Introduce Yourself To The PianoGroove Community! 🌎

[anon84688975]

Looking forward to hearing your picks @TactfulCactus! Enjoy diving into the lessons

[dr1]

Dr. Dean Bard 69 years young Retired Emergency Physician Played piano age 7 to 18 then off to College etc. Bought a grand piano 5+ years ago and relearned all over. Joined a classical piano private school and studied 3 years advancing to intermediate + level. Completed a 3 year chord based piano course to get away from being tied to the music score. Piano Groove seems to be exactly what I’ve been searching for. I just started with the Beginner lessons to learn the Jazz basics and theory. I have been arranging from a melody line and chord notation but not in a jazz theory style. I play almost every morning 2-4 hours and I don’t know where the time goes. Very delighted with this new approach. Looking forward to playing each day. Any help, advice etc. is always appreciated. I will try to post a picture. I have all my music on I-Pad with Air Turn to advance the pages. Your video lessons seem straight forward and easy to understand.

Thank You,

Dr. Dean

[LoriNelson]

Welcome. I’m a still working ARNP. I too am shocked at the time that has passed and I’ve been at the piano.
Glad you enjoy the PianoGroove format.

[Hayden]

Welcome Dr. Dean!

From what you outline, it sounds like you have a good amount of piano experince ‘under your belt’ and you will be able to dive straight into the beginner/intermediate courses.

2-4 hours is a very good amount of time to practice and you will see great results sticking to this everyday.

I’d recommend checking out our practice inspiration section of the forum:

https://community.pianogroove.com/c/practice-inspiration

You will see that in the Practice Plan PDF Downloads, we recommend roughly splitting your practice time in half - 50% Theory Drills, and 50% Jazz Standard Study.

The practice plans have been designed for 1 hour practice slots. If you have more time on your hands, simply multiply the designated exercise time by 2, 3, or 4.

It’s important that you try to cover many different theory topics in each practice session, so that you are improving your understanding on a wide range of topics each time you sit down to practice.

The study of jazz standards is where we apply this theory, and also the more enjoyable aspect of learning to play jazz piano, so make sure you are playing the jazz standards!

I hope this helps to give you some initial direction, and if you have any specific questions with the theory topics we are always here to help.

Cheers!
Hayden

[loffredo1630087]

Hi Hayden
I am 62 years old and I am now retired.
I am french and I live around Paris

I learned piano classical music during about 10 years but with some interruption . And my last classical piece was a chopin waltz not too complicated.

I have real time to practice jazz piano now and to explore your website.
My goal is to play some jazz standards and improvise in all styles (bossa nova, blues, jazz).
I would to constitute a little repertoire and playing it in front of my family, or playing in a band…Why Not ?

I don’t listen enough jazz. I I would like help to make a little program to listen the main jazz standards during the year.
What are the first main recordings to listen in jazz ? May be, you can make me a list of the best recordings.

Soon, I am going to learn also chromatic harmonica. It is my favorite instrument after the piano, of course.

I know now , Hayden, that you start soon your own quartet. But, please, don’t give up your website. We need your advices and your new lessons.

Marc

[Dan]

Welcome aboard the Groove train @dr1 I’m Dan, the Video specialist for PianoGroove, glad to have someone of your level join. I will be floating around capturing collaborative PianoGrooves like the following from @Lyndol and @Hayden…

Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with

[Hayden]

@loffredo1630087

I have real time to practice jazz piano now and to explore your website.
My goal is to play some jazz standards and improvise in all styles (bossa nova, blues, jazz).
I would to constitute a little repertoire and playing it in front of my family, or playing in a band…Why Not ?

Those are some very realistic goals Marc.

We have all of the information here in the PianoGroove syllabus to help you achieve those goals!

@loffredo1630087

I don’t listen enough jazz. I I would like help to make a little program to listen the main jazz standards during the year.
What are the first main recordings to listen in jazz ? May be, you can make me a list of the best recordings.

Yes listening is extremely important Marc.

Check out our jazz recordings thread here for a huge amount of inspiration: Records & Albums - PianoGroove Community

I would recommend that you listen many different jazz piano players, and find ones that you like the sound of.

