(upbeat jazz piano)
(blues piano riff)
- What's going on everybody?
Peter Martin here.
Welcome to my beginner jazz piano course.
I'm so excited to be here with you guys.
If you're coming to learn how to play
this instrument, the piano,
in the jazz style,
you've come to the right place.
And I wanna jump right in,
and welcome you.
If you're coming here,
you probably already know this,
but you need to be able to play the piano.
Cause I'm going to start with
really getting into the jazz stuff,
right away.
So I'm going on the assumption that
you've got a nice, functional command
of the instrument,
that you can play with both hands.
That you can read a little bit,
although you don't need to read a lot.
I really am going to be encouraging you
to play by ear.
And really just be able to play the instrument,
move around a little bit.
I'm gonna get you going on a nice blues
pretty quickly.
Actually that one that I just played.
We're going to start it real basic,
and we're going to take you through all
the wonderful things that you're going to need
for jazz piano.
So what I'm really going to have you guys do
is concentrate on playing by ear.
I want you to get that jazz vocabulary,
that feel, that swing.
All the things that we're gonna talk about.
But I really want you to get it
like you're learning a language.
Right?
So just like you're learning
a foreign language,
you're imitating the sound.
You're not just reading it from the book.
You're imitating someone that knows
how to speak it.
So that's what I'm here for.
Is to give you some simple things to play,
but I want you to imitate the way
that I play it.
So like on the blues
that we're going to get into
on one of the very early lessons..
(plays blues riff)
Okay, you'll see the notation for that too,
in the sheet music,
but I want you just imitating the way
that sounds.
Okay, so I'm not going to have an accent..
(plays blues riff)
written on every part,
cause I want you to hear and feel that.
Cause it's so much easier to
do it by feel.
So what I'm going to need you to
also do, is a lot of listening
and then singing.
Because that's the way we really hear it.
Just like learning a language.
You'll hear it, but until you speak it,
and hear yourself speaking it,
you can't get to that point where you can
really say it in the right dialect.
So it's going to be like..
(sings and plays blues riff)
♫Boo bee boo doo bop ba doo be doo bop♫
Okay, you'll hear me as we go through
the course, telling you to sing.
I'll try to remind you each time if I forget.
Take it upon yourself to go ahead and sing.
So that you get that sound of this great
music in your ears.
Because that's such a big part of playing this.
We're going to get into theory,
and ear training,
and voicings, and melodic structures,
and scales.
And all that stuff's important.
But not as important as getting a feel
for the music.
Okay, you guys will get all that other stuff
and you'll be able to build on that
in the years to come.
But if you get the feel of this music
from the beginning, you'll be able
to play for always from that really
great intuitive place.
So you're going to hear me repeat
many of the same core concepts.
So I want you thinking about them.
Cause I'm going to be repeating them
throughout all the lessons.
And I think they're very important.
Probably the biggest one is groove,
swing, and feel.
And those are really all within
the same thing.
Swing, we're going to have
a whole lesson just about
what is swing, how to swing.
But we're always thinking about that
and how it relates to this music.
So really at its most basic level
we're looking at
how do we make an eighth note line
have a jazz feel.
How do we swing?
What is the swing feel?
(plays jazz riff with swing feel)
That's swing as opposed to..
(plays jazz riff uniformly)
If we're just reading the notes.
And that's why I'm gonna continue
to encourage you to really listen
to this music a lot.
Listen to the way that I'm playing
and demonstrating it
and just jump in and trust your ears.
And I'm going to give you the techniques
to be able to play this.
But you're going to be doing it
by comparing your phrasing
with recordings, with me,
with what swing is.
And if you don't already have it
you will have, I think,
a very good feel for what swing is.
So more core concepts I'll be hitting on
a lot are shell voicings.
We're going to get into that in its own lesson.
But you'll see this referenced throughout.
So it's very important,
I want you to be aware of that.
And really the concept is just the third
and the seventh.
For whatever the chord is.
So if we're in C major..
(plays C major scale)
We're got the third, which is E.
And the seventh, which is B natural.
That's a shell voicing.
Then I'm playing the root
down in the left hand.
Okay, we'll get into all that.
But always we thinking about the shell voices
cause we build up much of what we do
harmonically, much of what we do
with voicings, and much of what we do melodically
as well from those shell voicings.
Okay?
Listening, that's one of my huge core concepts.
So you're gonna hear me talk about that.
I want you guys to listen to as much
as what you can of this music.
We have a reference listing of
selected recordings that I think are great
for any beginner jazz pianist.
And I just think they're great recordings,
and a lot of fun to listen to as well.
So I want you to check those out,
and the ones that resonate with you the most,
the ones that you like the sound of the most,
listen to those the most.
Because it's not a comprehensive,
all-inclusive list.
But it's hitting some good points.
So when you find the ones that you like,
you listen to those over and over again
in a very attentive way.
That's going to get the language of this music
in your ears.
So that when you come here and go through
the lessons,
you'll know what to compare your playing with.
Remember we're learning a language, right?
And just like learning a language,
if you want to learn German,
you can speak it yourself,
but you need to hear Germans speaking it
so that you can start to compare your voice
to them.
Alright, also blues is super important.
We're gonna start with the blues and we're
gonna hit that a lot.
