Piano Practice

How to structure a successful Jazz piano practice regime

When studying piano with a focus on Jazz it is extremely important to have an in depth knowledge of harmony and their different applications. In the images below you can see the lesson notes that I sent to a student after their first lesson with me. This student had a good knowledge of harmony and studied music at university in the past. As you can see we covered a simple 12 bar blues progression, with worksheets on the left hand rootless voicings and two blues scales that you can use to improvise over the chord changes. We also covered Position A major II-V-I rootless voicings in all 12 keys. Finally we covered major triads in all inversions and drop 2 voicings. These concepts are something that can take months, even years to gain mastery over and require patience and consistency to achieve results. Therefore when planning practice sessions it is important to set goals that are achievable over the long term. For the work set in this lesson I would say 20 minutes on each subject per day would be a great start. Then in further lessons we can see where this student has any difficulties or needs further explanation.