Cocktail Piano Basics

In this 2-lesson series, I will break down my basic steps for learning cocktail piano techniques. We will use Fly My To The Moon as a learning vehicle to breakup concepts into: Introductions, Accompaniment & Style, Soloing and Endings. By working on these 4 concepts, you will start to unravel how to play a cocktail piano style.

In this second part, we will cover soloing techniques and endings. Using the soloing techniques in this lesson, you will be able to create a basic solo over most swing standards. The endings can also be used on multiple songs.

In this lesson, I am going to show you three "options" for each line of the song. We will go through line-by-line Cole Porter's Night And Day and you will learn different techniques that you can stack, mix and move around to create your own arrangement. Part one will show you the first two A sections. Part two will cover the bridge and endings.

In part 2 we are going to finish up creating 3 options for lines 5-8 for the song. We will also cover some "options within the options" like tri-tone substitutions and other 'goodies'. Finally, we will discuss different endings. This is a definite 'must-do' lesson if you are interested in cocktail piano playing.

This lesson is designed to help plan your practice in the lessons Cocktail Piano Basics 1 & 2 while you learn Night And Day. You might decide to watch this lesson BEFORE Cocktail Piano Basics.