r/JazzPiano

I don't know if I'm progressing anymore. I started playing piano 4.5 years ago. Teaching myself. I don't know how to find a jazz piano teacher in my area. So I've been in an online program that has lots of resources. I thought I could spend some time practicing comping chords, some time practicing improv, some time learning tunes. But I feel like I do all 3 things poorly. And when I get a tune to a good place, if I put it down for a bit, I need to pick it back up again to get it back to where I was when I put it down. Maybe I should just do comping for the next 3 months. See if doing nothing but that gets some improvement. I just get a little bored when I try to do one of these things to the exclusion to the others. idk.

I really want to become a professional jazz pianist, but I am already 17 and incredibly shit at playing. Im still a beginner. Im really fed up of hearing about keeping it as a hobby, I do not want to do that. I just dont know how to practice, how to learn, how to teach myself. How do I get fast? How do I actually learn to play jazz? How do I practice? How many hours should I be practicing a day to actually become professional?

I want to take on more A Levels (Im in sixth form college) (Highschool for those outside the UK), and Im worried that I wont have enough time and I wont be good enough at piano when I finish school. Im a really studious person, so I tend to spend more time than needed studying.

Been revisiting this performance and it’s just ridiculous how good the classic quartet sounds here.

Coltrane obviously gets most of the attention, but McCoy Tyner really stood out to me on this one, so much power and rhythmic drive in his playing, especially with Elvin underneath him.

John Coltrane – saxophone
McCoy Tyner – piano
Jimmy Garrison – bass
Elvin Jones – drums

Thought some of you might enjoy the footage.

I've recently been getting into a lot of jazz piano improv and have been learning some McCoy Tyner style playing, especially over tracks like Contemporary Focus and Passion Dance. I seem to have hit a roadblock with this and it's quite difficult to find anything online about it other than the basics with the stacked fourths in the left hand and the pentatonics in the right. Would be useful if anyone could point towards some nice online sources that expand on this topic since I don't have the privellige of using a tutor at the moment.

I'd appreciate any advice you have on my playing. Thanks!

Long story short I completed my piano teachers class in high school last year, I also completed book 1 of the Alfred piano book 101. Start of the new school year, she talked to me During class and asked me if I was willing to join jazz band as a pianist cause they were looking for one. Should I join it? I could take AP biology off my schedule and replace it with jazz band. I am taking AP physics so it won’t hurt my science credit. What should I do?

My goal at the end of the day is to get better at piano so I can play my favorite songs. Could either be classical or pop music

Is there an exercise you do, or is it just a matter of trying to incorporate them into solos as much as possible?

I was initially going to learn all major and melodic minor modes ascending and descending up to 160 bpm sixteenth notes, but after more introspection, if feels like a waste of time. I would like to know if just practicing the parent scales are better, and also what are some things you have done to develop your modes?

I've heard some pianists recently that have a particular kind of style, basically they go way outside of the changes and develop their solo completely independently, but with strong harmonic and motivic development, and they will stay outside and free for like multiple choruses and then bring it back in right at the very end. I'm not talking about like McCoy style going out by going up a half step for one bar, it's much more elaborate, more modern, but still works in a piano trio for instance.

I'm having trouble finding good pianists with recordings like this that I can study, but I'm quite sure it's been done by a few people. I've listened to some Brad Mehldau, Keith Jarrett, Cecil Taylor, Andrew Hill, Paul Bley, etc. none of them are doing exactly what I have in mind.

Anyone knows what I'm talking about that can recommend someone for me to check out? Thanks.

Hello everyone,

so recently I started transcribing Reunion Blues by the Oscar Peterson Trio in Tokyo, 1964 (it's the first song) and so far the right hand lines have not been a problem. In the left hand, however, I have a problem.
The voicings he uses are most probably 7-9-3-13 and 3-13-7-9 or just playing tritones, since its blues in F (F7-Bb7-C7) so the voicings of the chords I understand.

Im struggling with the timing of playing those chords. I can't clearly understand on what beat he plays the left hand, it seems so random. How can I understand this better and how to practice it?

For the more advanced players here: when you're improvising or playing by ear, and you hear a melodic interval that isn't immediately obvious (say a major or minor 6th), what is your primary mental anchor?

• The interval from the previous note (i.e. identifying it as a 6th)?
• The function of the target note relative to the current chord/root?
• And if the chord changes between the two notes, does your answer stay the same?

Please don't answer “I've internalized all of this, I don't think about it, I just play what I hear.” That's not really what I'm asking here.

Likewise, if you have perfect pitch and simply hear the target pitch directly, that's a different process and not what I'm interested in for this question.

I’m really deep diving into all the BH content I can find on YouTube and Isaac Raz has a great series of vids about the BH workshops he attended and I’m looking for some clarity on one of the concepts. Basically it’s an application of the 6 on the 5th concept. So in C, it’s G6 resolving to C6. Easy peasy. But the way Isaac applies it in practice you do two movements. One short voicing, which is the closed G6 to C6, and one long voicing which is the open G6 to C6.

So I have two questions…

I was under the impression everything kinda revolves around 6 chords and I’m having some trouble making sense of the stuff in between.

EDIT: Here’s the video I’m talking about https://youtu.be/GMma\_bRvHsw