What Time Is It?

Hey Improvisers, Playing bebop and hard bop can be fun, but do you ever feel like you’re just playing the same stuff over and over again? If so, you’re not alone. But don’t worry, there are specific things you can do to remedy this and bring some variety to your playing. One of the best … Read More

Hey Improvisers, Well, our journey through The Real Book has brought us to another important tune, “Milano.” “Milano” was composed by the jazz great pianist/ composer John Lewis, who is perhaps most famous for being the driving force behind The Modern Jazz Quartet. “Milano” is just as melodic as Lewis’s other tunes, such as “An … Read More

Hey Improvisers, Question: What do Bud Powell, Erroll Garner, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and Fats Waller have in common? Answer: They didn’t usually play rootless chord voicings with their left hands. What????? Aren’t rootless voicings an essential part of jazz piano? Aren’t they the first thing beginners have to learn? Aren’t they the key to … Read More

Hey Improvisers, Have you ever listened to The Pat Metheny Group’s initial recordings from the mid-1970s? They’re wonderful, and this live performance of “Midwestern Nights Dream” gives us a feeling for their musical vision. Midwestern Nights Dream (Live 1977) Looking back at that period, Metheny can be seen as helping to usher in a “second … Read More

Hey Improvisers, Have you ever text-painted with your music? Text-painting is when we compose or improvise music that depicts something that’s non-musical, such as the passage in Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony that paints a portrait of a walk in the country. We can paint musical pictures in any genre of music, such as rock, pop, folk, … Read More

Hey Improvisers, One of the most common piano myths, especially in pop and rock, is that we have to play songs the way the original artists played them. And even though this myth is less pervasive in jazz and other genres, it lurks behind many otherwise creative interpretations. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with playing … Read More

Hey Improvisers, Paul McCartney grew up playing the music of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Irving Berlin on the piano during family sing-alongs. He has spoken about how much he loved the lyrics and chord progressions of these 1920s-40s popular songs, and how much they influenced his own songwriting. So it’s perhaps not too surprising … Read More

Hey Improvisers, If someone asked you to compose a jazzy tune that used straight 8th notes, and included elements of rock, pop, folk, and gospel, what would you come up with? Well, you might compose something that sounds similar to Keith Jarrett’s “Memories Of Tomorrow,” which took the musical world by storm when it was … Read More

Hey Improvisers, I’ve made a video to show you some pianistic approaches to the great bossa nova “Meditation.” The tune has more musical possibilities than we often hear, so it was a pleasure to explore some of them for you on this video. Pay particular attention to how you can improvise both diatonic and chromatic … Read More

Hey Improvisers, If you’ve ever tried to learn to play jazz, you may have heard about bebop scales. They’re actually just regular scales with an added chromatic passing note in them. The Major Bebop Scale, for example, has an added #5 (or b6): C Major Bebop Scale C D E F G G# A B … Read More