Hear It, Sing It, PLAY IT! The Secret To Learning Jazz Piano

This lesson is about what tools you need or might want, in terms of pianos/keyboards/digital recorders/players to help you learn. Discussed in this video are (I like them but am not endorsing them):
Casio Privia Keyboards:

http://www.casio-usa.com/products/Digital_Pianos_%26_Keyboards/Privia_Digital_Pianos/

Sony PCM-M10 Digital Recorder:

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-audio/resource.latest.bbsccms-assets-cat-audio-solutions-pcmm10.shtml

Here is our first brief introduction to the concept of keeping a steady beat by tapping our foot. This "externalizes" the beat which will prove very useful over time.

In this lesson, we learn a common language for finding our way around the keyboard, and describing the locations we find.

Here we learn how to find a note, using our voice and a keyboard pattern trying to match the note you sing to the right one on the piano. Then we mark/remember its location using our keyboard language from Lecture 9.

This lesson is about learning about the way to put music on the piano through the use of your voice and ears, rather than just learning disconnected "typing" or rote playing on the keyboard. Eventually, connecting your ear and voice will lead to being able to improvise.

In order to play a song on the piano, you have to really know a true, in tune, version of it. This acts as a "roadmap" which guides the path you travel on the keyboard. This lecture introduces the idea of having a true copy of a song in your head and ear in order to be able to start to play it on the piano.

This lecture is about learning to play right hand or "main" melody, which is what we usually think of when we hear a song. In reality, it is one of two melodies that make up a song, so we call in the "melody melody."

This lecture is about learning to play left hand melody, which is the melody that most people don't know about which actually completes a song. It also gives a lot of information, combined with the melody melody about the harmonic structure of a song. We term it the "bass melody."

One day, after a rehearsal that hadn’t pleased violinist Mischa Elman, he and his wife were leaving Carnegie Hall by the backstage entrance when they were approached by two tourists looking for the hall’s entrance. Seeing his violin case, they asked, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Without looking up and continuing on his way, Elman simply replied, “Practice.” This lesson is about taking what we have learned in the previous lectures about melody, and getting comfortable playing it in a rhythmic framework.

This lecture puts it all together, showing how melody melody and bass melody fit together to yield a complete song.

In previous lessons, we used one finger to learn a melody so we can't just luck into it, without REALLY knowing where it is. Here we start to explore how to use the hand more efficiently. You can figure this out and find what works best for YOUR hand, for any particular section of music you want to play.

This lesson is a brief demonstration of playing the song Bye Bye Blackbird, using the same principles by which we are learning Happy Birthday. The intention is to show you that Happy Birthday really IS just a model for learning how to play any song. This video takes Bye Bye Blackbird, combines bass melody, melody melody, a bit of rhythmic and melodic improvisation, uses just two fingers for the most part. It also shows how to play what you sing.

This lecture gives you a treat to learn, so you can finish your songs in a fun way.

Here we go about learning the melody of Happy Birthday by eyes and finger positions, with the eventual goal of singing along with what we play (normally we play what we sing) in order to start to link our ear up to the piano. You will be best served by going through "Section 3: How To Really Learn To Play Jazz Piano" prior to trying this lesson.

Here we go about learning the bass melody of Happy Birthday by eyes and finger positions, with the eventual goal of singing along with what we play (normally we play what we sing) in order to start to link our ear up to the piano. You will be best served by going through "Section 3: How To Really Learn To Play Jazz Piano" prior to trying this lesson.

In Jazz, we play two instruments, really: First and foremost, the beat. Then the piano. This lecture introduces you to the importance of "groove" playing.

Here we go right to the heart/foot of the matter and take a look at the best way to begin to learn rhythm.

Here we modify our old friend, Happy Birthday, from the 3/4 waltz time it was originally written in, to a 4/4 swing time signature. Four beats per measure, and a quarter note gets one beat. 4/4. This in itself is improvisation and will make the techniques that follow easier. I suggest you sing along with this first to get a good '"road map" of it in your ear, while tapping your foot.

Once you've learned the Happy Birthday in 4/4 so it doesn't tax your brain/hands to play, we begin to learn to drum on the melody, exactly in the order it was written, as a form of improvisation. This technique of "hits" can be applied, down the line, to any song.

Another kind of improvisation can be described by "echoing" sections of the melody after they are first played. This lesson shows you how it's done.

This lesson builds on the last two, by demonstrating what you can get by combining both the "hits" and "echo" improvisation techniques.

This lesson introduces the idea of singing bits of improvisation and learning to put them onto the piano.

Here is an example of learning to play another persons solo, solely by ear, using the groove, your ear, and civil engineering of the fingering. This is a valuable, albeit somewhat advanced technique that can guide you to playing good solos of your own. It's equivalent to learning vocabulary in order to ultimately speak more elegantly.

This is a very simple version of the melody melody (right hand) to Bye Bye Blackbird, for when you get tired of Happy Birthday.

This is a very simple version of the bass melody (left hand) to Bye Bye Blackbird, for when you get tired of Happy Birthday.

This lesson shows how to combine the melody melody and bass melody in the previous two lectures to play Bye Bye Blackbird.

This lesson directs you towards finding the tunes you really want to play, and applying the techniques we've already learned.

An "Outro" in jazz is the opposite of an "intro" or introduction. It's where you "take the tune on out," that is, finish a particular song. Here we do an outro of the course, with a few words of advice and thanks.

Sometimes, you just have to boldly go where no one has gone before. Hope you enjoy learning this lick, I have turned heads with this, I tellya true.