Jazz Piano School

Memorizing & learning tunes throughly is tough! Trust me I've been there. After using this 6 Step Learning Tunes process I never forgot another tune again. It's due all the practice of the fundamental elements of the tune. Enjoy!

We open the flood gates to harmonization with this podcast as I show you that one note can fit and be used in any type of chord you wish in a tune. There are a substantial amount of options so take your time and realize that this is more or less like composing. Find changes that please you the most! This is about self expression. If you like it, then use it!

Harmonizing melodies can be very tricky. What chords do we pick for each melody note and when do we place them. In this harmonization beginner's podcast, I go over how to use diatonic chords as well as some substitutes to spice up a simple melody like twinkle twinkle. Enjoy!

Learning how to play at fast tempos can be quite frustrating. Why can't we play faster?! We see or listen to the monsters do it effortlessly yet when we try it comes out as a moshposh of jumbled up mess. Well here are 7 tips to follow to increase the speed at which you can improvise! Enjoy!

In this episode I expand on our bebop playing by showing you how to apply our approaches to specific improvisation exercises that will help you improve. After you the improv exercises we will apply our approaches to a tune, in this case, Autumn Leaves. Enjoy!

Learning bebop can be quite easy when you relate it to building legos! Simply connect the lego's and bam, you got bebop. Am I making sense? Of course not, but kinda. Learn the simple approaches to improve or start piecing together your bebop improv.

Ballads can be extremely difficult. More so than fast tunes because they are SO slow! You are much more vulnerable to stand out with your mistakes and insecure playing. Luckily, this podcast will help you gain confidence to play ballads with a group, comp for singers or other instruments playing the melody, and improvise like a pro yourself. Enjoy!

Here is the part 2 of the comping series. This one is a doozy! Trust me. There is a lot of great information stacked in here. Take your time and split it up if you need to into different watching or listening sessions. You'll love it!

As I was reviewing through all the JPS podcasts I realized there were none on comping! Wow! Well we're about to change that. In this two part series I'm going to go over everything comping ranging from beginner to advanced techniques, where to place your hands and what voicings to use. Enjoy!

This is a great topic that someone requested on the podcast page the other day. Learning to improvise is one thing. Learning to comp with your LH while your RH improvises is a completely different story. So in this podcast I go over 5 key points that will help you practice your LH comping with your RH improvisation. I know you'll love it! Enjoy!

This is a topic within jazz piano education that I get asked about A LOT! For good reason too. Fortunately, most of the work I get actually come with playing with singers. I've excelled at this through out my career from playing in a church for a long time. In church, I've had to accompany singers in all sorts of styles, genres and situations. Let me tell you, the path is not easy. I'm confident these basics will get you started on the right path. Enjoy!

Well guess what? I fell off again! But who doesn't right? The good thing is you simply pick yourself back up and keep going at it from where ever you last left off. This goes for anything in life. Never give up! Especially jazz piano. If you stop practicing for 1 week, 2 months or even a year, just accept it and start again from where you left off. The hardest part is to start up again, take it from me! Haha In this episode I share some random thoughts that have been on my mind and share a teaser for the next podcast episode to be released. Thank you all for your support!

So excited to be back podcasting! I had so many problems with the podcast on iTunes. A couple episodes were not showing up. Then I had to take the podcast off and it was a mess! Anyway I'm back. I've launched the Jazz Piano School Beginner Course! So excited for this. Already have a lot of signups. In this podcast I go over my thoughts on the new Jazz Piano School Beginner Course. Why it's different than other online jazz piano courses. I also talk about my thoughts for JPS in 2015 and how it can help you!

By do some solo's sound boring and some sound awesome? Rhythms. Rhythms in jazz are the feel good mojo that spices up your solo. They are at the heart of our soul. In order to make our solos pop and have the feel good feeling to them we need to add rhythms to our solo that have contrast. If we are playing all eighth notes and quarter notes on downbeats, our solo's will sound bland and dry. In this episode I give you many different ways to practice your rhythms in order to spice up your solo.

When you're first learning jazz it's hard to get that jazz sound that gives tensions and sounds like we're not playing like a baby. It might sound to you like you're playing is sooo beginnerish still. Well here's how to change it. By learning the altered scale we will immediately give our playing lots of tension and color by using the extensions in this scale. Enjoy!

We as jazz musicians have a lot of freedom to change progressions and harmonies in a tune. How exactly do we do it though? In this podcast I'll teach you a foundational concept that will lead to many more reharm opportunities while soloing, comping, and playing solo piano. Enjoy!

As I've said before jazz is like speaking a language. We know that person in our life that won't stop talking. They just talk and talk and talk. It's never fun to listen to them. The people who take their time and say something meaningful are the ones to listen to. We want to be those people on the piano. It's extremely easy for us as pianists to play and play and play because we have a percussive instrument. We can just bang away on the piano and not reazlie we're not leaving space. In this podcast I'll teach you how to focus your mind so you can develop your solos and say something meaningful.

Solo piano can be very frustrating. You have 88 keys and ten fingers. What the heck do you play? It's easier than you might think. Your LH and RH have different roles that should work together to produce a great sounding tune. When you understand the roles each hand plays you'll be better equipped to play solo piano and make progress. I will dissect the specific LH components in this episode. Enjoy!

Most people gravitate towards jazz because of the rich colors and sounds that come from the music. We all want to be able to play those amazing sounding chords on the piano. How do we do it though? I'll tell you right now. Extensions. Extensions are the colors that allow you to spice up your playing and start to paint the music however you'd like. Extensions are the beginning of the road to freedom in music. Just as a painter paints with his colors, a jazz musician paints with extensions. Let's get into it!

Learning how to walk bass lines is a skill all jazz pianists want to accomplish. And who wouldn't? We have a nice bass register on the piano but we never learn how to do anything with it. Anytime we see an bass player walking all over a tune like he owns we just stare in awe. In this episode I'm going to get you started on the right path to walking bass lines that will impress a bass player! Let's do it!