Learn Jazz Piano: Begin with the Blues

Learn to play jazz piano, from the blues to a jazz standard.

On this course, you’ll get started with jazz piano by learning the basic concepts and prepare to play modern jazz piano in a group.

You’ll delve into the four routes to improvisation and deepen your understanding of the nature of jazz and blues to build the knowledge, skills, and confidence to improvise on piano.

Explore the blues on jazz piano

Improvisation may look off the cuff, but it requires a lot of foundational knowledge. To learn jazz improvisation, you’ll need to understand its influences and different styles first.

This course will get you well acquainted with blues, and you’ll learn why it’s so integral to jazz piano.

You’ll learn and compare the three principal chords and scales of jazz and classical music, and play open sevenths in root position. You’ll get acquainted with the F blues and voiced sevenths, and play along using the F American blues scale, seventh scales, and full blues scale.

Grow your knowledge of jazz improvisation theory, including the four ways to improvise

Using the diminished chord and scale will take your improvisation to the next level. You’ll learn about motivic, scalic chordal and special improvisation, along with some more fundamentals: the major seventh, the lonian scale and basic voicings, before playing and improvising.

Further exercises will include playing along with jazz standards like the Blue Room and working to improvise on the themes using your new knowledge and skill set.

By the end of this course, you’ll have a foundational understanding of the blues, and how it relates to jazz improvisation – which is crucial to properly learn jazz piano.

This course is for any keen pianist, but will be particularly useful for university or college piano students who want to improve their improvisational skills. The course requires a basic ability to read music and play the piano, and expects a familiarity with scales.

You’ll need to have access to a piano or keyboard and a computer, tablet or smart phone set up next to it.

• Getting Started
• Introduction and Background Information
• Things Ain't What They Used To Be
• The nature of jazz and the blues
• Playing and improvising on "Things Ain't What They Used To Be"
• Exercise, Learning Outcomes, Viewing and Listening
• Introducing The Blues
• The 3 principal chords and scales of classical music and jazz
• Playing the left hand in root position: open sevenths
• Improvising using sevenths, fifth-tenths and seventh-tenths
• Exercises, Learning Outcomes, Viewing and Listening, Test
• More On The Blues
• The blues "Now's The Time", jazz lead sheets and voiced sevenths
• Interlude : Downloading Aebersold playalong tracks from iTunes and using Audacity
• Playing "Now's The Time" using an F blues playalong track
• Improvising using the F American blues scale, seventh scales and full blues scales
• Exercises, Learning Outcomes, Viewing and Listening
• The Four Routes To Improvising
• Chordal improvisation and introduction to the diminished chord and scale
• The blues "Blue Monk" and motivic improvisation
• The 4 routes to improvisation: scalic, chordal, motivic and special devices
• Exercises, Learning Outcomes, Viewing and Listening, Test
• Major and Minor Chords
• The major seventh, the Ionian scale and basic voicings
• The tune "Inch Worm"
• The minor seventh and its role in a turnaround
• Week 5 Exercises
• Exercises, Learning Outcomes, Viewing and Listening
• The jazz standard "Blue Room"
• The Jazz Standard "Blue Room"
• Improvising on "Blue Room"
• Week 6 Exercises
• Exercises, Learning Outcomes, Viewing and Listening, Assessments, Course Videos and Recordings List