You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Step Guide to Learning Jazz Piano - #29

Episode Date: February 7, 2019

Peter and Adam go over Peter's 7-step guide on learning jazz piano. Download the guide here.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, man. Do you have a six-step guide to learning jazz piano? Yes, I do have a six-step, and it even includes a bonus step coming to seven. Then I'm out. I'm Matt A Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast.

Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Like literally today is Daily Jazz. I mean, this is Jazz Advice 101. Exactly. We got going on. Or 107. 107. 707.

We have our famous seven-step guide to learning jazz piano. Is it famous or is it infamous? It's both. You know what's funny about it? this. We actually did a podcast about the impetus. I'm pointing. A lot of pointing. For our listeners, I'm pointing back. Accusatorily at him. No, we have a podcast about the impetus of this, which was a terrible blog we found about. Oh, we threw a lot of shame. Oh, man. But it was bad. It was so well, it was deserving. That was a sloppy. Oh, man, it was wrong. It was. And you were like,

this is so wrong. I'm going to make my own. Exactly. And you did. And it's awesome. I know. Now I would invite anyone. I would challenge it. Look, mine's not perfect. I'm going to put it out there. But I would challenge someone to come along and break down mine if you don't like it. So now I'm getting a little accusatory against our audience. Let's bring back the love. Now, break it down on your award-winning podcast. Exactly. And it's Grammy Week.

Let me go get my Grammy certificates out. Do they have a podcast for a Grammy podcast? They have a Grammy for podcasts. Oh, I like that. I like your eyes lit up just now. I'm sure there's a Grammy podcast. You kind of got an arch in your back? Bro, you can get a Grammy for a solo.

That's right. That's right. Surely this is better than a solo. Okay, so let's check this out. So this is a seven-step guide to learn jazz piano. You can actually just go to Open Studio. No, you can just go to Google and just search Seven-Step Guide to Learning Jazz Piano if you forget. Yeah, we'll also put the link here.

We'll put the link here in the description. Yeah. But basically, yeah, what I wanted to do with this was really just kind of get out a little bit more information and demystified learning jazz panel since some other people had put up some some whack material. And look, if you. go through this guide, this will just sort of start you on the journey. But I also think it gives a nice kind of framework for, you know, I mean, look, you have to be able to kind of know a little

bit about piano. I'm not giving you seven steps to finding middle C. It's not about that. But if you can play a little bit of piano and get around on a little bit of basics, this will give you the framework where you can really start to jump in and, you know, either take with a teacher or listen or really even do it yourself, go through one of our Open Studio courses. There's a lot of different options, but I think what we tried to do was really hit the important elements of that beginner jazz stuff. But you know what I mean? Everything here, all seven of these are so fundamental that I'm just looking through

this now as a professional jazz pianist. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I should brush up on some of these things. And you know what I mean? Like the way that you've presented it is very interesting and gives me some ideas on things to practice, which is what I'm always looking for. Yeah. You know, I could take these at a fundamental level and work them through in a way that gets more and more complex because I know how to do that.

And I think for even for good players, you know, check this out and steal some practice ideas. Well, and I wanted to make it like, it's funny because even though I've been playing jazz for so long and working at it, I'm still like, wow, it's so hard in some ways. You know, that beginning place. And look, this could be like you're a horn player and it's you're kind of just like getting into piano or you're a singer or your classical player or whatever. But like that, you know, especially if you're listening a lot, like you can actually jump in at the piano unlike a saxophone or something. You can't, there's seven, there's seven steps to just put in your mouthpiece together. Another thing, you can kind of jump right in. Another thing to consider, even if you're a good jazz pianist, go through this list and ask yourself, can I do this in the key of G flat?

Ooh, hello. Can I do this in the key of B? Hello, hashtag real talk. Can I do this on a, on a D sharp half diminished cord? Right. You know, all of these things that you have in here, if you can't do it on those harder keys, then you're not, you're not totally there yet. You got to get it going. Yep, yeah.

And I like, I mean, yeah, for sure, this is fundamental stuff. So it's not just basic. I think fundamental implies, you know, just the simple and basic and it is, but it's also fundamental for everything at every level. So I love that idea of different places you can go with it. All right. Let's dive in. Okay.

So number one. Listen. Okay. There we go. We stay consistent, buddy. And done. Yeah, we might be wrong, but we're strong and wrong. So, yeah, look, like I say, you're learning a language.

