Guideline to learn Piano Jazz

Guideline to learn Piano Jazz

shorturl.at/hEJS6 Link to the full article on WKMT Blog

Among many piano teachers, this is a common request from their piano students. The majority of the people who started learning piano started with Classical music. Still, along the way, they either feel the urge to be more creative or to learn something closer to them, and this is possible the main reason why they ask their piano tutors for some guidance on the matter.

The issue with passing from a Classically-training system to a jazz approach is that in Classical music the performer studies how to follow everything that is written as accurately as possible, leaving little or sometimes, nothing to the creative impulses of the player.

In Jazz music, the approach is diametrically opposite. Creativity is fostered and encouraged.

This latter method comes with a commitment from the part of the student, as it is mandatory to learn more theory than the usual performer, such as scales, chords, modes and how the harmonic progressions work.

In the article written by Ana Ortiz, we have useful but straightforward guidelines on how to start learning Jazz music. 

To start, you will need ONLY three things as per Ana's words:

● "The Real Book" Jazz 

● "The Complete Collection, Miles Davis" 

● A Practice Plan 

It goes without saying that Jazz music comprises now a hundred years of different styles and composers, but you have to start with someone! And The complete Collection of Miles Davis is raising the bar from the very beginning.

For Classical-trained pianists, they need to know that Jazz technique differs lots from the Classical. Articulations may vary quite a bit. As Ana states "Jazz is the universal language which originated from African Roots music, such as the blues and bluegrass. It is a developmental music genre in which phrasing, communication and melody innuendos take place."

Improvisation is a huge topic within this style. Firstly, you should know all the scales, the chords, and the most common chord progressions, such as I - ii - V in all the keys.