Learn Jazz Piano: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide
In this lesson I'll show you...
In this lesson I'm going to explain all of Jazz harmony in one lesson.
We'll cover everything from 7th chords, to Jazz improvisation, to chord voicings and much more.
Learn to count intervals
So, the first step to learning Jazz piano is you have to learn intervals. You have to learn to count all 12 intervals from all 12 notes.
So if I asked you which note is a fifth above D flat, could you tell me the answer in less than 2 seconds? Or which note is a tritone above E? Could you answer me in less than 2 seconds? Or which note is a minor 7th above F sharp? It's E.
So as a Jazz piano player, you count intervals all day long. That's what you do:
Every chord is an interval pattern. Every scale is an interval pattern. And chord voicing is an interval pattern.
You have to be able to count minor thirds, major thirds, whole steps and so on. So as a jazz piano player, you don't get told every note to play. You have to construct the harmony. You have to construct the chords, the chord voicings, and the scales. So that means first you have to learn to count intervals. You have to learn the fifth, the fourth, the tritone.
Now I'm not going to slow down this lesson with how to count every intervals, but instead I've put together all of your intervals on one piece of paper:
Types of 7th chord in Jazz
Next let's learn the three main types of seventh chord.
Now, in jazz, almost all chords are seventh chords at least. And that means that instead of just a triad, which is a root, third, and fifth chord, in jazz, we go up an extra third and we add sevenths. Now there are three main types of seventh chord.
That's going to be the major 7 chord. This is C major 7. The minor 7 chord. This is C minor 7. And the dominant seventh chord. This is C dominant 7.
Now you have to memorize them as interval patterns. And the major 7 chord is basically a major triad plus a major 7th. The minor 7 chord is a minor triad with a minor 7th. And the dominant seven chord is a bit like halfway between those two. It's a major triad with a minor 7th.
Most Jazz songs are built of just these three chords. As you look through songs in your real book and look at the chords above, it's mostly these three chord types: major 7, minor 7, and dominant 7.
Your challenge is to learn to play each of these three chords from all 12 notes. So, the major 7 chord can be built from 12 notes. The minor 7 chord can be built from 12 notes. And the dominant 7 chord can be built from 12 notes.
Get to the point where you can jump to any of these 36 chords in less than 2 seconds!
The 2-5-1 Progression
So the next step is to learn the ii-V-I ('2-5-1') through all 12 keys.
Now the ii-V-I is a chord progression. In fact, it's the most common chord progression in Jazz. If a song doesn't contain a ii-V-I, it's not Jazz.
So let's start by looking at the ii-V-I in the key of C major. First of all, we're going to have D minor 7. That's the two chord counting from C, which is our root. So two means the two chord. We then go up to the five, which is G. and we build the five chord, which is G dominant 7. And then we go down to the one. And our one chord is C major 7.
And notice that these are those three chord types that we just looked at, the minor 7, the dominant 7, and the major 7. And I told you that most of Jazz is built of these three chords. And the reason for that is that most of Jazz is made up of this ii-V-I chord progression.
So, as you look through the songs in your real book, you'll see this pattern:
minor 7 chord - goes up a 4th to a dominant 7 chord - goes down a fifth to a major 7 chord.
And you'll see this pattern in all keys.
You might see a B flat minor 7 chord. B flat's going up a fourth to an E flat dominant seven chord coming down a fifth to an A flat major 7 chord. So that is a 251. In which key? That's correct. The one chord is a flat major.
And most Jazz songs will start in what's called the 'home key'. And they'll come back to this key at the end. So let's say we start in C major. Then it will go through a series of other keys and it will play a 251 in different keys. It could be any set of keys almost. And then at the end it will come back to the home key. So that's how jazz songs work. Typically, they start and end in the home key. And then you'll have a series of ii-V-I chord progressions that go through a series of keys.
Partial ii-V-Is
Now sometimes you don't get all three chords. Sometimes you just get a ii-V ('two' - 'five') and then the music goes somewhere else. For example, 'Satin Doll' plays ii-V-ii-V ('2-5-2-5') and then doesn't resolve to C major (the 'one chord'). Instead it goes to a new key.
