little different here fourth fourth Fourth little crunch on the top harmonize the next one as a D Minor 11 then the next one okay move this back up again all fourths you do have this augmented fourth top note moves up then on the seventh we play it like this and finally move the top note up for the last chord so I recommend that you practice these three exercises in one key each month so in month number one focus on the key of C major first on your major seven chord Minor 7 chord and dominant seven chord I recommend that you practice this for 5 to 10 minutes per day with a goal tempo of 70 BPM and once you've hit this goal Tempo and you've practiced it for a month then in the next month move on to a new key and so by the end of the year you will have practiced all of these quartal voicing chords in all 12 of your keys by the way if you want to do a deep dive on qual voicings I recommend that you check out our level 9 foundations learning track in this learning track you'll learn everything that you need to to know about qual voicings and how to master them on each chord type like major chords minor chords dominant chords your half- diminished and your diminished chords you'll learn essential exercises over the most common chord progressions plus how to use qual voicings on lead sheets so I'll put a link to that learning track below all right the fourth pillar of becoming a well-rounded jazz pianist is to be able to play lead sheets and lead sheets are basically the raw material that jazz musicians used to basically Play Beautiful Arrangements of jazz tunes okay when I was just playing that all that I knew were the basic Melody and basic chords and from there I was making it my own I was adding all of these additional notes and cool rhythms and so this is what Jazz musicians do they take a basic Melody and chords and they Jazz it up they make it their own so if you're a beginner jazz pianist how do you play a lead sheet and make it sound good well a really great approach if you're a beginner jazz pianist is to use chord shells to play jazz standards and so if you take the tune after you've gone the chords are actually really simple but you don't want to play them in this really ordinary way if you're beginner you might want to play it like this so what I'm basically doing is instead of playing the basic chords and the melody like this I'm just using chord shells meaning I'm getting rid of the fifth of the chord and then I'm spreading these notes out underneath the melody okay so we have okay that's my F major chord my F major 7 and then instead of F6 like this I spread it out I have there's my melody is that beautiful and then my C major 7 it's spread out like this these are chord shells and then we have okay it's my A7 and then D7 okay there's my D7 I'm just spreading the notes out okay these are those open voicings and then it's my G7 chord shell so there's no fifth in the chord okay and then my C major 7 okay is my C major 7 spread out got the third up here and then my C7 again it's a spread out C7 chord chord shell now I recommend that that you focus on learning one new song per month and you can find new Tunes in a fake book go through your chords make sure you can play the basic chords and then practice spreading your notes out to use these beautiful chord shells by the way if you want to do a deep dive on playing lead sheets I encourage you to check out our most comprehensive course on playing lead sheets which is our Autumn Leaves course this is a beginner to intermediate level course where you'll learn everything that you need to know about taking a basic lead sheet and turning it into a beautiful Jazz standard how to walk baselines how to color your chords how to solo over the tune so I'll put a link to that course below all right if you're on the intermediate side and you want to master playing lead sheets I recommend that you use rootless voicings to play tunes and so rootless voicings sound like this I'm basically jumping up to each of the rootless voicings that I taught you earlier so this is an F major 9 B voicing okay F minor 6 that's a b voicing and then C major 7 that's an AO sing ooh very cool chord this is an a13 that's a b voicing that's an a voicing I have the third on the bottom that's my G13 B voicing and then that's a a voicing on a C major 9 okay there's my C13 a voicing now I recommend that you focus on learning One new tune each month and you can find lots of great tunes by opening up a fake book all right if you're an advanced pianist and you want to master playing lead sheets then I recommend that you focus on walking baselines and playing block chords in the right hand and it sounds like this so what I'm doing is I'm basically walking a baseline on each of my chords and then in my right hand I'm grabbing some chord tones okay and then I'm hitting what are called block chords and a block chord is a four or five note chord where you harmonize the melody and you keep all of the notes within an octave okay so we have and and then on the F notice I'm grabbing those block chords and then on the C chord okay another block chord and then okay I'm not grabbing block chords the entire time especially