[Music]
what's up guys Johnny May here and
welcome to this week's quick tip where
I'm gonna teach you how to improvise
jazz piano if you've never tried
improvising before or if you are brand
new to the piano now most students think
that to improvise jazz you have to learn
all of your scales and all of your
arpeggios up and down the piano but the
truth is that you can start improvising
jazz piano today even if you're a
complete beginner so let's go ahead and
dive in alright the first step to
playing jazz piano is to know what key
you are in so we're gonna quickly
quickly review our C major scale and
then I'm going to teach you the chords
and how to improvise over the scale okay
what is the C major scale well if you
start on a middle C here it's the note
just below these two black notes okay
this is C and if you walk a C major
scale up the piano it's basically all
white notes okay that's the C major
scale c d e f G a B and C okay it's very
very simple scale to learn now when
you're playing chords in jazz you
basically take the notes of your scale
and you skip every other note so try
this with me let's put a C on our left
hand we'll skip the D we'll play the e
now we're gonna skip the F we're gonna
play the G and then we skip the a and we
play the beat okay and this is called a
seventh chord it's called a major
seventh chord okay now don't worry too
much about the naming and the theory
here but this is the way we build chords
in jazz as we take the note from the
scale and then we skip every other note
from the scale and we end up with these
intervals intervals are simply the
distance between two notes and we call
this a third interval this is a second
interval this is a
interval all right so we're building
third intervals up the piano to build
our chord this is called a C major seven
chord now you can actually do this for
every note of the scale so you can
actually take the seventh chord and
shift it up to a D and now we have a
seventh chord built on the second note
of the C major scale this is called the
D minor seventh chord now don't worry
too much about the naming here I just
want you to understand the concept and
you can do this on every note from the
scale this is called the 3 D chord it's
built on the 3rd note of a C major scale
this is a 4 chord this is a 5 chord this
is a 6 chord and this is a 7 chord
ok the technical name for these chords
are called diatonic chords and you can
do a deep dive on this over at piano
with Johnny but this is the basic idea
jazz it simply uses 7th chords that come
from
major scale and in jazz you kind of hop
around to these chords
now the most common progression in jazz
music is called the two five one chord
progression you might have heard about
it and the two five one simply means
that you put a seventh chord chord on
the two or the second note of the scale
so this is the first note of the scale
the D is the second note of the scale we
build a seventh chord on the two then we
build a seventh chord on the five well
what's the five of a C major scale one
two three four five it's a G so we come
up to G we build our seventh chord and
now we're gonna go to our one chord our
one chord in the key of C major is AC
major seven c e g and b does this make
sense so this is the most common
progression in jazz music and I would
just practice this practice jumping D
minor 7 this is called a g7 chord again
don't worry too much about the names
here you will learn these as you get
better at jazz and this is our one chord
and this is used on tons of different
tunes like fly me to the moon
to five
or autumn leaves to five Hey or the way
you look tonight
to
five right does that make sense so it's
used on lots and lots of different Tunes
and so if you learn this progression
you'll actually be able to improvise on
a lot of jazz standards by the way if
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more videos just like this now when
you're playing chords in jazz you don't
want to jump around to your chords it's
a lot better to find chords that are
closer to the one that you started on
and when we played this g7 chord you can
actually rearrange the notes of this
chord where you basically put the D and
the F on the bottom of the chord we're
going to take that D in the F off of
this and we're gonna put them down here
D and F and now I'm playing a g7 chord
it's the same chord I played earlier but
I'm simply rearranging the notes I'm
taking those top two notes off the top
and I'm putting them down here and so if
you do this in your left hand D F G and
B guess what after we play that D minor
seven chord it's super close by all we
have to do is drop the a to the G and
the C to the B and we have our G chord
this is our five chord on the two five
one and so this makes it a lot easier to
jump to chords now on my two chord I'm
here D minor seven on my five chord I'm
here on the G seven and now I'm here on
the one chord for my C major seven I
call these more efficient chords you can
learn more about chord inversions over
at piano with Johnny the final step
before we start to improvise is to play
a chord substitute and when you land on
this one chord a C major seven which is
the name of this chord you can actually
substitute that top note that B down a
step to the a alright this is a chord
substitute and you can substitute this
chord for this chord this is called a
major seven chord this is called a major
six chord but again don't worry too much
about the names here and so when we play
this chord progression we're gonna go
- then we're gonna go five this is our
five chord one and then one like this
okay let's go ahead and play this with
the backing track there is a backing
track that comes along with this lesson
here we go five
one and now the substitute all right
you're sounding great you can practice
this with the backing track I'll put a
link to it below you can actually
download this you can also download the
lesson sheet music up here on the top
left of the screen you can print it and
you can change the key with a click of
one button you can practice this in any
key with our smart sheet music so I'll