And sometimes you just get the V-I ('5' - '1'). 'Stompin' at the Savoy' for example, just plays C7 going to F major 7. And we don't ever get the ii chord ('two chord') - which would be G minor 7. (Gm7 - C7 - F maj 7). So here we just have the V-I.
Left hand voicings for the ii-V-I
Now on piano, this is how you can voice a ii-V-I. You don't want to play all three chords in root position - because your hand has to jump all around and it doesn't sound smooth.
Instead, what we do is we play the ii chord (D minor 7) in root position like this: D F A C
But then the V chord (G7) we play in second inversion: D F G B
And then for the the I chord (C major 7), we also play that in root position: C E G B.
And a little tip, the way my brain thinks about this pattern is I first find the ii chord: D F A C (root, 3rd, fifth, and seventh).
And then all I do is I look for the root and the major 3rd of the five chord (for G7 that's going to be G and B natural). And the bottom two notes stay the same.
Then when you go to the I chord, you're going to look for the root and the major 3rd (for C major 7 that's going to be C and E natural). And the top two notes are going to stay the same.
So in your brain, you're just looking for the root and the major 3rd - and then root and the major 3rd (for both chord changes).
Play the ii-V-I through all 12 keys
So your next goal is to learn this ii-V-I chord progression through all 12 keys.
How do you practice something through all 12 keys?
Start with a ii-V-I in C major. Then when you land on the one chord, change it to a minor 7 chord. So C minor 7 now becomes your two chord of the next ii-V-I. So C minor 7, go up a 4th to F dominant 7, go down a 5th to B flat major 7.
Then repeat the pattern. Change it to a minor 7 chord. And this now is your two chord of the next ii-V-I. B flat minor 7, E flat dominant 7, A flat major 7. Do the same thing. and then you find yourself back in C major. However, that's only six of the keys. So once you get back to your starting key, count up a half step from C to C sharp and play a minor 7 chord. And this can be your new two chord. And this will take you through the six remaining keys.
Now again, I've notated the ii-V-I as sheet music going through all 12 keys. You can download that for free at the link below:
Chord Extensions Explained
So in Jazz, chords go much higher than in other styles of music. Most styles of music just have root, third, and fifth. These are called 'triads' - whether they're major chords, minor chords, diminished, or augmented chords.
But in Jazz, we keep going on going up higher (beyond the 5th):
Root - 3rd - 5th - 7th - 9th - 11th - 13th.
Now 13 is the highest number you'll see in a Jazz chord because if you went up another 3rd (from the 13th) you'd come back to the root. So you don't see 15th chords or 17th chords. 13 is the highest number.
And the reason that we number these notes as '9', '11' and '13 - instead of '2', '4' and '6' - is it's to reflect the fact that we're building chords. And chords skip every other note. They're built-in thirds. So the numbering reflects that: 1 - 3 - 5 - 7 - 9 - 11 - 13.
Whereas if you're talking about a scale, you would say 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 because scales are built in step.
Now there's many different combinations of chord that you can create by tweaking the types of third that you build in. So you can build in major thirds or minor thirds. And depending which type of third you build in, major third or minor third, you can create these different types of chord. Now, in jazz, the root, third, fifth, and seventh are what's called chord tones. These are lower down the chord and these really set the foundation of what chord type it is. Whether it's a major 7 chord, a minor 7 chord or a dominant seven chord. And then the 9th, the 11th and 13th are called chord extensions, also known as the extended harmony notes. Now, you can add chord extensions to any chord as you're playing through a Jazz song. Whether it's a major 7 chord, a minor 7 chord, or a dominant seven chord, you can always add a ninth or an 11th or a 13th. And it's very important that you measure these extensions precisely.
