This Masterclass will help you get a solid foundation to understand the fundamentals of jazz piano playing.

Understanding Jazz piano essentials can be a passport to understanding a huge variety of different piano styles.

In this class, I will strive to cover not only the basics of jazz improvisation and harmonic skills but would also like to stress on the huge canvas these skills stretch over which can aid and inform absolutely anything else you wish to play. The core concepts we will look at are :

• Jazz Harmony - How to voice chords in a variety of different ways from simple root position chords to Drop 2/4 voicings all the way to expanded voicings between both hands using extensions. The more nuance you can get in how to shape and craft your harmonic language, the more deliberate and expressive you can make your improvisations and arrangements. This will also include techniques to perfect voice leading between chords and introduce inner voice motion in chord progressions. 

• Improvisational tools - We will discuss a number of simple but effective tools to develop improvisational abilities and jazz language from chord tones, chromatic language, scalar approaches and melodic springboards. All students will receive a pdf with an extensive collection of scales and shapes to experiment with over different progression.

• Energy , Nuance and Cohesion - Alongside with perfecting your improvisational toolbox, it’s imperative to discuss how to use these skills to turn exercises into music. I would like to discuss a variety of techniques to apply and adapt these skills. This will include methods to build and shape energy in an improvisation, Motific development to make cohesive improvisations and discuss developing higher degrees of nuance and variety in expressing your ideas.

• Developing an Individual Voice - A lot of jazz pedagogy can be restrictive and redundant. Students feel like they need to analyze and integrate absolutely everything in this vast idiom which often is counterproductive. I always admire people who approach this style with a distinctive and personal approach. We will look at some models for developing a personal approach, analyzing musicians who do this and learning how to frame your own personal styles into a jazz context.

This is an interactive session, please do drop your questions below and we can take them up during the class.