Pop & Jazz Keyboards & Harmony (beginner)
What you'll learn
- • Play different types of three and four-note chords commonly found in pop and jazz styles, understanding their construction and how they relate to a particular key
- • Play and create chord-progressions, understanding chord-function and how progressions work
- • Play chords studied in different shapes and apply this to achieve musical playing of chord-progressions
- • Understand special qualities of dominant 7ths chords, including secondary and extended dominants, and also other types of 7th chord
- • Understand the relationship between a melody and its accompanying chords and be able to use this practically
- • Understand how to create different kinds of left-hand bass-lines and play these to accompany right-hand chords
- • Understand the different characteristics of a Blues; creating and playing one, and improvising over it to a basic level
Requirements
- A keyboard at home and at least some basic keyboards ability and knowledge of music-theory.
Description
In this course you’ll study pop and jazz keyboards both to improve your playing in those styles and at the same time get to the heart of what makes the music tick, its chords, scales, keys, melodies and more, - simply put, all the things that make up its Harmony. The aim is for you to immediately be able to use the theory practically and creatively in your own playing and writing
Study Pop And Jazz Keyboards and Really Understand How The Music Works
Play many different kinds of chords (triads and sevenths) in both hands,
Use chords in chord progressions, and understand how they work
Play chords in inversions and play chord progressions smoothly
Learn how to write a chord progression
Write effective and interesting melodies to chords
Learn about left-hand Bass-lines and The Blues
Learn and Play Like a Working Pop or Jazz Musician
Learning to play keyboards can be an end in itself, but is also a great way to understand how music works, an aim of this course.
Instead of learning set, notated pieces, you’ll be using the keyboard to play and study chords, progressions and other harmonic-elements, learning how they work together. Then, apply this to your playing so that you improve not just your keyboard-playing, but can develop skills vital to the pop and jazz keyboardist.
That could include playing from a chord-chart in a band; creating an accompaniment to a singer; making keyboard arrangements using chord-symbols; writing songs and keyboard music, jamming, and starting to improvise and solo.
Many working pop and jazz musicians learned to perfect the same skills in the same way, all things that require as good an understanding of Practical Harmony as possible.
Content and Overview
The course has 12 lessons and 2.75 hours of video, starting with basic concepts and progressing through more sophisticated ones in a logical way. The aim is to keep playing ability in line with what has been learned theoretically.
The first few lessons explain simple chord-types that can be found in different keys, also how these work together to create strong chord-progressions. Later, you’ll learn to play them in different shapes, enabling smooth playing of progressions.
Subsequently, you’ll study richer, more advanced four-note seventh chords, and what they can do within a chord-progression.
In the final few lessons, you’ll branch out to explore how right-hand melodies relate to the left-hand accompanying chords, and what are the components of a melody. Then, how a left-hand bass-line (or one played by a bassist) relates to a chord progression and in general the different types there are.
Lastly, you’ll study how a Blues works, a musical-form that exists in many styles and one which, in a clear way, brings together all the different topics studied in the course.
Please note: “Pop” as used in the course-title is a loose-term for many possible styles, e.g. rock, country, r&b etc. “Jazz”, similarly.
Theory-content is stated succinctly, and accompanied by keyboard demonstrations. How chords can be used in a typical progression is always shown. Details spoken are reinforced by written text, and lessons conclude with a “practice” segment listing things to work on.
The Beginner level course is part of a larger course, including Intermediate and Advanced levels (not yet published), structured in the same way.
Who this course is for:
- The course is suited to those who’d like to learn keyboards, but with an emphasis on understanding how pop and jazz-related music works and how to create and play it. PLEASE NOTE: students should not be total beginners on keyboards, but have at least a little experience of playing and know some basic theory, for example, names of keyboard notes and a few scales in simple keys. Note-reading is not required or previous knowledge of harmony.
- The course may also be well-suited to experienced musicians for whom pop and jazz keyboards is a secondary interest. For example e.g. classical musicians wishing to explore other styles; singers; composers, song-writers and singer-songwriters.
- An interest in knowing how music works is important, beyond just playing tunes “for fun”, as it contains explanations and theory-content! There is no study of notated, pop or jazz pieces, which may not suit everybody, as the course tends more to playing-by-ear and improvisation (as in the real pop and jazz world), basing this in a knowledge of how chords, scales and harmony work.
Featured review
Instructor
- 4.5 Instructor Rating
- 142 Reviews
- 1,072 Students
- 3 Courses
I am a professional pianist and keyboardist, writer and producer in the genres of jazz and pop. My most recent jazz-oriented album was in 2013. I am a graduate of the Berklee School of Music, Boston. As a pop artist and writer, and later as a jazz artist, I have been signed to numerous major and independent labels, with hits world-wide, notably in the Billboard Top 100, Billboard Dance Chart and UK Top 40, and have also been a UK MOBO award nominee as Best Jazz Act.