The listening thread has 000s of different records:

What Record Are You Listening To Today?

What jazz record(s) have you listened to today? Hit the blue ‘Reply’ button and Copy and Paste the YouTube video URL in the comment box to share with the community. If you’ve not listened to anything today then have a browse below… listening is an absolutely essential part of learning jazz!

It might be nice to make note of the artists that you like, and then listen to all of their work.

Try to listen every chance you have in the day and your musicality will increase exponentially within the space of a year.

Enjoy the lessons Marc!

[Hayden]

@loffredo1630087

I know now , Hayden, that you start soon your own quartet. But, please, don’t give up your website. We need your advices and your new lessons.

Marc I forgot to answer your final question…

I’m certainly not going anywhere… PianoGroove is my life and I love teaching online and managing the website.

I’ve been drawn away from my original teaching schedule with the growing commitments of managing the website/forum and working with our extended teaching team.

However, I’m working on getting things in place to free up my time again…

So lots more lessons to come from me, and I’ll always be here in the forum to advise and guide our students

[Pierrot]

Wellcome guys !
@dr1 wow impressive background in piano … hope hearing your playing soon on the forum . Dont tell me more how long you can play in a day … i will be jealous

@loffredo1630087 another french man in the journey … n’hésite pas à me demander si tu as des questions particulières sur lesquelles tu aimerai avoir des réponses en français bienvenu Marc.

[david7]

Hi,

I’m David from Vancouver, Canada.
I used to play the piano in high school jazz band back in late 80’s and early 90’s.
I learned to read sheet music note by note but I never learned to play by ear or
learn chords beyond the very basics (C, Cm, C7… and likes).
Never really grasped aug/dim, and other more complex chords).

Since I graduated from high school, there hasn’t been much attempts to improve my piano.
Carried on with my life, but I would always appreciated listening to good jazz artists,
as I grew up listening to a lot of smooth jazz / GRP-labeled cassettes and CDs.
My favorite artists are Jeff Lorber, David Benoit, Rippingtons, Joe Sample, & Hisaishi Joe.

Now, I’m taking a mini sabbatical and I finally have time to work on my skills.
Here’s where I am today (without any sheet music, and without any practice…)
https://youtu.be/syYuEzqfqmU

but I’d like to be able to play a full hour of jazz music at a local bar I frequently visit.
It’d be nice if I could achieve it by coming Christmas.

I’m now reviewing Jazz Piano Foundations, and to be honest,
I find it a bit boring just to go over music theory.
I think I do okay in simple scales (C, D, G, maybe E), but not really motivated to
learn my chord positions for more complex scales.
I’m not sure if mechanically following the chord progressions and positions will
improve my skills or motivate me to move forward, either.

If I can commit 45-60 minutes each day on practicing my piano skills,
how would you recommend that I spend my time for the next 3 months?

David

PS. I don’t have the perfect pitch,
and I always wondered if it’s a skill that can be mastered by practice.

[scott1]

Welcome David. I’d recommend starting with the practice plans that are listed with each beginning group of lessons. It has worked for me. (And I had around 40 years of not playing anything. ) Those boring bits will pay off in the future. And as the plans indicate, at least half of your time is with the fun stuff.

At any rate, have fun. I think you’ll enjoy the experience and will progress if you stick with it.

[Hayden]

Hey David

A very warm welcome to the PianoGroove Community!

Thanks for sharing your performance of “Over The Rainbow” - I like your chord choices and it gives me a much clearer idea of the most suitable courses for you.

@david7

I’d like to be able to play a full hour of jazz music at a local bar I frequently visit.
It’d be nice if I could achieve it by coming Christmas.

A first recommendation would be to add some kind of intro and outro to each tune you are playing. We have an introductory lesson here on the 1-6-2-5 progression which I think you will enjoy:

1625 & 436251 Progression for Jazz Piano Introductions

I see that you are playing “Over The Rainbow” in the key of C Major, and so that would make your 1-6-2-5 progression:

Cmaj7 / A7b9 / D-7 / G7

Of course you can add any combination of extensions, alterations, passing chords to this basic progression. More info on this below.