Now, to find a chord extension, we always build off the major scale. So, if we have a C chord, regardless of whether it's a major 7 chord, minor 7, or dominant 7, the ninth is always going to be based off of the major scale. So you map out the notes of C major scale, whole step, whole step, then a half step between three and four, and then whole step, whole step. So you only have to find the 9th, 11th, and 13th. And these extensions are always based off the major scale. So let's say you're on an F chord and you want to find the ninth. You just imagine an F major scale and you find the ninth that way. If you want the 11th, count up an F major scale would be whole step and then half step. And if you want to add the 13th, just run up F major scale and it's going to be a D. Now, in addition, these chord extensions could be sharpened or flattened. So over a C7 chord, D is the natural 9th, but we could make it a flat N, which case you just move it down a half step. D flat is the flat N. Or you can make it a sharp nine. Just sharpen it. D sharp. Now these are called altered extensions. When you sharpen or flatten them. Now there's only four common altered extensions. These are always found over dominant seven chords. Those are going to be the flat 9, the sharp n, the sharp 11, and the flat 13. And you cannot have a flat 11 because that just becomes your third. We already have that. And you won't ever see a sharp 13 because if we sharpen A, you just get B flat. And that's already our seventh. And the trick to finding any extension is to run up the notes of the major scale first. Find the natural extension and then if you want to alter it, do that next. So if you want the flat 13, find the natural 13th first. It's A. And then flatten it. If you want the sharp 11th, find the natural 11th first. major scale to the fourth, which is the 11th, and then sharpen it. And if you want the sharp nine, find the natural nine first by running up the major scale and then sharpen it. And if you want the flat 9, natural 9 first, then flatten it. Now, again, I've notated all of these chord extensions in sheet music. You can download that for free at the link below. So now let's talk about jazz scales. Now for any chord in jazz, there are multiple scales that you can choose to play. If you want a bright sound over a C major 7 chord, you could play D major pentatonic. Or you could play G major pentatonic or C major pentatonic. Or you could play C Lydian. Or you could play C major Bbop scale. You could play C major blues scale. And the only thing that has to line up is the chord tones. So the root 3r, fifth, and 7th of your scale have to agree with the root, 3rd, fifth, and 7th of your chord. And apart from that, the ninth, the 11th, and 13th can be tweaked either way, and the scale will still sound consonant. And really, the only variation is in those missing notes, the two, the four, the six, cuz we're talking about scales. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. But the root, third, fifth, and seventh, the chord tones have to agree in your scale with the root, third, fifth, and seventh of the chord. However, there is a simple rule which will tell you which scale to play. I call it the chord tone plus whole step principle and it works for any chord. So let's take a C major 7 chord. You're going to start by playing the root, third, fifth, and seventh of the chord. And then you're going to add a whole step above the root, the third, and the fifth. So for C major 7, C up a whole step is D. E up a whole step is F sharp. That's the sharp four. And G up a whole step is A. And then we have the seventh. So, this is called C Lydian scale. It's a major scale with a sharp four. And this is my go-to scale for major 7 chords. Let's say you have a C minor 7 chord. Again, we'll start with the chord tones. Root minor 3rd this time, fifth, minor 7th this time, and then we're going to add a whole step to the root, third, and fifth. So C up a whole step is D. E flat up a whole step is F. And G up a whole step is A. And this is C Dorian scale. And one more example. Let's apply it to the dominant seven chord. Again, chord tones first, root, 3r, fifth, and seventh. And now let's add a whole step. C up a whole step is D. E up a whole step is F sharp. G up a whole step is A. And this scale is called C Lydian dominant scale. And this technique works for all the seventh chords. Whether you have a half diminished chord, even chords that we haven't looked at yet, the fully diminished seven chord, you just start with the chord tones first and then add a whole step to each of those notes. And the only place this doesn't work is on the five chord of a minor 251. So we'll look at that in a moment. But on a 251 in C minor, you don't want to play the Lydian dominant scale on the five chord if it's a minor 251. But in every other situation, this technique always works. Now, again, I've written out all of these jazz scales as sheet music. You can download that for free at the link below. [Music] So, next, let's do a crash course in all of the types of jazz chord you'll ever see. We've gone through the three main types, which are