put a link to all of that below alright
it is time to improvise are you ready to
improvise some jazz what you want to
first do is you want to learn the most
important scale in jazz music it's
called the gospel scale
all right it is a such a cool sounding
scale for this skill is also called the
major blue scale so what are the notes
of the scale well here they are go ahead
and play these with me C D E G and a
we're going to use all of our fingers
and we're gonna add one note to this
scale we're gonna add an E flat to this
scale and that is the gospel scale or
the major blues scale you can think of
this as a C major scale with the 1 the 2
the 3 we're gonna skip the 4 the 5 the 6
and then we're gonna add this e here
this is called the flat 3 alright 1 2 3
5 6 with the flat 3 now we're gonna drop
that top note that a and we're gonna put
it on the bottom here to learn our two
grips here so go ahead and play it like
this
and then you can also add the E flat
just like that so we're gonna play it
thinking of it more in this position but
again the scale is a major blues scale
or the gospel scale alright here's the
two grips you need to improvise jazz
piano the first one is like this e flat
a and G now the fingering uses our index
finger our middle finger and our pinky
okay we call the finger numbers one two
three four and five
okay one two three four five so we put
the two on the E flat the three on the E
and the five on the G the second grip
that you need to learn is called grip
number two okay grip number two we're
gonna put the ring finger on the E flat
the third finger on the D the index
finger on the C and the thumb on the a
alright so that's gonna be grip number
two so go ahead and just practice both
of these grips we'll go to a the top
grip here grip one and then grip to grip
one grip cube just kind of practice
jumping in between both of these
positions alright now that you know
these grips let's talk about how to
improvise with each of these grips so
we're gonna play that two five one chord
progression D minor seven g seven
C major 7 and C 6 this is that two five
one and we're going to improvise a
little line using both bar grips check
out this little line
okay so what am i doing basically I'm
starting on my D minor seven chord
I'm gonna be in grip number one I'm
doing this little eighth note line one
and two and three and I'm basically
coming up these three notes okay
one and two and three and four and now
I'm gonna go to grip number two which is
here and I'm gonna come down this scale
one and two and three and four and and
then we'll end our line one and two and
three right twice on the C down to eight
okay you see what we did there and then
at the end of the phrase we're gonna go
basically this is a c6 I'm coming up my
grip to a CD C E flat D C alright that's
the full line will do at medium tempo
rip to
four one two three four and repeats and
that a cool idea and you can actually
practice this as an exercise let's go
ahead and do with the backing track and
then I'll show you how to create your
own lines using this idea here we go
here we go
[Music]
all right great job you're sounding
awesome now if you want to improvise
with this idea it's actually really
simple to do because basically I can hit
any of these notes
and I can switch between my grips so
that's grip 1 and now I might come down
to grip to
I can repeat the chord progression maybe
this time I'll start with my grip too
and start and then go up to grip number
one
you
and there's all kinds of cool ways that
you can create lines using this idea the
key is to leave little gaps in between
your lines so that you do not play
run-on sentences all right let's talk
about triplets
I love the triplet sound
okay the triplet exercise goes like this
[Music]
alright here's basically what we're
doing we're doing our two five one and
see we'll start with that grip number
one and we're gonna play these two three
notes using the triplet pattern
and then we'll end on the E and then
we'll go to trim the triplets on grip
number two which will be here triple the
triple the triple it going a flat D C
I'm just repeating this
[Music]
and then we'll do new pattern
basically this is a CD CDC a CD CDC aids
a triplets one and A two and A three and
a four and okay so we're dividing each
beat into three notes and that's how you
get that triplet sound all right let's
play this with a backing track and I'll
teach you how to improvise with us here
we go
[Music]
okay nice work with triplets and if you
want to improvise your own lines with
triplets then you simply play any
triplets that you'll want just make sure
you leave little gaps so here's some
examples of triplet lines I'll start
with my lower grip here this is grip two
and then I'll go to grip number one
that makes sense and you can mix these
together
man that sound really cool alright the
final technique I want to teach you here
are slides this is the sound of slides
all right so the slide exercise
basically we're gonna take our third
finger here we're gonna slide the e
twice like that okay same finger and
then we'll go down slide to D that makes
sense
C a and then we'll do the same thing
twice on the e down slide on the D I'm
using the same finger down to a and now
we're gonna do a new pattern here on the
C major seven chord we're gonna slide
the e up to G slide the e up to G slide
the D to down slide see slide the D down
slide and then switch to our C six chord
up slide the D G G and down slide the D
that makes sense
all right let's go ahead and do this at
a medium tempo here's how it should
sound
and if you were plate with the backing
track it sounds like this
[Music]
okay so that's the exercise you can play
this with the backing track and if you
want to improvise with slides the key
here is to slide the e up or the D down
and you can do either one in any order
so here's some ideas for how you can
improvise with this
[Music]
you
all right this concludes this week's
quick tip and if you enjoyed this lesson
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I'll see you in the next lesson
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