Red Garland’s Famous Intro to “A Foggy Day” (LOTW #190)
The intro to Red Garland’s version of the Gershwin standard “A Foggy Day” has become known as one of the great jazz intros, and is instantly recognizable. He employs his trademark voicings over a pedal point, creating a bell-like tone on the piano which sets up the tune beautifully. This one is worth adding to […]
Jazz Piano School Ep. 118 – How To Play Any Style And Groove Over Any Tune
People will ask me, “Brenden, how do you play funk…how do you play latin?” Well when you learn the necessary foundational tools with Theory Sequences…you can play any style, any groove you want! At anytime! That is why our tagline is “Learning Freedom”. In this episode I take a simple standard and play about a ten different grooves and styles through out the tune. Switching between each and every one as I explain. Enjoy!
Developing Your Own Style: Listening Through Generations
What do Brad Mehldau, Mark Turner, and Eric Harland all have in common? They’re some of the foremost jazz musicians of our time. And yes, they’d sound amazing in a band together, of course. But what are we really talking about here? STYLE. Each one of these musicians has their own unique style and voice […]
Jazz Piano School Ep. 115 – How To Develop A Solid Foundation As A Beginner Without Holes
So I’m going to say it…Jazz Piano is EASY…but…only after you have a plan to follow. I found this out the hard way after basically searching and guessing for most of my career until I finally developed my own plan. In this episode I talk about the foundation and TREE based concepts that splits off your foundation based on your specific goals. There is not much playing and demonstrating here but I truly believe the concepts I explain are much more valuable in the long run. Enjoy!
Why Solo Piano Can Be Even More Fun Than Playing With a Band
Getting Started with Playing Solo: When you’re first starting off, playing solo piano can be a daunting task. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be. As jazz scholars, we are often taught to play with a band before truly exploring the art of playing by ourselves. This is probably because when you get right down to […]
Jazz Piano School Ep. 113 – Using the Major & Minor Pentatonic Scales for Beginners
I can’t believe this wasn’t a podcast episode yet but thanks to a member request here we are! So I will keep this one short and give you the basics of the pentatonic scale as well as show you a glimpse of how far into the rabbit hole you can actually go. I’ll continue with a follow up episode on this as we begin to take this further but practice the basics of what I teach here first. Then you’ll be ready for the next one! Enjoy!
Jazz Piano School Ep. 112 – How to Walk Bass Lines With Approach Notes
We did an episode on walking bass lines part 1 a while ago and then I forgot to do PART 2! So here it is. Special thanks to one of our members for reminding me. 🙂 In this episode we take it a step further and connect our roots and half notes with diatonic walking and approach notes. From here we can essentially connect any progression we want no matter how random it is. Enjoy!
Jazz Piano School Ep. 105 – What To Do With Slow Swing Tunes
Isn’t it strange that when it comes to the slower tunes we start to struggle more? There’s just soon much space! What do we do when the tempo is deathly slow and we start feeling anxiety to fill in everything. In this episode I’ll give you some tips to start feeling confident over slow swing tunes.
Jazz Piano School Ep. 95 – What Happens In Your Playing As You Advance
A lot of the time when trying to get better at jazz piano, you simply have no idea what the future looks like…or even what the heck advanced players are doing! It sounds too far out of reach. Well I’m here to tell you it’s not. In this episode I show you what is going to happen as you advance through the levels. This way you’ll be able to see exactly what takes place.
Jazz Piano School Ep. 73 – Beginner Latin & Bossa
Latin and Bossa tunes can be a great style to add to your repertoire. A lot of people think they are difficult to play but as I’ll demonstrate in this episode there is not much difference in the way you’ll approach these tunes.
