Jazz piano practice routine pdf

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Please email me at rondrotos keyboardimprov. LOG IN. A 1-hour daily jazz piano practice routine I've found that the best practice schedules have a combination of rigidity and flexibility. With this in mind, here's one possible 1-hour daily practice routine for jazz piano: 15 min: Building repertoire memorize the melodies and chord progressions to jazz standards. By Ron T January 19th, general 2 Comments.

Related Posts. December 31st, 0 Comments. December 29th, 0 Comments. December 28th, 0 Comments. December 24th, 0 Comments. December 23rd, 0 Comments. Ron October 18, at pm - Reply. Leave A Comment Cancel reply. Recent Posts. Ron, I started right away with your Blues Scale Etudes and spent 3 hours at my keyboard.

Using a powerful imac, no issues with video players on other sites. What to do? The cheat sheet contains major scale fingerings for 2 octaves for both hands. There are also some useful groups to remember which makes this information easier to remember. Really benefiting a lot from the course so far. One question on practicing the fundamentals — do you recomend we also practice diatonic 7th chords in minor keys as well? And if so, am I correct that the pattern accounting for harmonics on the 5 is minor b5, dom, minor, for the 2,5 and 1, and dom, major, major, for the 7,3 and 6?

Or anything else to watch out for when practicing diatonic 7th chords in minor keys? Minor Harmony is much more complex than major harmony. There are 3 different minor scales and we can use the diatonic 7th chords from each scale to access different minor colours and flavours. I talk about this in the following forum threads:. One of the main benefits of learning the diatonic 7th chords is that we can then use these chords to create improvised introductions and endings.

Check out these 3 lessons and major and minor key introductions:. As a priority, learn the minor progressions and then afterwards explore the diatonic 7th chords if you want to delve deeper into minor harmony. Thanks for getting back to me on this! Hi, I have a question about the arpeggiating exercises, is there a correct order of fingering for those or should i just play however I find more comfortable?

If I start the arpeggio with the root on the bottom, I usually use the fingering and if I start in the 1st or 2nd inversion, I find it more comfortable to use With many of the drill variations outlined in this plan, we can be working on these and improving them over the period of many months or years, and so understand that it is a gradual process. The main focus for the Foundations course is to learn all 12 major scales numerically, form a basic understanding of triads, 7th chords, and minor scales, and most importantly, learn the major progression in all 12 keys.

Much of the theory is interrelated and it will give you more of a sense of progression when you see how the foundational material is applied and developed in the course on extended chords.

It can take many months or even years to fully master the foundational theory drills, and so at this stage the most important thing is to understand the theoretical underpinnings and then you can move onto the next courses.

Here are 2 of my favourite tunes from that course:. Slot 1 — The Major Scales There are only 12 of these to learn, and they really are the foundation of all future study of harmony. Slot 2 — The Minor Scales We know that every major scale has a relative minor scale. Slot 6 — The Major Progression This is the most important exercise so far. Lesson Downloads. Join PianoGroove Pro to access all downloads and learning resources.

Related Lessons In a minor , the 5 chord will be an altered dominant chord. Practice Tips For more inspiration and ideas check out the related forum thread for this lesson where you can find additional drills and exercises submitted by our students and teachers. Comments 53 Comments. Log in to Reply Ask questions and get instant replies from our team of teachers. Hi There! Cheers, Hayden. Hi Grahame, You must be logged-in to access all of our theory lesson downloads and supplements.

Fill out one of the contact forms on the site and I will email this one over to you. Hi Jordyn, Good question! We then have the C Natural Minor Scale. My pleasure Jordyn and thanks for spotting this…. I have corrected the typos above. This is very helpful Hayden — thank you!

Glad you enjoyed it Natasha. Hey Hayden, When should I move on from these lessons drills? Hey Dokko! Hope this helps and any other questions just let me know. The best way to improve sight reading is simply to sight read more often. I hope this helps, and further questions let me know.

Hi Hayden! Great lesson series! Hi Rein, Glad you enjoyed the lesson. Have fun practicing this stuff! Hi Idan, The drill variations just provide some alternate things to experiment with once you have mastered the main exercise, which in this case is playing through all 12 major scales in 5 minutes.

