Jazz Piano School

Here we look at how to create more 4 and 5 note voicings in a modal setting. Today's session explores a more flexible approach in D dorian by transposing shapes through the mode. To take it further, we look at a technique of chromatic transposition used by Herbie Hancock.

This it taken directly from our new specialty course "How To Crush The Blues". These 4 comping setups are sure to give you everything you need to know in order to provide lush and rich sounding blues accompaniment to anyone.

Here is a tutorial to create 4 and 5 note pentatonic voicings. These voicings work well over modal tunes like "So What" by Miles Davis, and will give you a modern sound to add to your toolbox of voicings! Enjoy!

We take a deep dive into improvising over tritone substitutions. Find out how to implement a diverse harmonic palette, and discover the secrets used by some of your favorite players! Enjoy!

Usually we all want to learn cool, hip sounding voicings right?! Trust me, I've been there. But unfortunately these one off voicings don't do much for our education. It's like someone giving us a fish instead of TEACHING us HOW to fish. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd much rather learn HOW to fish. This episode will give you the 8 must know jazz piano chords but will also TEACH you how you can take these structures and methods and use them in all tunes. Enjoy!

Learning how to make your blues scale improv not sound terrible can be difficult. Trust me! I went through the same thing! Here are 3 very easy tips that will your blues scale improvisation instantly sound like you've been doing it for years! Enjoy

Learn how to shift and move extensions in your voicings with this quick method to create a more modern jazz piano sound! With this method you'll be create that complicated inner voice movement that you hear Bill Evans achieve, not to mention many other huge jazz piano giants. Jazz Piano School has taught thousands of students to achieve jazz piano freedom using methods and strategies exactly like the one you'll learn in this video.

Here is part 2 of Bill Evans Time Remembered Analysis which finished up the last 8 measures of the melody.

Well I have some very amazing news! A special friend in the California area, who played with Bobby Hutcherson for many years and has contributed so much to jazz through education, has recently helped Jazz Piano School build a brand new specialty course! This new specialty course, taught by Dr. Joe Gilman will be "The Bill Evans Arranging Style" and will be available through Jazz Piano School exclusively! To get on our list to learn more about this specialty course when we release it click the button below. You will ALSO get the transcription of the Bill Evans playing time remembered which is analyzed in this podcast. This Bill Evans specialty course is a MUST have for absolutely everyone, especially because of the Dr. Joe Gilman's teaching. To get you excited for the release of our new specialty course will be releasing lots of free Bill Evans education for you to soak up!

Finally we're at PART 4! Wow what a ride! Here I'll actually be playing with one of the backup tracks created for our Singer Accompaniment Mastery Specialty Course. I had a blast actually using the back up track. Remember there will be over 20 backup tracks within our new specialty course for you to use and play to along with analysis and walk through of everything I'm playing. In this episode I'm taking all the previous textures we've worked on and combining them to create a well balanced accompaniment story. I also add in some higher register fills, reharms and movements that I haven't explained that you can find in our new specialty course.

Welcome to Part 3 of our accompanying vocalist series. We're taking "The Switch" a step further and executing this action WITHIN ONE measure! Whooo. By doing this we're creating even MORE interaction within our hands, engagement with the vocalist, and ability to add our own expression into the tune. It will also go in our "tool bag" as another texture we can pull out to create contrast and add to the entire story and balance of our accompaniment.

Welcome to PART 2 of our accompanying singers series and in this podcast I'm teaching what I call "The SWITCH"! The Switch is the system I use to get a wide variety of textures, contrast, and balance in my accompaniment while playing for vocalist. It will allow you to get away from walking bass the entire time...(borrrring)...and help you add in expression of YOUR OWN! Which we all truly want to do right? I know I certainly hate being a back up track for a vocalist. When you mix the Switch in with other varying textures taught in our new Singer Accompaniment Mastery course you get a beautiful balance of lush reharms, fills, rhythmic and melodic accompaniment supported with bass notes. Have fun and enjoy!

Go to http://jazzpianoschool.com/singers to get details for our "Singer Accompaniment Mastery" specialty course being released in a couple of weeks! Well I'm super PUMPED! We're getting ready to release another specialty course called "Singer Accompaniment Mastery"! There is literally nothing out there like this and I know you're going to love it! So...to do a little promotion and give away some goodies that are in the course I will be doing a 4 part series on accompanying singers. And to start off I'm going to teach you about a very important and foundational element that is the 2 Feel Bass Line. Do you get bored of walking bass lines all the time? Because I know I do. This method will help you break up your LH a little bit...but will also lead to my own patent pending, (just kidding, but kinda serious) method I call "The Switch" Everyone should be using "The Switch" in their singer accompaniment and if you're not, then you're missing out! I'll be giving a little bit of "The Switch" away in the next couple

Oh boy...sometimes I just get going on some of these podcasts and this happens to be one of them. Seriously though...this one is AWESOME! I think you all are going to love the content in this. Would love to hear how your playing changes after working in some of the tips from this lesson. Happy practicing! Enjoy!

I've never known any jazz piano giant to not have the ability to play through changes in a bebop style. At the heart of all improvisation lies bop. If you think you're going to skip this step and achieve improv freedom...well, unfortunately you're lying to yourself. Needless to say this is a must! So here are 7 great tips to help you practice and excel quickly with proven and systematic steps. Enjoy!

I heard an amazing saying the military uses as a motto that goes like this..."Fast is slow and slow is fast." If I had to sum up jazz piano in a similar way I would say, "Theory & Structure is Freedom, and Freedom Is Theory & Structure." In this episode I show you why it's so important to learn theory concepts in a sequential manner and how it will translate into true freedom of self expression in your playing. Enjoy!

People will ask me, "Brenden, how do you play funk...how do you play latin?" Well when you learn the necessary foundational tools with Theory Sequences...you can play any style, any groove you want! At anytime! That is why our tagline is "Learning Freedom". In this episode I take a simple standard and play about a ten different grooves and styles through out the tune. Switching between each and every one as I explain. Enjoy!

I absolutely love gospel. I've been listening to it since I was a kid because I love the way it makes me feel! The chords and harmonies pull at my heart and soul strings because that's what it's meant to do! Give us an uplifting feeling, get us through hard times. The chords used in the chart do exactly that. I explain what types of chords do what and how you can use them in all different kinds of music to reharm whenever you want.

There are a ton of ways to implement rhythm into improv but...I've found these ways to be most effective at quickly upgrading your sound. Practice them alone at first before implementing them all into your solo at once. They're powerful tools so use them wisely and work hard. In no time your improvisation will be completely different...and for the BETTER! Enjoy!

So I'm going to say it...Jazz Piano is EASY...but...only after you have a plan to follow. I found this out the hard way after basically searching and guessing for most of my career until I finally developed my own plan. In this episode I talk about the foundation and TREE based concepts that splits off your foundation based on your specific goals. There is not much playing and demonstrating here but I truly believe the concepts I explain are much more valuable in the long run. Enjoy!