So the more you listen, the easier it is to start speaking the language. It's just the truth. Yeah, it's so easy. I didn't make it up. I just repeated others. I was lucky enough to learn this. And so we give a couple of examples, somewhat, you know, known.

I mean, look, we've talked about Freddie Freelder so much, but because it's so good, it sounds so great. You can learn so much about so many different swing, feel, harmony, blues, and it's simple, you know, and it's easy to kind of digest, and then it's one of the easiest souls

to kind of get into. But listen to anything. Whatever, I mean, if you want to listen to Bobby Timmons on Monon, that also teaches you the same kind of things as Freddie Freeland. That ain't exactly anything. It's a killing track.

You can't just listen to anything, though. But not just anything, but anything, anything that draws you in. So, like, if Freddie Free Letter doesn't hit you the first time, try something else. But those elements that draw you in, those are what you want to be able to focus on. And I think, yeah, and then we talked about a standard autumn leaves. I think, you know, starting to get into, there's so many different kinds of forms, but you talk about the blues, you talk about bebop, you talk about standards, AABA, you talk about rhythm changes, you know, you don't need to learn them all at once,

and you're not going to learn them all in the first seven steps, but you're starting to listen and get them as, I mean, just like you can, start to learn a foreign language without conjugating every verb, but you want to start hearing the language and the complexity of it and demystifying it to your ears, I think. Yeah, look, man, the reason why listen is always number one for us is because it is just the most

important. Because it works. It works. Number two is learn a blues with shell voicing. Yes. This is like basic comp for yourself 101, basic building solid foundational harmony. The blues is the way to do it because you can do it in three chords. Yeah. And

you can actually get a lot out of those three chords. as history has proven. Yeah, yeah. And I kind of broke this down. I stole this idea from you. I think you had done this on another blog post or even around here

where you're kind of looking at the music visually. Oh, really? You stole that idea for you? Yeah, I did. I did. It's weird. That never happens.

But, I mean, it's like, as opposed to thinking about the bar lines, thinking about it like a little bit of math, how you get to those 12. And that's just space and time. You know, and really you could take this. You can look at it in the, do I have it in?

Yeah, I have it broken down later on kind of by measures, you know, like with the, with the C-JAM blues or whatever is the C-7 with those arpeggiated ideas. Yeah. And then you're also taking the more abstract where it's not visual, you're just listening to it. The thing is to take it out in as many ways as you can, mostly with the listen, but a little bit of visual stuff so that you're giving your brain and your ears and your hands a way to

connect in a number of different ways. The same way you'd learn directions to get somewhere more, not just from the map, not just visually, not just sound. You want to pull them all together. Yeah. And what's great about this number two, what you have here, learning. And learn a blues with shell voicing is not only are you learning the form of the blues,

but you have these basic root and shell voicing where you have the root and you have the third and the seventh and some combination. Yep. And so this is the foundation of basic piano voicing. Yeah, and this one too, I liked it because I wanted to give everybody something to jump in that they could actually play

these three chords, these three shells, and then start to put them together depending on your understanding of the sound. Should I play them for? Hit them up with a little root and shell. A little on the key station. A little on the key station. A big shout out to M Audio.

Don't know why. Okay. So here's the C7. Ooh. Narly sounds. Sorry about that. So we've got the root seven and the three. And it sounds like we're about to take off

on some sort of crappy space station. We'll fix that in post. Okay, good. But yeah, so these are like, I mean, look, this is not the greatest sound in chords right here. But they do sound pretty good on a piano or a better sound. And like, the other thing is once you start to get, you know, like this is the quickest way.

to get into something that kind of sounds like jazz. Yep. So that's just root and shell. And it's a cool concept. And then everything later on you're going to learn builds off of that. I love kind of progressive, keeping in your wheelhouse add a little bit because you're going to be talking about groove

and all the things that the blues sound, all the stuff that you're getting from your listening. It's almost like we planned this out. We did. Number three. Oh, and look, before we even get that, look, we got a little Oscar Peterson. I got your little entertainment.

This is edutainment. You do? A little C-Jam Blues YouTube video there for your And this, I think I talked about doing a play along with that. Oh, cool. Yeah, that's always good advice. That was the other thing. I wanted you to see how, like, as simple as these three chords are,

you take somebody who's known as one of the most complex jazz pianists ever with one of the most amazing technique. You can, with just learning those three chords and what are we in step? Dude, we're only on step two, bro. You know, you're already playing with Oscar Peterson. Man, where else do you get that? Am I overselling it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you are.

