Category: Export to JPB

Funky chord tricks refer to some of the slick, pro-sounding passing chords that can be used to improve the sound of your playing. These chords often make students stop and ask “Wait – what was that you just played?!” Often these chords sound too advanced or complex for intermediate students, but in truth these chords…

Blues piano practice straight-talk? What does that mean? Well, in this article you’re in for a little treat. In this article we’re going to reveal some blunt thoughts and tips for playing and practicing the piano – some “straight talk” if you will. As educators, we have a love and fondness for the material we…

Understanding meter in music might seem like a fairly simple concept. When discussing meter we usually discuss the time signature, which indicates how many beats will occur in each measure and which subdivision will be counted as the underlying beat. These concepts seem quite simple when looking at examples such as 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4…

Rock organ soloing requires a different approach than jazz soloing. In the jazz context, keyboard solos are usually played at the piano and built around advanced harmonies and chord substitutions, various chord scales, quirky-syncopated rhythms, and left-handed comping. By contrast, rock keyboard solos are frequently played on a number of various keyboard instruments, including the…

Jazz theory is not a separate subject area from music theory, although many people think that music theory and jazz theory require separate forms of study. Take it from someone who has attended many music theory and jazz theory classes at the university level – it’s all the same stuff. So why, then, is jazz…

Blues piano improvisation is an essential skill for a blues piano player. One simple form and yet the blues is played in jazz, rock, pop, country, and, well… the blues. We’re not gonna talk a lot of theory here. Instead we’re gonna offer some practical advice and tips to help you focus on some essential…

“Synthesizer basics” refers to knowing the particular aspects of the synthesizer, why it’s used, and how it’s different from a typical keyboard or piano. At first glance it might seem like the synthesizer and the piano are basically the same instrument, right? Well, they certainly do look similar in terms of the black and white…

Rock piano soloing requires a slightly different mindset than jazz piano soloing. In the jazz piano context, the right hand is free to play lots of chromatic tones, altered scales, and shifty rhythmic figures. The left hand often plays rootless voicings that use extended harmonies (i.e., things like 7ths, 9ths, and 13ths are common). These…

Using hexatonic scales can be a powerful tool when practicing improvisation. In funk music we often encounter tunes that are built on a couple chords that repeat over and over again. Sometimes we even have entire solo sections that use only one chord! What should you do if you are asked to take a solo…

In this article we’ll discuss some easy blues piano practice exercises. These practice exercises will help you get more familiar with the blues form and the individual chords that make up the 12-bar blues structure. As you probably know, the blues form is used in jazz, rock, country, and well… blues music. Generally speaking, the…

Chord tones, guide tones, passing tones… so many TONES! What are they? How do I make sense of all of them? Is it really going to help me better understand music? Although the names can start to blend together and get confusing, chord tones, guide tones, and passing tones are a big part of music…

Rock keyboard soloing is an important part of a keyboardist’s development. Soloing in any context requires that the player is familiar with chords, scales, and keys. Rock is no exception. So in order to go deeper with this you need to learn a couple helpful scales that the pros know (and use masterfully). In this…