You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to Learn Piano FAST - #28

Episode Date: February 27, 2018

Peter and Adam give some tips on learning beginner jazz piano for non-pianists. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin. And I'm Adam Anus. Welcome to the You'll Hear It podcast. Today, we're going to teach you how to learn piano fast. Good, because I have a gig later, and I really should be brushing up on this. Okay. So we've got to learn it like in the next. What time's you gig?

It's at 8. Okay. If we can. Okay, good. All right, let's move this along. So we're going to talk about ways to learn piano fast. So this is for, you know, mostly non-pianists, because, assumedly pianists already know how to play piano.

Yeah, but you know what? If you don't know some of these things, it's probably good idea that you brush up on it. Right. So these are like really the foundational ways just to get to that functioning jazz pianist, I would say, level, which I really think is a lot closer to, especially if you play another instrument

or kind of have heard this music and stuff, you're a lot closer to getting to this on piano than most instruments. And I mean, we always talk about, it's our favorite instrument because we're pianist and we think it's the best instrument, and we're a little bit biased. It is.

Yeah, it is. But it's also, I think, one of the most accessible instruments. Well, that's right. I mean, if you put a trumpet to my mouth right now, I couldn't make a sound probably. Right. But anybody could walk up to a piano and press the key down. Pressing a button. Now, it doesn't mean it's going to sound great, no, but it is accessible. All right. So the first thing I would say, and I love teaching this in a way to, you know, to people, especially if you could like maybe play a little piano, but you don't know jazz at all, is to kind of jump right in. And that would be to learn how to play the shell, which is the seventh and the third,

and a bass note over a blues. Okay? Now, this. This would take you a little bit amount of time, but it's the kind of thing that your ability to play this will start to increase exponentially as you give it a little bit of time. So if we had a C blues, you've got C in the bass. So of course you'll be able to have to find a C. Once you can do that, you're good. And then you're going to go seventh and third. And I say doing it all the blues because it's the foundation of this music. And it's also all these chords.

There's just three chords in it. So three shells and three roots. But they're all going to be the same type. say seventh and third, it's always the dominant seven. So you got C root, and then B flat, the seventh, and then on top the third. And then you got four bars of that, so you just repeat it four times.

Tell me when I hit my fourth one. That's it. Okay, there we go. Now we're going to go to which chord? The four chord, the F. Let's do it. So now we got the root, the third, the seventh, and I just flip, put the third on bottom just for fun,

because it's close. So now we've got two bars of the F. Now let's go back to the 1. Why not? Oh, man, anybody can play jazz. This is great. Jazz is easy. Now we're going to go to the 5.

3rd and 7th, B and F, and the G in the left hand. Where are we going to go now? Let's go down to the 4 again. Okay. Because that's what the blues is. Sure. Back to the 1. That's the whole 4.

Interesting choice by ending on the 1. Well, that's what they say to do. Now, this is basic, but it's not bad. I mean, I could do some things. But that's all shell, two notes in the right hand, one note in the left. You know what, hearing you do that, though, even for pianist, it's not a bad exercise to do, because if you can make that sound good and groove to a point, you're doing something right. Then you can, you know, then you add in 13th and 9th and 11th and it's going to sound even better.

Right, but you'll be on your way. And to get into playing jazz fast, I say you learn those three chords and you have just a minimal sense of time and commitment to learning a little bit of just basic groove. you're going to be going somewhere with that. That's right. So our next way to learn piano fast is to pick up a kid's piano book. Grade level one. This sounds like it might be beneath you.

It is not. Because you can't play. You're trying to learn to play fast. Yeah, no, go back to the source. I learned on a kid's piano book. Yeah. I'm sure you did. But you were a kid too.

Well, I was a kid too. But, you know, it's still a great resource to go back and learn. Because it actually, they are well thought out in how they struck. things and how they build you up. It's a great way to learn. And they got the cool little drawings in there. I still remember, up the hill, down the hill to the birthday party. You combine that with that? Up the hill, down the hill to the jazz party. Okay, okay. All right. Yeah, but I mean, and there's so many great ones, you know, to do. And they're almost always like level one, level two. so you can run through them quickly.

They usually have them at the public library. That's right. So some other things you can do. We're talking about how easy the piano is. One of the hard things, though, about it is independence of the hands. So you can learn that by doing different activities. I can't really think of any right now, but maybe you can. No, no.

So some good things that you can do, actually, is if you, I mean, let's say you are a saxophone player and you kind of already know some melodies. So let's say you know all the things you are. Well, you can switch this melody off between your hands. So you're going to hear me. I'm going to start with my right hand for two bars, and then I'm going to go with my left hand for two bars and vice versa. Left, right, left.

And now it should sound seamless like it's one hand. But if you just start there, if you start by switching your hands, another thing you can do is to practice your scales in thirds or fifth. Now, why do you do that? It's because you're actually going to be playing two different scales in your hands. So if you practice your scales in octaves, that's one thing. You're kind of doing the same notes.