Okay. What are we got for number three? Number three is to learn the blues scale. Nice. hit him up with that blue scale, man. Yeah, okay, here we go. Ooh, I skip to our secret little too early, but next is the secret blue scale.

Oh, is that a major third? Hey, look, the blue scale is probably, if you're interested in jazz, it's probably the first scale you've learned to try to improvise with, and it should be for a reason because you can play it over a lot of things. Again, if you're an advanced player,

try the blue scale in like G-flat. You know what I mean? Actually, someone called the, have you met Ms. Jones in G-flat the other day? And I pulled out the blues scale, and I had to think about it for a second. I was like, oh, man, I got to shed this blue scale in G-flat. Okay, yeah, cool.

I was a little background noise for your story there. No, but that's what I'm saying. So you might know the blue scale in C if you're a more advanced player, but check it out in, you know, A-flat, G-flat, D-flat, like you have to be comfortable in all those keys. Yeah, and you know what? As much as I've done this, and I don't know what you just said, you just same thing.

Like, I still don't feel like I'm even in all the keys. I'm getting closer every year and probably a little bit more disciplined practice on these specific things. There's certain scales that I'll go through and I'll only practice them in the areas and I know the fingers are just don't. I can play them and I know them

but I'll know. They don't sit on the hands like you can rip through the G1. Exactly. Yeah. All right. Number four. So now we're getting into, I actually like learning a tune.

So this is just the whole concept is like we're jumping in and we're not really learning any theory beyond the kind of, you know, what I call the blues math up there with figuring out, and that's really more about how it feels and lays within the form and the groove of the actual blues form. But just that basic dominant chords, we're not worried about harmony, theoretical harmony and all that stuff. And obviously we're not going to be able to play the C jam blues like Oscar Peterson, but we're going to get the feel.

Like that you can get. And that's what I want people to know is like you can get that feel. Just like if you watch, you know, LeBron James play basketball. If you learn the basics of basketball and can dribble and stuff, yeah, you're not going to be able to, you're never going to be able to play like LeBron James. Again, speak for yourself. But you can play the same sport as LeBron James. I mean, maybe.

I don't know, man. When I play basketball, it doesn't look anything like LeBron James. ABD, always be dribbling. But, I mean, the thing is you'd be surprised at how quickly you can get to the point where you're playing on the same court in the same sport. The recognizable is that. So that's what we're trying to get you here is just learning the C Jam Blue. So you can start to grab not all the incredible. lines that Oscar plays, that's for later, but the feel.

Well, and notice, too, if you go to the blog post and you check out this number four, learn the C jam blues, there's not a chart or lead sheet of the C jam blues. No. There's a recording of Lewis Armstrong playing the Cajam blues, which I think is brilliant, because, again, what do we want to do first? Listen. That's right. And then we want to imitate.

So we're learning this, just like you learn your mother tongue from your mother, father, or the grandmother, grandfather, whoever the adult was around. When you first learned to talk before you can remember, you just, you imitate. you know and then you tried stuff out and what a great way so I say here's a great Louis Armstrong version see if you can learn the melody by listening and imitating hint the melody consists of just two notes G and C so it seems so easy but and it actually is if you get into that really organic intuitive mindset yeah just imitate the way Lewis Armstrong play don't do the way I say to do it don't do it the way Adam says do it the way Lewis Armaged because he was pretty good dang right

yeah so number five is to learn the jazz arpeggio Peter hit him up with an old school arpeggio. Old school. We're going old school. It's so boring. But in jazz, we go all the way up to the ninth degree with our arpeggios. Oh, you went dominant with it too. That's what I got in the example there. So this is a handy dandy tool,

if I must say so myself. It's really, really useful. If you know a scale and you know the arpeggio that goes with it, you can go, I mean, that's everything. Handy dandy. Little House on the Prairie called. They want their phrase back. That's literally once you know the scales in the arpeggios, that's like all you can do. That's right.

This is what we build melodies off of, right? Yeah, this is such an important element. The two most important elements are scales and arpeggios to build melodies, so don't sleep on the jazz arpeggio. Yeah, and we should get a little, like, TM, like a, trademark. Jazz Arpeggia.

Exactly. I think that, you know, we've given you a scale, obviously the blue scale. We're not even getting to the dominant scale because I think first the arpeggio is so useful for beginner improv and, like, you'll start to hear, even some things that Louis Armstrong plays on

And Oscar Peterson, if you can kind of track that, that use that element, which is a fun thing. And I like it going up to the ninth from the beginning, because why not? Why not, man? Yeah, get it in there. Number six, you have combined the jazz arpeggio and the blues scale. Okay, so now we're actually going to have what sounds like, what could be an improvised solo using just these two things. Why don't you give them a little jam?

