Content

• Steps
• Tips
• Warnings
• What do you need

Are you unhappy with your jazz skills? Playing the right notes but can't get the sound you want? This article will help you understand how jazz works and how to start playing it.

Steps

1. 1 Listen to a lot of jazz music. Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Pepper Adams, Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, McCoy Tyner, Art Tatum, Sidney Besche, Oscar Peterson Al Jerro, John Scoheal Brown David Benoit, Cannonball Adderly, Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck and Peter White are excellent jazz musicians, each of whom is unique in its own way.
2. 2 Listen to jazz all the time. Do not listen to any other music for a certain amount of time. You will start to feel the difference.
3. 3 Find places in your city where you can listen to performances of jazz bands and visit them.
4. 4 In jazz, there is often a rhythmic pattern called 'swing'. It can be described in many different ways, but the best way to understand it is to listen to jazz. It is worth noting that performers such as Monk and Mingus use special variations of swing that do not always sound familiar.
5. 5 Train your ears and thinking. Try to define the rhythm of the song and follow it. Start with a simple four-bar pattern, like the swing song Moanin 'by musician Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers (note the syncopation in this song). Listen to this and many other songs.
6. 6 Use an analytical approach. Hear how experienced jazz bands interact in live performances such as Bill Evans or Dave Holland's bands. Pay attention to how they “feel” each other in the team, how they react to what is happening. Your musical knowledge will expand as you study. Start analyzing more complex and complex music.
7. 7 Compare a jazz song to a modern pop song or a classic. Listen to them carefully, and write down the differences in note combinations and how they are played.
8. 8 Play a blues scale. There are many different blues scales. Here is the C scale: C, Eb, F, F #, G, Bb, C.
9. 9 Play a chromatic scale with your left hand, and hold each note for two beats.
10. 10 Select the C note (first octave, second, etc.)and play it with your right hand as you play the chromatic scale with your left hand.
11. 11 Experiment with different rhythms. After a while, add Eb to the game.
12. 12 Play C and Eb together or separately. Use all notes in the above blues scale one at a time.
13. 13 Learn the blues scale in at least seven different major keys.
14. 14 Try to learn a solo from your favorite song and play it. It takes a lot of patience, but it develops your musical ability very well.
15. 15 Register at www.learnjazzpiano.com and study there.
16. 16 Try something new and look for the sound you like.
17. 17 Exercise as much as possible.
18. 18 Get a small or even large jazz band together and rehearse every week. This will not only help you develop your sight-reading and improvisation skills, but it will also teach you how to play better in an ensemble (it will give you an understanding of how to play in harmony with other members, not upset the balance, etc.). Jazz skills are best learned directly from jazz performers, so try to play with the best musicians you can find. Ideally, they should be better and more experienced than you. You won't learn anything by trying to be the “star” of your team. Visit to find free downloads for jazz bands.

Tips

• When practicing jazz, set the metronome beats to beats 2 and 4 - these are the weak beats that are the main accents in jazz.
• When practicing scales / chords (with emphasis on the second and fourth beats), try to articulate the weak beats; you can also shift the rhythm one beat each time you play a scale.
• There are also modes in jazz, for example Dorian, which is built from the second degree of the major scale. There are a lot of frets and their variations, but they do not have to be used constantly. You can play the frets, and then start gradually going beyond them.
• If you want to learn how to play jazz piano, take lessons - it's always a good idea to learn from the professionals.
• For beginners, it's good to start learning chords with a simple 12-bar blues. The chords are usually 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1. The 1 is the root chord (the first note of the key), and the other numbers are the corresponding scale steps. If you play blues in C, the chords are C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 | F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 | G7 | F7 | C7 | C7. The variation can be the sequence “2-5-1” in the last four measures, or “3-6-2-5-1”.
• The Play-Along Series by Jamie Absold is a very useful practice tool as it has a rhythm section for you to practice with. The bass / piano can be removed by turning off the left / right channel.
• Play a lot! Improvise to jazz backing tracks.
• Be patient. Progress doesn't come overnight or overnight.
• Basie's style is a laid back style inspired by Count Basie, Freddie Green and Joe Jones. Play a little lag behind the beat, but keep feeling it.
• Don't be afraid to improvise! Learn the scales and just play what sounds jazzy! Strive for jazz sound in everything!

Warnings

• The tools take a long time to master. Don't be discouraged if you don't get it right the first time. Practice as often as possible.

What do you need

• Nice tool
• Dexterous fingers
• Patience and time
• Basic Music Reading Skills
• Jazz and blues music
• Metronome
• Determination