Updated: May 2, 2021
Here’s a straightforward way to play impressive sounding arpeggios on your keyboard!
This sounds especially nice on piano when using the sustain pedal!
VIDEO LESSON
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Audience: Any musician who’s struggling to memorize the individual notes to all those dang chords on piano or keyboards, and looking for a solution!
Description: Learn how to immediately call up the notes to any of the twelve major chords — without having to rely on rote memory. This lesson applies to all twelve major seventh chords as well.
Video Lesson:
Hi Everyone!
I recently received a question today (on my YouTube channel), an excellent one, the topic of which is subject to debate. The question is in response to one of my videos about using add9 chords on piano. (A link to the video is included below.)
I thought I would share the thread here:
“Rootless voicings” on piano (especially for left-hand support) are great for handling big jazz chords that normally can’t be covered by one hand alone. This video tutorial shows you how to play a rich sounding II-V-I in the left hand, while allowing the bass player (or you, on another beat) to cover the root. Continue reading Chord Voicings for Jazz Piano (Rootless, Left-Hand, Type B)
In this lesson, we master a couple of specific blues piano tricks of the trade. I’m using the word specific here, because we’re going to use these devices with a goal in mind, a musical effect that is pretty specific.
The “tricks” in this video are focused on emulating those sounds of blues singers and other instruments who can bend their notes (slide or play between pitches). You’ll learn about “blue notes,” and also pick up a blues-boogie playing technique called the slide-off.
Continue reading Blues Piano Crash Course #8: Blue Notes & Pitch-Bending
It seems to me that contemporary modal improv, which had its jazz birth in the late 1950’s, was a huge influence on the increasingly improvisational rock of the 1960’s, (even when players might not have consciously realized it!), and has never stopped being at the heart of so many great pop/rock/jazz solos until this very day.
This is a brief introduction to the idea of “modal jazz.” We’re going to look at probably the most famous example of modal jazz, a tune called “So What,” by Miles Davis and Bill Evans.
We’re looking at this piece because (1) it was part of a ground-breaking approach to jazz improvisation and composition when it came out, and it’s still definitive of the modal jazz genre (maybe the definitive recording?) (2) because “So What” is the best-known track on one of top-selling jazz albums of all time, “Kind of Blue.”
Continue reading How to improvise in modal jazz: “So What” by Miles Davis
Continue reading Chord Voicings for Jazz Piano (Rootless, Left-Hand, Type A)
To all you funked-up rocking hip-hopping bluesy jazzy people out there,
Today’s post features an outrageously funky, bluesy chord which is also used in rock, jazz, and many other places.
This blues-based powerhouse is often called the “Purple Haze” chord, made famous by a Jimi Hendrix song of the same name. You may also hear it called, more generically, a “Hendrix chord.” (Hendrix did in fact use 7#9 chords in several of his major songs.)
Continue reading The 7#9 Chord: Possibly the Funkiest Chord Ever
Welcome back!
We have here a two-handed intro section, a great setup for getting any blues jam started. This opening groove covers a full 12-bar cycle, giving your listeners an exciting intro (a.k.a. “head”) which leads nicely into the next 12-bars, where you can begin your right-handed soloing. Note, you can use the left-hand (bass line) of this groove throughout your entire jam. It’s a simple and powerful bass line that keeps the beat going strong. But wait, there’s more! This lesson also includes a sample opening for your solo.
In this lesson you’ll learn a versatile way to group any “pentatonic” scale into a pair of three-note, three-finger clusters. Using this three-finger approach makes it easy to play fast and interesting licks, up and down the keyboard.
Chopin Prelude 7 in A-Major With Letters | Includes Larger Notes | Standard PDF Sheet Music | Note-Names Included
$9.00
'Minute Waltz' Sheet Music With Letters | Standard Notation with Letter-Note/Note-Names Included
$9.00
Für Elise Sheet Music With Letters | PDF Download | Letter-Note Names Included
$12.00
Bach 'Invention No. 1' in C Major with Letters Included | Sheet Music | PDF | Original Notes & Letter-Notes Together
$9.00
Pachelbel's 'Canon in D' Sheet Music for Piano | Letter Note-Names Included | PDF
$9.00
Continue reading Chord Symbols: add2 or add9? (includes my video on using added ninth to chords)