We're gonna talk about what the blues form is,
how to play the blues,
how to build up from a very basic standpoint.
And we're also going to talk about
how to apply the blues
to many different situations
that aren't just blues.
How do we get that blues sound?
How do we get that blues feel?
Okay?
And then also a huge concept for me
that I believe in,
all the way from the beginner level
up to the advanced is root movements.
And that's really what holds the structure
of blues, or a standard, or a jazz tune,
or anything that we do on jazz piano
is held together by what the root movement is.
So don't worry if you don't know
what root movement is.
But you definitely will.
So it's just another thing I want you guys
thinking about as we go through this
beginner course.
So I also want to talk to you guys a little bit
about the best way to practice,
and go through this course.
I've designed it so that you can really go
at your own speed.
So as much time as you have each day,
each week, each month.
If you go through it in order,
you'll be able to get to that promised land
at the end and really be a secure and solid
beginner jazz player.
But when you do practice,
I want you guys to really focus.
Okay?
So if you have ten minutes a day to practice
that's fine.
But I want you totally focused
on what you're doing.
So I still do this in my practice
all the time.
Whether I've got ten minutes
or ten hours.
I really dedicate that time
to just playing this instrument.
So you get rid of all your distractions.
Your phone, internet, whatever it is,
your relationships.
And give yourself that time to really focus in
on this.
Because learning to play this instrument
it's more than just you know..
(plays scales)
learning the scales,
and all that stuff.
We're going to go through that,
you're going to learn that.
But as you're starting to play,
(plays chords)
you've got to be able to listen
to what you're playing.
Just like if you were at a gig.
And hearing Herbie Hancock playing.
You could go there and be talking to someone
and not really paying attention
and miss a lot of things that are going on.
But if you really listen
to every note he's playing at a great performance
you'll be so rewarded by what it gives you.
Somebody who's sitting next to you
who's not listening might miss.
And be like,
"Oh he's not that good, Herbie Hancock.
"He's just blah-blah."
But if you really listen and hear all that
he has to give,
you'll really be rewarded by that.
So it's really the same thing in our practice.
If I'm practicing something as simple as
an F Dorian scale,
I'm going to really listen to everything
that I'm playing.
(plays F Dorian scale slowly)
Because even though I know all the notes,
I know all the fingerings
and I've been doing this for many years,
and I've got it intuitively in me.
There's so many things to practice with
on this instrument at all times.
I'm thinking about sound.
(plays F Dorian scale slowly)
I'm thinking about evenness,
I don't want to have any notes jumping out.
I'm really working on,
I'm really working on ultimately,
what learning to play this instrument
is about.
Which is controlling this instrument.
If I want to give a certain sound,
(plays gentle jazz riff)
and we're going to become jazz musicians right?
This is beginner jazz piano,
but I want you guys jumping right in.
You're gonna be a jazz musician.
And that means you have to be able to create
so you have to be able to hear
what it is you're doing,
and that takes practice.
Okay?
So I'm going to be talking to you
about that as we go through.
But I want you guys to really remember,
dedicate yourselves to very focused practice.
This is a difficult instrument,
but it's a powerful instrument.
Okay?
So it demands a lot of attention,
if you want to get to the point
where you can really start to pull something nice
out of this instrument.
And then the last thing
I want to just hit on again
for that core concept is feel and groove.
I think this is so important.
Because I could teach you the notes to play,
but if you don't get that feel and that groove
and if I don't teach you that,
then it's not going to sound right.
So if it's just like..
(plays jazz riff blandly)
Right?
It just doesn't have that vibrancy.
It doesn't have that feel,
it doesn't have that swing.
It doesn't have that groove,
it doesn't have all those things
that draw us
and pull people from around the world
to this great music
and to this great instrument.
(plays jazz riff with groove)
So you see what I'm playing is very simple.
And you're going to get this.
But I think what makes it sound good
and makes you want to tap your feet
is that feel, is that groove.
It's that swing.
Okay?
So we're always thinking about that.
We're not just learning the notes, okay?
And I'm gonna show you some things that
are fun and exciting and they're gonna
be new voicings.
And that's great to be excited about that.
But remember, everything you're learning
in terms of notes and lines and scales,
it only works well if you're filtering through
and playing it with a really strong sense
of groove, and swing and feel.
So that always has to be
a part of everything we do.
Even when we're practicing scales, right?
(plays a scale)
I'm not necessarily swinging them, but I'm
thinking about the groove.
I'm tapping my foot,
I'm thinking about the pulse, right?
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
All music has a pulse.
And if I'm playing a ballad..
(plays slow jazz)
(snaps)
It's like a heartbeat, right?
Your heart beats at different
paces depending on what you're doing.
When you're sleeping,
when you're running, in the middle of the day.
But it's always steady at some point.
We hope it's always steady, right?
So that's just another thing that we're going
to be thinking about and talking about.
And I want you guys to concentrate on,
even when I'm not telling you.
When I'm deep into telling about some
scales or something,
we're always still thinking about
swing and groove, and feel.
Okay?
So really welcome
to the beginner jazz piano course.
Again I'm excited that you guys are here.
So let's jump right in.
(plays upbeat jazz piano)
(upbeat jazz music)