Elements for Practising Jazz Piano

How to practice? What to practice? How to apply my practice to my playing? These are some of the most common questions we face in our daily study routine.

This course offers a comprehensive practice method providing the necessary tools to succeed and advance as a jazz pianist. We will look at the most essential and fundamental elements of practicing jazz piano: Phrasing, timing, voicing, harmony, improvisation, bass notes, approach notes and intervals.

Video's
2 hours

Skill Level
Advanced

Backing Tracks 
22 Backing tracks especially recorded for this course

Language
English

Certificate
Certified from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam

Feedback
Personalised video feedback every lesson

Watch the video below for more information or go directly to the course content

Content of this course

• You will approach harmony from different perspectives such as replacing a bass note to your chords, using different types of voicing, drop2 technique and guide tones.
• We will study timing and phrasing by practicing the articulation of a music phrase and the duration and the placement of a note within a phrase.
• You will learn how to use triads and upper-structures in your improvisation and extend your vocabulary by using different intervals.
• Most importantly, you will learn how to integrate each element in a musical way and develop the technique to use these elements in your playing.
• To effectively follow this course a basic knowledge of improvisational techniques is required. Students should be familiar with improvising and accompaning Jazz Standards.

Lesson 1
In this lesson we will practice our timing! We will look at the length of the notes, the accents and the placement of a note within a phrase. We will then apply it over jazz standards and practice our quarter notes, eight notes and triplets. There are transcriptions and exercises to apply.

Lesson 2 
In this lesson we will keep applying the same methods applied in lesson 1. We will now look at different phrases and practice those to refine our timing.

Lesson 3 
In this lesson you will learn the different methods of applying approach notes in our improvisation. We will play different transcriptions and apply chromatic approach notes to our melody and improvisation.

Lesson 4 
In this lesson we will look at guide-tones. We will practice two voices, move on to three voices and extend it further. You will practice transcriptions and exercises to be able to implement this method in your comping and improvisation. We will later see how the number of voices increases as we go up one step at the time.

Lesson 5 
In this lesson we will keep exploring our voicings to a new topic, "Drop 2". We will look at the different possibilities of applying the drop2 voicings. First we will apply this technique on one minor chord and move further to implement this technique over a chord sequence and finally a jazz standard.

Lesson 6
Changing the bass note in your voicing will give you a new colour. It can give a whole new melodic structure to your harmony. In this lesson we will look at the different possibilities of using different bass notes. We will practice those, play transcriptions and give assignments on different jazz standards.

Lesson 7 
In this lesson we will look at the different upper-structures we can apply over different chords. We will focus our exercises into triads and practice the different possibilities over individual chords, a chord sequence and later a jazz standard.

Lesson 8 
How can we integrate more intervals into our improvisation? In this two parts lesson we will practice thirds and fifths to be able to integrate this material into our improvisation. We will practice exercises containing these elements and implement those on different chords progressions.

Lesson 9
Let's take it a step further! In this second lesson we will explore the 5th interval. You will practice this interval on different songs and chord progressions and implement it into your improvisation. We have once again transcriptions and exercises for you to follow.

What online students say about this course:

 
Paul L. (The Netherlands):
"I find it a great course with great teachers. And that's very inspiring!"

How it works

The course is a series of related video lessons, each structured around a specific topic or topics. By the end of this course, you will have developed a strong sense of direction in your daily study routine.

Weekly video lessons
After joining the course, you will be able to view a new video lesson weekly. Each video lesson consists of:
- Examples that musically define the sound of the topic you are studying in each video
- A study routine section in which we first discuss how to study the specific topic of each lesson. We will then play several exercises specially written to show you how to structure your daily study routine
- Assignments that will help you consolidate and practice what you have learned in each video.

Weekly assignments
After each lesson, you will be asked to study, practice and then video record yourself playing an assignment which may consist of several exercises. When ready, you submit the video of your assignment. The process of having to record yourself every week, significantly helps to internalise the material discussed in this course - quickly and naturally.

Weekly feedback
You will then receive a video with individual and personalised feedback to each assignment, every lesson. The personal feedback that you receive will enable you to improve and clarify any questions that might arise during your weekly study. You can view the feedback as many times as you like.