What Is Diatonic Harmony and Why Is It Helpful?
Have you ever heard the term diatonic harmony before? …..Some of you are probably staring at your computer or mobile device blankly, others may be like “ehhh isn’t that when a ship comes down and…” Just kidding. Some of you may know exactly what it is, but if you don’t or you need a better […]
5 Reasons To Go To Jam Sessions, Even If They Scare the Hell Out Of You
Jam sessions have been around and helping musicians ever since jazz was created. Musicians would get together and play music for the enjoyment of playing. Most of the well known jazz musicians we know these days frequented jam sessions when they were young as well. There are many stories about musicians such as Charlie Parker, […]
How To Pay Your Band Properly, Demonstrated By Everything Not To Do
I thought I would do something different this time and tell a story that happened to be to exemplify everything you should NOT do when paying your band. Yes this really happened. Enjoy! I was hired by Mr. X to play a wedding gig. I was told I would be paid at the gig $120. […]
What The Heck Are Modes, And Why Do I need To Learn These Weird Names?
Good morning everyone, maybe not morning for you as you read this, but it is for me so I think I’ll keep that. I’ll be talking about modes in this post, and particularly, why do they help with improvisation. Most people I come across in jazz or music say modes are useless, or yea I […]
Learn The Rhythmic Feel And Notation Of Swing
Learning the swing feel in jazz can be frustrating when you’re first starting out. What gives jazz that feeling that makes you want to dance? Why do you feel like taping your foot every time you listen to an album. I’m sure you know because of the title of this blog, but yes, it’s the […]
5 Jazz Piano Doubts Reversed.
Every unknown skill or topic has myths behind it that we all as individuals tend to create in our minds. This may be from our own creative brain power, or from a friend who is feeding us these terrible ideas. Have you ever heard “Oh you can’t do that, those guys are born able to […]
How To Decipher Jazz Fake Book Charts!
So maybe you’ve read my posts on triads and 7th chords. Hopefully you have. Hopefully you have practiced the triads and 7th chords. If you have, then you are ready for this post! If not, you can still learn from the post, you will just need to learn your chords first before reading any charts. […]
4 Considerations for Jazz Piano Comping (Written by Dr. Samuel Griffith, trombone)
1) Time Beginning jazz pianists frequently forget, ignore, and devalue the importance of comping IN TIME. This should be the number one consideration when comping! If a pianist comps with bad time, or is playing out of time, the power of everything they do is lessened. Sometimes, even more experienced players will sacrifice time to […]
Introduction To 7th Chords
Do you ever walk into a restaurant and hear someone playing the piano, and just wonder how they get those juicy jazz sounds? Or maybe you hear a song on a movie that sets the perfect kind of atmosphere for a 1950’s scene. Those harmonies (chords) that you are hearing are mainly 7th chords! And […]
How To Start Playing Pop And Cover Songs Today!! Part 4 – Rhythms
Rhythms are the last key ingredient to being able to play any song of your choice and make it sound decent to the average listener. Rhythms will be serve a large role when I begin talking about Jazz more but for now the simple rhythms you will learn to play will help you spice up […]
