Jazz Piano Left Hand Shell Voicings

Jazz pianist and composer Earl McDonald's site contains some great free jazz piano lessons and videos: http://www.earlmacdonald.com/jazz-education.html

Check out this video about Jazz Piano Left Hand Shell Voicings!

Hal Galper Jazz Master Class

I became aware of Hal Galper through his jazz education book Forward Motion: From Bach to Bebop

There are some great videos of Hal Galper teaching master classes on YouTube. Check them out and learn something!

Drop 2 Piano Voicings

Drop 2 Piano Voicings are a sophisticated way of voicing chords and can be heard in the playing of virtually all of the jazz piano greats. Drop 2 is a technique that many arrangers use to spread out chords played by an ensemble. Many guitarists are already familiar with the sound of these voicings as many of the basic seventh chord grips on guitar are drop 2.

The concept behind drop 2 voicings is to take the second voice in a four note chord and drop it down an octave. Drop 2 piano voicings take quite a bit of work initially to conceptualize and get under your fingers on piano and even more so to work them into your playing but with persistent practice over time drop 2 piano voicings can become second nature. Melodies can be harmonized beautifully utilizing drop 2 voicings.

I have created a video that can help you get started with Drop 2 Piano Voicings.

The Drop 2 Voicings pdf demonstrates an easy to follow, systematic way to learn these voicings. I say easy to follow because of the way that I present the information. There's no shortcut to learning Drop 2 Voicings, the only way to learn them and work them into your playing is through focused and consistent practice.

I offer these educational materials for free so that more people can benefit. Sign up for email updates and make a donation if you like what you see here, thanks!

Fundamental of Piano Practice Free Book

Fundamentals of Piano Practice
by Chuan C. Chang

This is a free comprehensive book about efficient piano practice. The book can be viewed for free online and/or downloaded as a PDF. One of the main messages of this book is to practice hands separately at first to train the individual hands, then to combine the two hands.

This book is an excellent resource for people learning piano!

http://www.pianopractice.org/

How to Play All Major Scales on Piano - Both Hands

Check out this great playlist on YouTube from Danman's Music Lessons Library covering all the major scales for both right and left hand with simple accompaniment.

Jazz Piano Voicing Skills

Wanna get your jazz piano on?

 

Jazz Piano Voicing Skills: A Method For Individual or Class Study by University of North Texas jazz piano professor Dan Haerle is very systematic and practical in its approach and will put the world of jazz piano harmony at your fingertips and into your ears if you put the necessary practice time into it.

This book was recommended to me by Amarillo College professor and UNT alumni, Dr. Jim Laughlin during my second year in music school. I personally own a small library of jazz piano books and still consider this to be one of the best and most useful. After studying this book on my own I was able to start reading chord charts and began playing piano in jazz bands.

Learning jazz piano is a lifetime study but this book can give you a major jump start.

P.S. You are also going to need a Jazz Fakebook: The Real Book: Sixth Edition

Jazz Piano Chords

Here are some things you can practice to get your jazz piano chords going.

Print these documents out and create a binder where you can keep information like this as well as other music you are working on.

You will need software installed on your computer such as Foxit or Adobe to open and view these files.

1. Download and save Jamey Aebersold’s Free Jazz Handbook
2. Print out pages 50-51 “Piano Voicings”
   
3. Practice

You could print this yourself or take the file to a print shop and have them print a copy. Jamey Aebersold’s company www.jazzbooks.com sends a free copy of this book anytime you order something from them. Check out the Aebersold Play-Alongs.

The next documents by Bert Ligon are available free courtesy the University of South Carolina Jazz Theory and Jazz Improvisation Examples website.

• Overview of Piano Voicings
• Basic Blues Voicings for Bb and F Blues
• Two Hand Voice leading without Roots

After playing the written examples. Play these same voicings in different keys. Ideally you want to be equally comfortable in every key, major and minor.

• Start applying these concepts by learning tunes and reading chords out of a fakebook.
• Make up your own chord progressions.
• Play with other people!

This is FREE high quality information generously made available to the public. Send the author(s) a message thanking them for it if you find it useful.