when the melody is really busy okay on the D chord okay two block chords there okay and then on the G chord see that block chords and then and there's my block chord I recommend that you focus on learning one new tune each month using this technique of walking Bas lines and the rightand block chords and then you can open a fake book and in the next month pick a new tune to practice this technique on by the way if you want to do a deep dive on playing lead sheets at an advanced level we have a really good course course on this topic which is our Fly Me to the Moon course where you'll learn how to take a basic lead sheet and turn it into a really hip Jazz Arrangement how to walk baselines how to solo how to add beautiful chords to the arrangement so I'll put a link to that below all right the fifth pillar of being a great jazz pianist is having the ability to Solo or to improvise and often times you have a chord progression and you just want to play a little solo on it [Music] now if you're more on the beginner side you might see that and think Johnny there's no way I can do that only Advanced pianists can solo at the piano but that couldn't be further from the truth you can be a beginner pianist and solo and it can still sound really nice in fact if you're a beginner I only only recommend that you use one scale to get started soloing and you might be surprised to know that it's actually the major scale and you can create some really cool lines using only these seven white notes so what you're going to do is you're going to practice improvising over the 2 five 1 chord progression in the key of C it's the most common Jazz progression so if you practice improvising over this progression you're going to have a much better time soloing on actual Tunes okay D Minor G7 C major 7 and in the right hand you're going to use the notes from the c major [Music] scale does that make sense now when you're improvising you want to play short little lines or [Music] phrases notice how I put little gaps in between each line but my lines are actually not random what I'm doing is anytime I end a line I try to Target one of my chord tones so on my D Minor 7 chord when I play a line I might try to Target the third of this chord you see that and I end on the F okay and you can do this on each of your chords so on the G chord the third is the B so I might play this line and I end on the B doesn't that sound nice and then on the C chord my third is an e so I might Target this e in my line there it is and then again doesn't that sound nice you can also practice targeting your fifth of each chord okay so you can play lines like this sounds nice I'm ending on my a and then on my G my fifth is the D so I might play this see that I end on my D okay then on my next chord the C major 7 I might Target my G how about a longer line how about this oo see how I end on my G there you can also Target your roots like on the D chord I could Target my D in my line see that line landing on the D and then same thing on the G what's my root it's a g so I could play this see how I land on the G and then same on the C chord I could Target my root when I improvise my line so I could play something like this okay did you hear that and then twice on the C so I recommend that you practice these exercises for 5 to 10 minutes per day and that you set a goal tempo of 100 BPM and focus on one key per month so you're going to practice improvising in the key of C major for one month and once you reach your goal Tempo and you've done this for one month then in the next month move on to a new key and practice improvising in that key and by the end of 12 months you will have practiced improvising in all 12 keys by the way if you want to do a deep dive on the topic of soloing using chord tone targets we have a really great full length course on this called 251 soloing with cord tone targets I'll put a link to that below all right if you're an intermediate level pianist and you want to solo playing jazz piano one of the most important techniques is called the upper and lower neighbor technique and it sounds like this notice how occasionally I'm adding some of these black notes to my rightand solo and it adds some really cool colors to my right- hand solo well these are the upper and lower neighbors so here's how it works basically if you take a chord like a C major 7 each one of these notes from the chord has a lower neighbor which is the note a half step below each of these notes so the lower neighbor to C is the B the lower neighbor to e is E flat the lower neighbor to G is g flat and the lower neighbor to B is your B flat you also have upper neighbors and the upper neighbors are the notes half Step Above each of your chord tones so you have d flat to c f to e a flat to G and C to B and you can do this for every chord type like a c dominant 7 you have your lower neighbors and your upper neighbors same with C minor seven you have lower and upper so how do you use these upper and lower Neighbors in your solo well if you were soloing on the 251 2 5 1 in the key of C you can use any notes of your C major scale over your 251 except you can add these upper and lower Neighbors in between the