How to Practice Piano for Composers

Explore fundamental harmony patterns and the 11 core progressions that underpin composing and arranging, with modular ideas you can adapt to your pieces.

Learn to use roman numeral progressions to study patterns, transpose across keys, and apply them in all sections, reinforced by backing tracks for deep practice.

Practice keystones by learning progressions in a few known keys, then transpose with confidence using drone backing tracks to illuminate the major and minor scales.

Explore the 1-5-6-4 progression in all keys, practice root and first-inversion voicings with left and right hands, and use backing tracks to develop improvisation and accompanying patterns.

Explore Einaudi's contemporary neoclassical piano style and his signature minor 1-6-7 progression, famed for its yearning sound. Practice by repositioning hands, transposing across keys, and using inversions and backing tracks.

Master the 12 bar blues using 1, 4, 5 primary chords with dominant seventh voicings, and practice cross-key inversions with left and right hands alongside a backing track.

Explore the time progression borrowed from the Inception score by Hans Zimmer, analyzing why the diatonic chord sequence 2–6–1–5 feels unhinged and endlessly unfolding, with modal considerations in Dorian.

Practice the step down sequence, moving from the relative major to the minor with chords 1–5–6–4. Use a bass note in the left hand to clarify roots and practice inversions.

Discover the sequence: a juicy C major progression combining 2-5-1, first-inversion 1, and a chord 4 over 5 with suspensions, interrupting cadence to 3-6-4-1 for an unresolved arc.

Lord chords on piano: start on chord four, then chord one, then chord three major and chord six minor; raise the root of chord five to mimic chord three major.

Explore the minor for soul progression, turning the iv chord into minor in a major key to create a soulful flavor, with faster harmonic rhythm and inversion-aware hand voicings.

Explore the 3-6-2-5-1 progression in major and minor keys, highlighting dominant relationships inside a key. Practice this progression in all keys and inversions to lay the groundwork for secondary dominance.

Explore true dominant chords and secondary dominants, using major dominant sounds and dominant sevenths to inject harmonic rhythm into progressions like 3-6-2-5-1 and 1-6-4-5.

Explore jazz blues harmony by applying secondary dominance, including 2-5-1 and 2-5-1-2-4 progressions, with diminished and half-diminished voicings, to enhance piano comping and voice leading.

Learn how chord relationships and by tonality expand your progressions, moving between keys outside diatonic harmony to create fresh, bitonal sounds and energize standard progressions like 6-4-1-5.

Practice full pieces distilled to bass and melody to solidify harmony across keys, building an outline library with roman numerals and circle of fifths to map and transpose tunes.

Learn to jam along to tracks to train your ear, build an outline library, and measure progress through playful, simple tunes. Use radio-style discovery to find new music.

Explore transcription as a powerful technique for building harmony in all keys, learning authentic voicings and accompaniment patterns by ear, using software to help apply them to piano arrangements.

Build a pattern library of voicings, accompaniments, and melodic patterns from outlines, jamming, and transcription; organize it physically or digitally to inspire and streamline composition.

Explore example tunes to build your outline repertoire in all keys. Practice happy birthday, autumn leaves, isn't she lovely, my favorite things with simple two five one and secondary dominance.

Master piano voicings by exploring inversions, seventh and ninth notes, and hands-off muscle memory, then apply a single voicing across all keys and in circle-of-fifths progressions.

Learn to voice piano chords from simple triads in all inversions, starting with the left hand, then expand to seventh chords and voicings in all keys with backing tracks.

Master closed and open position voicings and inversions to expand piano chord textures, practicing triads, seventh chords, and open voicings through examples like D major and circle of fifths progressions.

Explore piano voicings through doubling, dropping, and adding notes in chords, including the first inversion D major; understand when to emphasize thirds, fifths, and suspensions.

Explore how thirds shape chord voicings, with tenths and sixths added, using G major and seventh chords to create rich, expressive sounds.

Explore diatonic and chromatic grace notes in piano voicings, slide into chords, and use vamp progressions and passing chords to add color beyond a single chord.

Practice harmonizing by following a melody with voicings, integrating bass, melody, and chords to support singing, using outlines first, then filling in notes at a slow pace.

Explore rootless voicings by removing roots from dominant and major seventh chords, and hear how bass notes steer harmony, enabling rich upper structures and smooth voice leading in arrangements.

Develop solid voice leading by mastering inversions, minimizing movement between chords, and practicing octave-restricted voicings with two-left-two-right parts and simple two-five-one progressions in c major.

Explore modular mental patterns as the bedrock of arranging, using simple accompaniment patterns to understand music faster. Practice left-hand broken-chord shapes and right-hand alternating chords, and study voicing inversions.

Learn to energize block chords with thoughtful voicings, inversions, and voice leading, crafting an internal melody across two hands, while expanding rhythms via bass lines and hip-hop styled comping.

Practice broken chords and arpeggios across all keys, focusing on inversions, Alberti bass patterns, left-hand technique, voice leading, and improvisation to expand harmony and pattern recognition.

Master arpeggios as a core broken chord pattern, develop left and right hand coordination across progressions and keys, and explore inversions, voice leading, and improvisation with a backing track.

Master the alternating chord pattern for piano, learn two-note arpeggios with root and fifth in the first inversion, apply inverted voicings, and practice cross-key progressions in various accompaniments.

Master comping as background harmony by layering rootless voicings, inversions, extensions, and voice leading to enrich rock, blues, and jazz arrangements.

Explore stride piano by pairing a bass note with top-voiced chords using rootless voicings, then practice breaking patterns with knee-tap drills before joining left and right hands in blues progressions.

Practice walking bass lines that reinforce groove and harmony, from simple minor and blues progressions to seventh chords, while using the wandering hand exercise for smooth voice leading.

Explore groove and rhythmic writing by practicing with loops, building a personal loop library, and improvising along to grooves for piano composing, drums, and rhythm-driven arranging.

Explore universal groove as the rhythmic framework behind all music, and learn the building blocks, from shuffle to four on the floor and jazz swing, to analyze and create grooves.

Explore how tempo and speed shape rhythm and emotion for composers, starting slow and speeding up, and how time signatures can preserve a groove's character.

Explore strong and weak beats to understand beat structures and groove in 4/4, 3/4, and 5/4, emphasizing beat one and two-and-three groupings to shape groove.

Master subdivision in 4/4 time, from whole notes to 30 second notes, and learn how simple versus compound time, halftime, and double time shape groove with hi-hat, kick, and snare.

Explore swing by nudging eighth-note subdivisions in a four four beat, creating a subtle to strong offbeat feel as you slide toward sixteenth-note emphasis using the piano roll grid.

Explore imperfection by shifting notes before or after the beat to create pushing or pulling groove without changing tempo. See how fully quantized, behind-the-beat, and ahead-of-beat regions shape groove.

Explore how grace notes and ghost notes subtly embellish a groove by inserting quiet, low-velocity notes before main hits, demonstrated with mute-and-unmute snare patterns.

Learn cross rhythms and polyrhythms within a four-four framework, using sixteenth notes, triplets, and hemiola to create engaging composite rhythms for piano composition.

Apply rhythm concepts to accompaniment patterns and voicings by creating one chord genres, performing a single chord across classical, romantic, and other styles to express yourself.

practice the flowing hand warm-up to develop legato piano technique, moving randomly across the keyboard with two rules: pivot when needed, but never pivot on the fifth finger.

Move melodic patterns through keys and chords to create sequences. Anchor patterns to a root, practice slowly to see future notes and develop short four-bar studies.

Explore pentatonic scales, mastering major and minor versions, blues scale, and layered paired pentatonics to craft melodic ideas, apply sequences, and improve fingering across patterns.

Pairing pentatonics, this lecture connects major and minor pentatonics via the circle of fifths and shows how to play them over chords like C major, revealing shared notes and color.

Practice multi scales to move between non diatonic melodic lines by alternating chords outside the key, then improvise and compose flowing piano melodies.

Learn to navigate the practice versus performance spectrum, apply four minute practice cycles with backing tracks and keystones, and blend study and composing as you master material through spaced repetition.

Record yourself during practice and transcribe moments to capture ideas. Practice slowly, stay within your ability, swap material between hands, and avoid overreliance on the pedal.

Explore free writing to beat writer's block, capture ideas with voice memos, and adjust goals to connect with emotion, then go with the flow and collaborate with musicians for results.

Practice diligently and share your ideas or music from this course with the community on Facebook, and join the lead musician Facebook group for questions.