Jazzy Christmas Lessons

This is an ongoing course that is updated each year with new jazzy Christmas songs.

These solo jazz piano arrangements are beginner to intermediate in difficultly and we demonstrate and apply the theory covered in other PianoGroove courses.

We start with an up-tempo performance of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town". This swingin’ arrangement is based on the chords and changes from the Bill Evans solo piano performance… definitely worth checking out if you haven’t already.

Next we cover the classic christmas "Christmas Time Is Here". We create a full arrangement and also be explore ideas and concepts for soloing over the form of the tune:

• Creating and developing musical motifs
• Including chord tones in lines and phrases
• Identifying and focusing on the ‘characteristic’ tones of the chord/mode

We then have 2 beautiful Christmas ballads. "White Christmas" features lots of reharmonised chord changes to spice up the arrangement. "The Christmas Song" is quite a challenging arrangement to play with some interesting substitutions.