Okay, so yeah. And then what I wanted to do was we had you do some listening and imitating with the melody, but here I'm giving you some notes written out, you know, because I know a lot of people like those and ideally you'd learn this by year but it's all good because you're starting to get the feel you know so this is like one two three four oops i messed up one two uh uh uh oh change it changed it up a little bit it's all a little interpretation little little little little interpretive dance there on the is that an original that key station is very yeah it's very very very very very unoriginally original yeah um so this is actually basic stuff but this is very much how we use

the jazz arpeggia and the blue scale often is like in our phrases and how we're even starting to build a story. A lot of times in the beginner stuff, it's like there's no story or music or anything that sounds good. And just because we're basic doesn't mean we can't start doing things correctly and interesting. No, it's a great exercise you wrote out. Just to be clear, that that is like a written exercise that Pete wrote out. I wonder if you could give them a little something extra. Give them maybe an actual Peter Martin style improvisation using the jazz. I am putting me myself.

for now. Right on the spot. Okay. You join me on a little improv there. A little arpeggio blues skill improv. Nice. Yeah. Yeah.

It's playing around a little bit. But yeah, that's pretty much just using those. I mean, I threw a few other little things in, but tried to, you know, arpeggios, blue scale, phrasing, swing, feel. All right. So we have listen. We have the blues with shell voicings. We have the blues scale. We have the C-Jam blues.

We have the jazz arpeggio. We have combining the jazz arpeggia. Pesio with the blues scale. And now number seven. The classic, put it all together. It's time, man. It's time. So this was, I just wanted to give folks a little bit of a structure.

And that's right. I do have the melody written out too. So I wanted to also give that for the more visually oriented. Or if you weren't able to get the whole thing or even just to sort of see what it looks like off of the, you know, the melody with the Lewis Armstrong version. But to be clear, you should have it by now. You should have it by now. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, this is about putting a very simple form together. Form is such a big part of jazz because we have so much improvised stuff. Like you want to start feeling the form, learning the forms, but then learning what kind of the structure of an actual performance would be. So we just, very simple. We do the melody two times, 12 bars each. Then we solo a few choruses.

Each chorus is 12 bars. So you start to get the feel for that. And we don't take anything for granted. Like you might know the blues, but like learning the turnaround. When you come to another chorus, we're learning what it feels like to play another chorus. And then melody one time out. And then, you know, I just talk about. little bit about the optional four bar break that you'll hear in the Oscar Peterson and many of the,

really the original version the way the tune is, but that's kind of just an option of how you do it. Put it all together, baby. That's right, man. Well, this is great, man. I'm glad we got to do this and set the record straight on the Guide to Learning Jazz Piano. I wish it was only six, but can't have everything in life. Yeah, yeah. This was fun to get to get back into this.

And then, you know, a few little inspirational pictures, mainly of the great Duke Ellington, Edward Kennedy Ellington up at the top, kind of the, I mean, we hate to, to say the father of jazz, like who is, who isn't, but he's certainly one of the, one of the, one of, one of our musical mentors for this music, creators of it and the composer of CJAM Blues. So he's smiling at you. That means jump on in, the water's fine.

That's the way I interpret that picture, you know, jump on in on the seven steps. I also would say that this is in, these seven steps are officially endorsed by the Edward Kennedy. We can't say that. No, you definitely can't. You definitely can't. But there's this picture.

There you go. So that was fun. Yeah. So, again, If you want to see the actual blog post on this that has the charts that has the links to the tunes, you can go to openstitio network.com slash blog. We'll also put the link here in the description of this podcast. You can always go to you'll hear it.com if you want to leave us a question or write us a review and a rating. Yep.

And you can just go to Google. Google seven-step guide learning jazz family. They're not going to get the whack one. I really don't think so. I think we've finally overtaken them with our high-quality content. That's how we do it here. That's how we do it here. And by the way, hey, we're still accepting submissions for some exit music for the podcast that we're going to start next week.

Outro music. If you have a track that you want to hear at the end of one of our podcasts, send it to Andrew at openstitonetwork.com. That's Andrew at openstiturionnetwork.com. He's fielding all of your MP3s. And we're going to put them on the end of some episodes next week. Sounds good. Sounds good. Well, until tomorrow, you'll hear it.