A couple of questions: — For the minor scales — do we need to do the intervals thing as with the major scales — ie 3rds, 4ths, etc, or is just finding the scales and playing them enough? Where do I find the correct fingerings for each of the scales? Hello Hayden! Thanks, Yair. Hi Yair, I would recommend practicing the interval drills in the right hand only. I recommend that students study these 3 courses all together. Enjoy the lessons! Hey Hayden! To answer you other question about a 2 hour practice slot: You can either double up on the time of each, so spend 10 minutes on 6 x theory drills, and then 1 hour playing and applying the theory to standards.

If you need any more help or guidance just let me know. Hayden, Thank you very much for your quick and elaborate reply! I thought you were including fingering for all scales? I see the downloads for scales, but no fingering anywhere. Where are these? Hi, great content, thank you. Start with your right hand, and if once you are comfortable with that, you could incorporate the left hand and both hands. The key is getting through all of the exercises in the practice plan Marc, so that each day you are working on all 6 topics.

Whilst scales can be an effective tool to use in the left hand when playing jazz piano, my opinion is that it would be much more beneficial to have them memorised in your right hand as a priority. As a simple example using scale degrees : R then then then then then and back to Root. That is a very simple example, perhaps you could experiment with the diatonic triads within the scale, up and down, then inversions of these triads.

Just as an example for inspiration. Again the goal here is to ensure you are not simply running up and down scales in a linear fashion. Yes I feel that it is much more important to practice triads and 7th chords in the left hand, than it is for scales.

I would recommend practicing both hands here. As you highlight, practice time can be a constraint, and so make sure you are not starting in the same keys every time you practice. Perhaps focus on 3 or 4 keys in one practice sessions, and then move onto the next 3 or 4 keys next session etc….

It is a big task to learn the triads and 7th chord inversions in all 12 keys. It is a gradual process that takes months or even years and one that you will be working on simultaneously as you progress through the PianoGroove syllabus.

For example, when we play rootless voicings, we are also working on 7th chords, and when we play upper structure triad voicings, we are also working on our recognition of triads and the potential inversions:.

So you will always be revisiting this foundational theory and improving as you progress through the PianoGroove syllabus. In fact, I recommend that students can work on 2 practice plans simultaneously, because many of the topics are interrelated. Once you feel comfortable with the Foundations Plan, and you can see improvement, then perhaps alternate your practice sessions, 1 day on Foundations Plan, 1 day on Extended Chords Plan, then repeat.

Thank you very much for all your quick answer. Another question about exercices intervals: Suppose we are in the key of F with Bb. I want to play an exercise about perfect fifths with my right hand.

But B is not in the key of F. It is Bb which is in the key of F. What can I do? Hi hayden Can I consider practice session of 3 keys 6 topics during one week and three other keys during the next week…and so on?

When doing these exercises, you must think of diatonic intervals , ie. That will get you the best result. Hi hayden OK. You recommend all 6 exercises that I must do for each key 72 exercises for all keys. But how many keys you suggest to do each day? Is it three keys by day? I start by C, F, Bb. But I think that I need at least three days to practice well all these exercises of the three keys 18 exercises. The idea is that you build up to where you can complete each exercise in the 5 or 10 minute slot - depending on how long your practice session is.

To start with, you might only be able to get through 3 of the keys for a specific exercise. Keep going until you have covered all 12 keys. The plans we have created are just to give some general guidance and provide insight on the types of drills and variations you can do. The most important thing is that you are splitting your practice time into small chunks, and covering lots of different areas.

Hope this helps! Pros and cons? Hi Guy. For beginner students, the priority is to learn all 12 major scales numerically. I personally found that aiming to get through all 12 keys in each sitting was the most effective and efficient way to achieve the goal of learning the 12 scale numerically. There is a potentially infinite number of drills, variations, patterns, and exercises that we can do. The practice guides are split into slots of 5 minutes so that we can get through many different exercises and theory areas in 1 sitting.

The next sitting, we should find the notes of the scale quicker, and before long we will be able to get through all 12 scales in the 5 minute slot. Perhaps in the future, come back to the practice plan, and spend the whole 5 minutes working on the different variations outlined above for just one scale. Today i was drilling through the jazz plan foundations 1 and the 5th slot with diatonic chords is really becoming too easy for me.

How can i make the exercice harder or put something else at this slot. Extend the chords to include the 9th, so Cmaj9, Dm9, E-9, Fmaj9, G9 etc… Perhaps play the root with your left hand and in your right hand. Take through all 12 keys.