On a Scale of 1 to 1000: How Many Do You Need To Know?

Disappointed Don sat on my piano bench, looking perplexed as to why he couldn’t manage to take a decent solo on C Jam Blues. “Should I be learning the modes of the ascending melodic minor scales in all 12 keys – is that what I need to do?” he asked. Truth be told, after several lessons my sweet and studious adult student still struggled with swinging the 2 note melody to the tune. Don poured over every jazz piano and music theory book he could get his hands on, took weekly lessons from myself plus another piano teacher in town, attended jazz workshops/adult music camps whenever he could. I think he had too many masters to try to follow, too much theory to sort out, too many scales buzzing around inside his head, which in turn caused his fingers to freeze at the keys! (It didn’t help that he spent more time reading a stack of books about jazz instead of actually practicing the piano.) Continue reading “On a Scale of 1 to 1000: How Many Do You Need To Know?”

12 Key Improvisation Ideas For Piano: Just 1 Scale 7 Notes!

K-Pop, Early Classical Music, Contemporary Christian Praise Hymns, Folk Tunes, New Age Piano, Country & Western Music: When it comes to improvisation, what do these genres have in common?  Hint: Musicians will often sound “right in the pocket” by creating solos made up of just 7 notes (using only 1 scale) over the entire tune!

For the above genres of music (including certain even eighth note Jazz & Gospel styles), the 7 notes of the major key center scale work well for improvising over the whole piece. It’s an easy concept to keep in mind that may enhance your solos (without having to think of too many confusing options), so you can focus on building nice melodic lines with rhythmic variety. When we build solos upon one scale it’s called playing diatonically – which can sound good, provided the tune’s harmony doesn’t stray far from the home key. Continue reading “12 Key Improvisation Ideas For Piano: Just 1 Scale 7 Notes!”

Notes To Choose For a 12 Bar Blues (Easy RH Improvisation Tips)

By popular request I filmed this tutorial exploring my easy go-to ideas a pianist may play over a medium-up tempo jazz blues in the key of F:

The original tutorial shown below was meant to be simply a lesson on a LH device called The Bud Powell Shell. Many of you then asked if I could share what RH “licks” I was using on my video, Improvising 28 Bars of Blues.  Continue reading “Notes To Choose For a 12 Bar Blues (Easy RH Improvisation Tips)”

Big Ideas For Small Hands: How To Write a Full Sounding Piano Arrangement

Let’s take the lovely ballad Skylark (by Johnny Mercer/Hoagy Carmichael), and learn how to enhance a ballad’s melody with beautiful chords and a foundational bass line. In this video observe how I took a chart from an old fakebook and updated some chords more to my liking, a process called reharmonization:


Continue reading “Big Ideas For Small Hands: How To Write a Full Sounding Piano Arrangement”

Add Jazz Pizazz To Holiday Hits: Play by Ear & Improvise Piano Tutorials

December is the perfect time of year to develop one’s ear training skills. We’ve been by saturated listening to Christmas & Holiday tunes playing all over the place since Halloween, and know those familiar jingles a jing-jing-jingling quite well by now, so well in fact we can’t seem to get them out of our heads! So you may as well face the music and do something creative with these tunes as long as you are hearing them over and over, right? Continue reading “Add Jazz Pizazz To Holiday Hits: Play by Ear & Improvise Piano Tutorials”

3 Easy Tips: Playing With Minor Chords

Bored with that minor chord? Don’t be! Making music in minor keys can be quite exhilarating with these 3 fun and easy tips. All you need is a bit of time to move around on a minor chord – then you can add colorful sounds to your arrangement.

The next 3 videos explain everything to start exploring the ideas. Apply the following tips to a tune of your choice in a minor key, or choose a piece which has a minor chord lasting 2 bars or longer. You may also elect to work on the many song suggestions demonstrated in the body of these tutorial videos: Continue reading “3 Easy Tips: Playing With Minor Chords”

Adding Chords to a Jazz Ballad: Skylark Tutorial

Ever wonder how jazz musicians come up with inspired chords when playing ballads? Reharmonization can be a fun experiment to try!  Watch my video to find 3 ways to create a compelling bass line plus some sweet chord voicings to play under the melody of Hoagy Carmichael’s classic composition Skylark: