Jazz Piano School

The Sus chord is a very, very important chord in jazz. It can be used for many purposes and can advance your playing drastically! In this episode I go over what a sus chord is and show you how it can be used effectively in different situations. Enjoy!

Improving your improvisation skills can be difficult and frustrating. How do we do it? What do we practice? At a certain point you have to get away from notes to continue making progress. Try practicing these 12 strategies and concepts to jumpstart your improv and creativity.

Hearing and figuring out progressions isn't just about using your ear...although thats a big part. :) Use these tips to put the puzzle together to figure out changes within progression that will be valuable in many different types of situations.

Figuring out movements that sound good over the chords to a 2-5-1 can be challenging when you're first starting out. These strong and popular movements are guaranteed to help you navigate your improv better through major and minor 2-5-1s.

I think we can all agree that Oscar Peterson is a beast. He was my main inspiration growing up so I've learned and studies his style...a lot! In this podcast I go over 11 specific characteristics in his playing that make him sound the way he does. This one is a doozy! Enjoy!

Rootless voicing are a great building block to start learning true jazz sounds but how do we expand upon them? In this episode I show you how to take rootless voicing further by altering the natural extensions they contain.

I absolutely love playing the blues and I'm sure a lot of you do as well. There are certain progressions and movements I've picked up that I absolutely love and almost always use while playing the blues. These reharm progressions are guaranteed to to spice up your blues and open your creative box for improvement.

In this episode we take our voicings from last week and start to use them to create different environments, atmospheres, and sounds. When we shift or focus from our RH improv to the support our LH provides, you will start to see drastic improvement in your playing.

As you become more advanced, your LH becomes equally if not more important than your RH improv for certain sounds and atmospheres you can create. With this voicing approach you’ll have more than enough information to break outside the box with your LH voicing and make improvement.

Stride is an extremely fun style of jazz piano to play! Simple to explain, but technically difficult. Learn how to tackle this fun and impressive beast with these podcast tips! Have fun!