In this lesson I'll take you through the 12 levels (I broke them into days for this lesson) and show you once and for all the steps necessary to play standards and lead sheets from a fakebook. This lesson should be your FIRST lesson before beginning my other courses on standards and fakebooks. The goal of this lesson is to introduce you to the levels and show you where to get more help on each level, so this is a great summary lesson. We will use the song "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" as an example.
First 10 piano challenges.
Adding accents to your scales creates shape and intensity in your solo. In this lesson you'll see how I use accents to create rhythms within the scale through the use of accents.
In this lesson you will learn LUSH, full jazz/soul chords to use in your arrangements and compositions.
Taken from a Kevin Bond and Greg Kirkland performance, we will learn how to take ideas out of this groove to add to our gospel playing. Fun groove to play!
Learn how to create a smooth jazz improvisation version of "Sunny."
A great lesson for anyone wanting to accompany themselves or others while singing. This lesson is also great if you want to get better at comping chords. I've broken the lesson into three concepts to focus on: Introductions, Endings and Comping.
In this lesson we will create a full arrangement of "I Loves You Porgy" by beginning with a chord shell exercise before learning the full arrangement.
In this lesson you'll learn Duke Jordan's "Jordu," a faster-tempo song that incorporates shells and stride-like playing.
In this lesson you'll learn how to improvise over the arrangement of "Jordu" we just created.
Learn how to create an arrangement of this beautiful song in 3/4 time. In this lesson we will cover the first half of the song.
In this second part you'll learn the complete arrangement for "Moonlight in Vermont" and we will break it down step-by-step.
Learn step-by-step a full arrangement of "All Blues." You will also learn some improvisation tips for the song.
In this lesson I’ll show you how to create a full arrangement of As Time Goes By using my step-by-step standards system. We will start with easy chord shells then I’ll teach you a more advanced arrangement and show you how to do quick chromatic fills to create a more personal style for your arrangements. You should do the My Romance lesson before starting this lesson. Finally, I’ll give you some “pro tips” to make your lead sheet playing sound more professional.
This lesson will show you how to build your major and minor triads in all 12 keys. Once you’ve mastered that, you’ll learn how to double the various notes of the triads to create thick, rich, dense, and powerful major and minor chords. If you’re a beginner, this is absolutely essential information for playing rock piano. If you’re an intermediate player, this lesson can fill in any gaps in your understanding or serve as excellent review material.
In this lesson you'll learn how to think of playing standards in layers. Each layer adds sparkle to the arrangement and you'll learn how to use these layers for maximum effect!
Learn the steps needed to create your first arrangement of a jazz standard. After learning the techniques in this lesson, you'll be ready to create your own first arrangement from a lead sheet.
In this lesson we will begin learning the song "I Loves You Porgy." We begin by brainstorming the song then create an arrangement through a shells / melody approach.
This lesson teaches you a great bluesy two-handed comping riff that works over the various dominant chords in a 12-bar blues form. You’ll learn to build the chords for this riff note-by-note, transpose them through the blues form, and practice playing in a rock and shuffle groove setting.
Learn ten different 2-5-1 licks that you can use for improvisation. This lesson contains licks 6-10.
Learn ten different 2-5-1 licks that you can use for improvisation. This lesson covers the first 5 licks.
Learn how to improvise over rock songs using this pattern. We will use the song "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" as a springboard for our improvisation.
Learn the classic Dr. Seuss “Mr. Grinch” and be a smash hit at your next Christmas Party! In this lesson I’ll show you how to play both a simple and more advanced arrangement. We will also discuss improvisation and how to link the Slow Minor blues lesson to the end of the song.
Learn the 3 basic types of 7th chords that you must know. Learn about adding tensions to the chords and how to play the chords using two-hands along with shells.
The ii-V-I (2-5-1) chord progression is one of the most popular and important in jazz. In this lesson you'll learn different ways to improvise over 2-5-1 progressions and how to create your own licks and phrases.
Learn how to create your Major scale and all of the modes of the Major scale. Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian.
Pentatonic scales are awesome for soloing over rock and pop tunes. Learn some different ways of using this scale in this lesson.
In this lesson you will learn an advanced “turnaround” chord, study the theory of the I, IV, and V chords in the blues form, practice playing and identifying the dominant chords in various inversions, and learn some great practice exercises for mastering these concepts.
In this lesson you will learn 2 left-hand basslines and 2 right-hand riffs which you will be able to mix-and-match to create four different two-handed blues grooves. We will also discuss the skill of transposition as you bring these basslines through the blues form.
Now that you've learned different scales, licks and arpeggios, it is time to learn how to bring all of this together to create better improvisational (solo) lines.
Use the 2 left-hand basslines and 2 right-hand riffs to create a total of four blues grooves. Work with the rock and shuffle jam tracks, transpose the grooves to new keys, learn the inversions of the dominant 7th chords, and get some comping practice using a simple rhythmic idea.
In this lesson we will build on the blues concepts we have already studied with the goal being to create an entire blues arrangement. You will learn a right-hand part, left-hand shell voicings, and a standard jazz ending, as well as study the skill of transposition and play along with some great jam tracks.
Learn how to build “4-way close-position rootless voicings” for major, minor, and dominant 7th chords. We will then focus on the specific dominant 7th chords of the blues form (I, IV, and V chords). Begin the study of walking bass lines with a simple two-handed exercise.
This course brings you through walking bassline exercises #2-5, each getting more challenging. Topics of discussion include chord tones, scale tones, chromatic tones, and whole-step and half-step resolution.
In this course we’ll be studying some common alternate chords which can be inserted into the standard 12-bar blues progression in order to get that advanced, professional sound.
This course focuses on bringing the standard 12-bar blues form into a more advanced and diverse chord structure by demonstrating some specific places where alternate chord changes are commonly used. Altered extensions can also be used on particular chords in order to create motion from one chord to the next.
In this lesson you are going to be using chord substitutions in a 12 bar blues form to create a full blues "song" with bassline.
In this lesson you'll learn some of the specific elements of the blues song we created in the last lesson like descending harmony and a must have lick.
This lesson is all about creating improvisation ideas. You'll learn several licks and also some advanced topics like displacing the beat.
In this last lesson we are going to work on how to fill space along with some more advanced concepts like concerted comping and how to take the harmony "outside" during your solo.
If you've never played boogie-woogie before, this is a great place to start! We will break down all of the licks and riffs and you'll learn how to play them over a boogie bassline,
In this lesson you'll learn different variations you can use in your left hand, how to create your own licks and riffs and different intros and endings.
In this lesson we will continue where we left off and break down the licks along with the bassline.
In this first lesson you'll learn how to play the bassline and get in the groove. You'll also get some helpful practice tips and learn how to increase your speed.
We will finish up our advanced boogie song learning a couple more licks and endings.
Learn the basics of what makes up improvisation.
Perhaps one of the most important progressions in jazz, you need to know how to improvise over the ii-V-I progression. In this lesson we begin by learning how to create 2-5-1 voicings in all 12 keys.
Guide tones, chord approaches and enclosures are at the heart of bebop improvisation. Study this lesson a lot to really master how to create more complicated improvisation lines.
Expanding on the techniques that we learned in the previous lesson, now we will add enclosures to our improvisation.
Create double stops over a blues sound. You'll also learn a super-simple bassline that is great to have handy!
