Jazz Piano School

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!

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.

This interview with Eric Reed was such a great pleasure. To be able to talk to one of the leading jazz pianists in the world and history was surreal for me. I had studied with him at the New School University and Eric was kind of enough to come on the show for an interview. He makes such intelligent points about the music and is able to articulate his thoughts with great clarity. Do not miss this episode and listen all the way through. Some of the best info is at the end! Enjoy!

Playing solo can be extremely difficult. It's hard to move past that beginning stage of just chords in the LH and melody in the RH. This podcast will give you a couple of simple tips that you can be begin to incorporate that will help you sound great in no time! Enjoy!

The blues is a corner stone of jazz. You will find the blues in many traditional jazz tunes and it will also help improve your improvising as well. Listen to this episode to learn how the blues works and how you can start playing it! Enjoy!

You'd be surprised how much information gets left out about gigs. This information could make or break your success at the gig or with the band leader. Do you want more gigs or don't you?

Playing jazz piano standards is actually quite easy. People tend to over think it and then end up not even trying. It only takes a couple of learned principles and you can play any jazz standard you want! Enjoy!

Swing creates that wonderful jazz feeling we all know and love. Here's how to create it and get it right! Enjoy!

Finally some jazz chords to start learning! 7th chords are the main type of harmony that create jazz. Any time you are listening to jazz you can be sure you are hearing some form of 7th chords. These chords are going to be the building blocks to learning all sorts of jazz standards! Practice them hard!

Adding some very simple rhythms can really spice up your playing. Check out how you can immediately upgrade your playing with some up beats! Easy Easy stuff.

Finally I talk about how to actually play charts. I know someone of you are like "FINALLY!". In this episode I talk about reading chord changes, how to decipher how many beats per chord change and what slash chords are. There is a lot more to playing pieces, but this is the first place to start in which you will actually be able to hear the harmonies of the piece. I guarantee it will make you feel pretty good to be able to hear the tune!