right notes in your right hand okay so as an example let's start with lower neighbors how can I use some lower neighbors to get me to each of the chord tones on my D Minor 7 well I could play a line like this okay do you see that lower neighbor to my chord tone and then on the G chord I could do something like this okay that's the C scale lower neighbor to the chord tone that's the B walking it down and then on the C chord I could do this okay walking lower neighbor into the G that's the fifth and I end my line on the C okay that's how lower neighbors work you can also use upper neighbors to your chord tones so I could play a line like this taking my C scale upper neighbor to the chord tone and then on the G upper neighbor to the chord tone and then we have now to the C upper neighbor to G and upper neighbor to C finally you can mix your lower and upper neighbors and do something like this so I'm going lower neighbor upper neighbor to D it's like a little surround and then on the G lower neighbor upper neighbor to G outlining the chord and then I have just outlining the chord upper neighbor to the chord tone and then I'm going to go upper neighbor lower neighbor to the G now I recommend that you practice improvising for 5 to 10 minutes per day and a great goal Tempo is 120 BPM and I encourage you to focus on one key per month so as you're building out these lines and improvising using upper and lower neighbors focus on the key of C major for one month and then in the next month work on a new key and at the end of 12 months you will have practiced soloing in all 12 keys by the way if you want to do a deep dive on soloing with upper and lower neighbors we have a great fulllength course on this exact topic called 251 soloing with upper and lower neighbors I'll put a link to that below all right if you want to improvise at the advanced level then you really want to practice improvising with multiple scales and if you use multiple skills when you're improvising it might sound something like this so how was I able to do that well I was using multiple scales when I was just improvising and so it made my improvisation sound a lot more interesting because you were hearing all of these different colors combined so the way that I recommend that you do this is to solo on the turnaround chord progression and the turnaround progression in the key of C can start on different chords but one way to do it is to start on your two chord your D Minor 7 and then go to a G7 your five chord and and then your one chord which is C and then your six chord which is an A7 and this turns you back around to the D Minor 7 chord in the right hand you're going to use a different scale for each one of your chords so on your D Minor 7 chord your two chord you're going to use your D Dorian scale so all white notes on the five chord on your G7 you're going to use a really cool scale called your dominant diminished scale and I taught you this scale earlier in this lesson okay on the one chord you're going to use the C lydian scale it's a beautiful scale you can use on major chords and finally on your A7 chord you're going to use your a dominant diminish scale and so what you want to do is practice making up little lines using each of these scales and combining the scales in an interesting way so first I recommend that you practice improvising lines that come down the piano that combine your scales here's an example so I'm starting with the notes of D Dorian okay on the G I'm using that g dominant diminished okay and then on the C I'm using C lydian and then I'm using a dominant diminish you can also practice uplines like this so I'm coming up D Dorian a little lower neighbor to my B and I'm going G dominant diminish okay now my C chord and on the a you using a dominant diminished finally I recommend that you practice improvising by combining your uplines and your down lines and here's an example so for this line I'm using primarily triplets I'm coming of D Dorian little lower neighbor to the B and I'm using G dominant [Music] diminished and then I'm going to land on my C little triplet down the chord and I'm going to use C lydian okay to my a and I'm just going to outline the chord here kind of an A7 with a flat nine to the flat n now I recommend that you practice improvising for five to 10 minutes per day and a good goal Tempo is about 120 BPM I do recommend that you focus on one key each month and when you feel good improvising in that key and at the full Tempo then in the next month move on to a new key and by the end of the year you will have practiced soloing in all 12 keys by the way if you want to do a deep dive on mixing different skills when you're soloing we have a really good course on this called our Jazz ballad soloing challenge I'll put a link to that below hey thanks for watching and if you enjoyed the lesson please let me know in the comments also be sure to check out piano with johnnie.com we have over 1,000 step-by-step lessons for all playing levels where you'll learn your favorite songs Styles and how to improvise at the piano thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one ...
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