It can be nice to cycle around that for both and introduction and an ending to extend the length of any tune you are playing. The V7 chord (G7) leads back to the Imaj7 chord (Cmaj7) and so the progression is a cycle, and when ready, you can drop for the G7 straight into the start of the tune.

Most jazz standards tend to start and end on the Imaj7 chord so this kind of intro/outro will will have you covered for most tunes.

That could help with your “full hour of music” goal for the local bar.

@david7

I learned to read sheet music note by note but I never learned to play by ear or
learn chords beyond the very basics (C, Cm, C7… and likes).

I would recommend that you start studying the following 2 courses simultaneously:

Extended Chords & Voicings

This course introduces 9s, 11s, & 13s, and we look at some common extended chord voicings that are very useful to have under your fingers:

Jazz Chord Extensions Course | Beginner Jazz Piano Course

Altered Harmony & USTs

This course introduces the concept of chord alterations. I did see you played some alterations in your arrangement of “Over The Rainbow” - for example, at 0:43 seconds, you play A7b9

This course will explain the different ‘colours’ you can add to dominant chords to create more harmonically-complex and sophisticated voicings and progressions:

Chord Alterations Jazz Piano | Altered Jazz Chords & Altered Harmony

Intros, Endings, & Turarounds (optional, focus on the above 2 first)

This is housed as an “Advanced Course” but based on your performance, I don’t see any reason why you cannot learn the arrangements. In all of these lessons I demonstrate different ways to create extended intros for jazz standards:

Intros, Endings & Turnarounds | PianoGroove.com

@david7

I’m now reviewing Jazz Piano Foundations, and to be honest,
I find it a bit boring just to go over music theory.
I think I do okay in simple scales (C, D, G, maybe E), but not really motivated to
learn my chord positions for more complex scales.
I’m not sure if mechanically following the chord progressions and positions will
improve my skills or motivate me to move forward, either.

I agree with @scott1 that it would be good to check out the Foundations Practice Plan.

I understand and appreciate that some of those exercises are boring, but they will give you solid foundations for the more advanced theory, and perhaps even highlight weaknesses in your playing that you didn’t realise.

Aim to play the following 2 exercises in less than 5 minutes each:

• All 12 major scales and identify the notes numerically ie. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 instead of: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C and you must do this for all 12 major scales. Don’t skip this!!

• 3 note 251 progressions with root in left hand, and then 3rd and 7th in right hand - being able to clearly visualise the 7ths falling to 3rds in 251s in all 12 keys will help you greatly. The 3rd and 7th are the essential components of the harmony and so it’s important to be able to see that half-step relationship which will also help you in creating improvised melodies.

If you can’t do that, I would recommend spending 10 minutes on it each day until you can.

The other exercises (minor scales, triads, 7th chords) are all still important, but the above 2 are in my opinion the most important to learn thoroughly before moving on. It will simply save you time in the future.

Once you encounter upper structure triads in the “Altered Harmony Course” I highlighted above, you will see how important it is to be able to invert and manipulate triad shapes around the keyboard, and so as @scott1 says, working on the foundation exercises will pay off in the future.

@david7

If I can commit 45-60 minutes each day on practicing my piano skills,
how would you recommend that I spend my time for the next 3 months?

Here’s what I’d recommend:

1. If you could make that 45-60 minutes per day into 2 hours each day, you will see much better results. I found it very effective to do 1 hour in the morning before I went to work, and then I would play most of the evening. Aim for 1 hour in the morning, & 1 hour in the evening.

2. Revisit and stick to what you are practicing. The key is to dedicate yourself to a consistent practice routine. Use the downloadable PDF resources and practice plans to give you that structure.

3. Work on multiple courses at the same time, I’d recommend the Extended Chords Course, and the Altered Harmony & Upper Structure Triads Course - but as mentioned, you will be making life harder for yourself if you don’t know your major scales numerically, and also simple 3-note 251s in all 12 keys.

