Hammond B3: Drawbars, Presets, & Controls

PianoGroove has greatly enhanced my playing, especially in my journey to familiarize myself with reharmonization techniques, improv techniques, and sources for improvisation in the jazz genre. 

If I have a goal of 100%... through a couple of years, I have probably advanced to about 70 to 75% of that goal. So, absolutely and unequivocally, your site has helped me immensely.

PianoGroove is so thorough. The lessons are precisely outlined. They give very clear instructions on how to voice chords. And there's just a multitude of wonderful lessons and songs to learn and techniques to apply. And it's just so thorough, and so complete, and so wonderful.

I just can't say enough good things about it.

This website [PianoGroove] has opened a new world for me, in terms of a harmonies and colors. 

It's been amazing for me. My playing has changed radically.

One of the most important things that I’ve taken from PianoGroove is understanding what I’m playing. I’ve learnt about chord progressions, song forms and song structure, and this allows me to play more freely, I’m able to memorise, and not be dependent on a lead sheet.

I enjoy the lessons. I think they're organized well, and the topics are covered well — they're not too long and you can progress fairly easily through them. I've tried other websites and while helpful, they haven't helped me nearly as much as PianoGroove. I also like the monthly seminars. They're often very helpful. And the transcriptions of standards have been very useful for me.

I wanted to play New York State of Mind and HD Piano was a good way for teaching that, but there's some repetitious chords which are, kind of boring. And you present us with options for embellishing that, so I can actually use your courses to make playing that, better than it would have been without it.

Perhaps the most important thing for me is how you push me to to start with the foundations, building step-by-step, my ability to play, and improve my playing, on the one hand. And on the other hand, also to dive into the more advanced stuff, which I like very much. I found it a bit strange in the beginning, but my experience is that this is very, very good.

For instance, My Funny Valentine is a tune I love very much. When I started with that — with the elementary stuff — the chords — the thirds and the sevenths and all that, but more and more advanced. I was led to to dive into more advanced lessons at the same time, which was quite scary in the beginning, but it has helped me very much.

The simple things are the best, I think. I like how you can slow the video down. And then all the comments underneath [the lessons], from yourself and from other people who are having issues, and being able to go through them. So, a bit like YouTube almost. And then all the PDFs [downloads] — the PDFs are great.

I've only covered courses so far taught by Hayden, but I really like his teaching style. It's challenging, but all the concepts, the theory, and techniques are very well explained. And that's what I'm enjoying the most — it’s easy to follow, but challenging.

There are a few things that I really enjoy about PianoGroove. The first and foremost is my interest in playing jazz standards and taking a lead sheet and embellishing that sheet to where it sounds professional. And Hayden Hill really teaches that well, and he does it in a simplistic way, so I enjoy that part of it. And plus, you can pretty much find any genre of music that you wanted to learn. I'm also interested in the blues. He does a great job with that and, overall with adding in different musicians and different styles to his PianoGroove setting. It's really made it a well-rounded piano site for anyone looking to learn any kind of genre.

I considered taking lessons with a teacher. Now I have a teacher every day, every hour — when I want. The lessons are very well structured and the interface is very easy to follow. I can see a constant progress. One thing is important. You have to practice a lot. But this is not my problem. My problem is when to stop.

In today’s internet world with YouTube, Instagram, and social media content everywhere you look, the problem is not finding information to learn about any type of music, the problem is filtering it and identifying which sites have something to offer.

I’ve seen a lot of sites and filtered through them and I think makes PianoGroove different are the consistency, the organisation, and the attention to detail that Hayden brings to the site.

There are incredibly helpful instructors, notably Tuomo and Jovino, and I have learned a lot through them.

The ear training exercises have helped me to start a routine of transcribing music and that was especially helpful on top of all of the other stuff like learning the voicings, learning the licks, learning the scales, and all of that good stuff.

The PianoGroove resources are beautifully written and easy to understand. I’ve still got my minor 251 progressions that I downloaded about 7 years ago and I practice with them a lot. They are so clear and I’ve put all of my annotations on them. The resources are wonderful and the teaching is fantastic.