But if you practiced your scales in thirds, now on C, everything is the same fingering. But if we go to say B, that actually takes quite a bit of independence. So start slow. Get the right fingerings from your children's piano book. That's right. And that's really going to help you start developing, the beginnings of hand independence.

And then, you know, you can get into other things, finger independence and polyrhythms, you know, on different hands. But just those two different things, trading the melody off between your hands and practicing scales in thirds or in fifths can really help get you started. I like it. And I would just say, jumping back to the birthday party song, you can't see it because this is an audio podcast,

but this is up the hill, right hand, down the hill in the left hand, to the birthday party, right hand, and then back to the left hand. So it's already teaching a little bit of hand independence there. That's a great song. You want to go to that birthday party. Admit it. No, I'm personally just glad you keep bringing it back up. That's a good.

That's a classic right there. That's a jazz standard. Yep. Yep. Okay, so the next thing is kind of a shameless plug for a little thing I developed a couple years ago called Jazz Piano for Beginners. Tell us more about Jazz Piano for Beginners, Peter. Thank you for asking.

this is a course that I, a video course that we have at Open Studio, and it basically, you know, it takes a functioning jazz, well, we say an aspiring jazz pianist to functioning jazz pianists. So aspiring, you want to play jazz piano, and maybe you can play a little bit of piano. But what I do is I developed a bunch of like kind of tunes and techniques for you to jump right in, because you can already play the piano a little bit, but you want to play jazz, as opposed to like you've got to learn theory, you've got to learn this, you've got to do all these different kinds of things. So this is giving you more sort of specific things to jump into. And I think in general, like just learning online, it's not just my course, there's some other great courses, there's great books and stuff, but if you have the dedication and the time, and it doesn't have to take a lot of time,

but it's more just the discipline to spend 20, 30 minutes a day for a couple of weeks. You can really get surprisingly far with these online resources. Yeah, honestly, and not to shamelessly plug too much, but it really is a good course that you developed. and I think it's something you should be proud of. And it works. It works for people. So check it out.

Yeah, and especially good. I think a lot of the feedback we've gotten for people that could, you know, this is not to teach you just like where is C on the piano. You need to kind of know that. But for musicians or people that haven't played piano in a while, it's a fun thing if you want to get right into jazz as opposed to going right to the birthday part. Yeah. No, I always tell people with jazz piano for beginners that you can start kind of knowing a little bit

about the piano, but by the end you'll be able to kind of play a jam session or play even a gig. you know, and sound okay. Right. And I mean, you know, a little bonus you get, and we don't even charge extra for this, you get to see Fat Peter back on jazz piano for beginners. Oh, I remember Fat Peter. That guy was so nice. He was a nice guy, but pudgy but lovable.

So our last tip for how to learn the piano fast, how to learn piano fast. That's an odd sentence to say. How to learn piano fast is to work on Bach inventions, hands alone. I love the way you said Bach. Bach. Well, I'm a cultured person. You are.

So we're, of course, talking about Johann Sebastian Bach and his two... Are you making fun of me now? No, no, I love how you... You're extending it. Bach. It is two and three-part inventions. These, I mean, the benefit of working on these is not only are you becoming a better pianist, but you are getting to play some of the greatest music ever written.

Yes. And you are doing it in a way that makes you a better musician. I love the two- and three-part inventions. I don't have any... my hands right now. You could also try the, do you have some? Well, I've got the first two-part. I always keep that one in my back. Wait, let me pull out of my back pocket. Here we go. How many stop? I stopped. You're supposed to tell me before that. Yeah, no, it's interesting phrasing choices. It's good. That was great. You know, that kind of stuff, working up a

couple of those, just, you know, you can, and you could do one head at a time even. Yeah, you should. Working up a couple of those can make your piano playing grow leaps and browns. Another thing you can check out is the well-tempered clavier. Also another famous of box sort of student manual. Also known as the well-tempered clavier, which is the correct pronunciation. Clever? Yeah. Oh, so I'm not as

cultures as I thought. But you know, there's, it's all about preludes and fugues on that the famous, uh, what is it? Is that the the Pocobill canon actually? No, no, that's, I'm pretty sure that's well-tempered. Okay. Well-tempered clavar. Clavier. Clavier? I thought it was clavier. Like lavalier.

No? No. All right. But I'll still get the... Yeah. It's ironic. But all that stuff is... Oh, man, it's so good.

It's so great. And like I said, just working up one or two will make you grow. Absolutely. Yeah, but I mean, you know, don't be afraid of the piano. It's big, but it's lovable and it's doable for sure. There's a reason it's like one of the most popular instruments in the world, right? That's right. And if you're having trouble, you know, you'll hear it.

I mean, the thing is that the... You're cutting my tag off. Oh, sorry. Come on. You're going to say it. No, I was just going to say, you know, guitar players are always like, no, we have the most popular instrument in the world. But my thing is, the piano would be if you could drag it onto the beach and play it for the ladies, like the guitarist. That's the only reason they got a little bit of a more popularity.

That's right. It's a big instrument. It's great. You'll hear it. That's it. That's it for today's episode of the You'll Hear It Podcast. For more information or to hear more of these podcasts, go to Open Studio network.com slash podcast.