4. Don’t forget to have fun with it… This is supposed to be a fun hobby after all!! You have a nice goal to work towards with your “full hour of music by Christmas time” but also understand that learning jazz is truly a lifelong pursuit, there is always more to learn. I find accepting that takes the pressure off and makes the whole process more enjoyable. I just try to get a little better each day.

Here’s 4 forum threads which you may find useful with your “full hour of music” goal:

• Earning money as a jazz musician (our vocal expert Lyndol gives some really great tips from her experience performing)

• How To Learn Jazz Standards? How To Build A Repertoire?

• Mastering “perfect background piano"

• From lessons to lead sheet - how to learn jazz standards

I hope this helps to give you some initial direction David, and if have any questions we’re more than happy to help out

[michael9]

Hi and “Guten Tag” from Germany,

my Name is Michael 55 years old and living in the southwest of Germany (Palatinate), surrounded by vineyards and forrest.

I´m here at pianogroove for my second day now and wanted to tell you a little about me:

I´ve been an accordion-player for many years now (not professional). Together with a saxophone player and a bass player we play Klezmer-Music most of the time.

Since 4 years I make coversongs together with my partner. She´s singing while I play guitar (acoustic) most of the time. But we also started to take some songs with piano in our repertoire (Adele, Norah Jones, Sara Bareilles …).

Now I found that the most interesting arrangements of modern pop-songs always almost contain elements of jazzmusic! And that´s when I started looking for online-courses on jazzpiano - and found pianogroove.

So here I am - still a bit confused with all that material offered - and looking forward to my “career as jazz-accompanist”

Greetings from Germany
Michael

[ariel]

@michael9

Klezmer

Hi Michael,
Nice to meet you.

Nice to hear that you are keeping the klezmer music going in south Germany, greetings from Israel

[celia]

Warm welcome Michael! You are going to love your jazz journey with pianogroove. I just started about six months ago. I only wish I had found this site years ago, but better late than never!

[Hayden]

Hi Michael

A very warm welcome to PianoGroove!

To work on your accompaniment skills, I’d first recommend checking out Lyndol’s course on “How To Accompany Singer”:

How To Accompany Singers | Online Jazz Piano Course

I’d also recommend working through our Beginner Jazz Courses, this information will give you the foundational information you need to be more comfortable and confident in all styles of music.

My opinion is that… No matter what style of music you want to play, having a good understanding of jazz harmony will always be as asset to you.

Jazz theory is the most complex and challenging to learn, and you will find that instrumentalists who play pop, funk, gospel, soul, R&B, HipHop, Neo-soul, etc… will have studied jazz harmony at some point in their musical development.

Ultimately, it will give you a deeper understanding of all music which will help with your performance/composition in any genre.

The jazz standards are simply nice ‘etudes’ in which to apply the theory and get familiar with basic harmony in all 12 keys.

Follow our Beginner Jazz Syllabus here:

• Beginner Jazz Courses: Roadmap & Syllabus - #16 by adam_powell

For more advanced accompaniment studies, check out this course I created on playing with other jazz musicians:

How To Play Piano in a Jazz Band | How To Jam With Other Musicians

Much of this course builds upon the material covered in the Beginner jazz lessons, and so spend some time to work on that material.

I hope this helps to give you some initial direction and we are always here to help should you have nay further questions.

Talk soon!
Hayden

[Pierrot]

Wellcome to this nice community !

Wine and music have such good taste … and together its wonderful =)

[Hayden]

@Pierrot

Wine and music have such good taste … and together its wonderful =)

I certainly agree with that!

[adam_powell]

Welcome Michael. You made an awesome choice by joining the PianoGroove family. Good luck in all your ventures.
Adam

[michael9]

Thank you all so much!..

… for your words of welcome! It already feels a bit like familiy here - that´s great.

@Hayden:
Your advice, what courses I should consider is very helpful! I already started to watch the Foundational Course, just to start with a beginners mind

But, hey: Lyndol´s course is exactly, what I need to start jazzing with my Partner!

I´m so glad, I found you guys!
Being part of such a supportive community is priceless

All the best
Michael