major 7, minor 7, and dominant 7. Those make up 80% of jazz songs. Next up, we have what's called the half diminished chord. This is C half diminished. It's sometimes called C minor 7 flat 5. It means the same chord. C half diminished is a diminished triad. So minor 3rd, minor 3rd, and a minor 7th on top. So the interval pattern is minor 3rd, minor 3rd, major 3rd. Next we have the diminish seven chord, which looks like this. C fully diminished seven and the difference to the previous chord is the seventh. Here we've flattened it again and the diminished seven chord is just a stack of minor thirds. Next we have the minor chord with a major 7 which looks like this. This is C minor with a major 7th and it's written C minor with a major 7 triangle sign. Then we have sixth chords. We have C major 6. It's a major triad with a major 6th. Then we have the minor 6 chord, which looks like this. Minor triad with a major 6th. And that's a nice ending for minor songs is just to play up a minor 6 chord. Next, we have a few different types of dominant seven chord. We've looked at the original dominant seven chord, which looks like this. But sometimes you'll see a C dominant 7 sharp five, in which case you just sharpen the fifth. So find the fifth, sharpen it. This is C7 sharp five. Sometimes you'll see C13. And when you see C13, that's still a dominant seven chord, but with the 13th added up here. And usually you play the ninth as well. So this is C13. And you'll sometimes see C7 alt. Now altered is a type of scale and really what C altered means is add a sharp nine and a flat 13 and you actually remove the fifth when it says C7 altered because the altered scale does not have a natural fifth. And lastly, let's talk about slash chords. Sometimes you'll see in the sheet music F/G for example. And what that means is the first letter is a chord. If it's just one letter, it means a major chord. So F would be F major. And then the slash means go to your left hand and in the bass you play a G. So this is F slash G. And you can voice it how you want. You can double notes. You can play a simple triad. You could play it in inversion. Or let's say you saw B flat major 7/ C. That would mean to play a B flat major 7 chord in your right hand slash and then play C in your left hand. And again, I've notated this as sheet music. You can download that for free at the link below.
The Minor ii-V-I
Okay. So, the next step is to learn the minor ii-V-I. So, we've already looked at the major ii-V-I. There is also a minor ii-V-I in jazz. And it's the same idea. We're just going to build the three chords from the minor scale. In fact, we're going to build them from C harmonic minor scale. So, we find the second the two chords going to be D half diminished. We just learned that chord. We're going to go up to the five chord. Again, we're going to have the same G dominant seven chord. And then the one chord is going to be a minor chord with a major 7th. So this is the original minor ii-V-I. However, normally we change the one chord and make it a minor 7 chord. And that's just because we want a more casual sound. Sometimes it's a bit intense to end with this minor chord with a major 7th. So most of the time in jazz composers will just do a casual minor 7 chord like this.
So the next step is to learn the minor ii-V-I through all 12 keys. Now again we can use the same 12 key pattern. So, your challenge is to play the minor ii-V-I note perfectly through all 12 keys and to do it three times in a row. Once you can do that, you have truly mastered the minor 251 and you're ready to move on.
Jazz Improvisation
So, next, let's talk about Jazz improvisation. Now, I'm going to simplify improvisation into just three key techniques. The first one is going to be chord tone soloing. And what that means is you take the chord tones of your left hand. So let's say you're playing a C major 7 chord. Your improvisation can use the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh of the chord. And I'll even add the ninth as well. So C major 7, you have four notes or five notes if you want to use the ninth. If it's a C minor 7 chord, you can use the root, the minor third this time, the fifth, the minor 7th, and the ninth if you want to add the ninth. And if it's a C dominant seven chord, you would use root, major 3rd, fifth, minor 7th, and 9th. So let's apply this to the 251 chord progression. In your left hand, play 2 5 1 in C major. And actually you can add a six at the end. This is called the 251 6 progression. It's a variation on the 251. And this is a really good chord progression to use for your improvisation. [Music] That was all chord tones. The next technique you can add is called the half step below approach pattern. And what that means is to take the root, third, fifth, and seventh. And we can proceed all of these notes with a half step below. So I can proceed D with C sharp. I can proceed F with E. I can proceed A with G sharp. And I can proceed C with B. You can do that for each of the chords. [Music] And the third key technique is to add a triplet to each line. And the triplet is where you play three notes in the space of two. 1 2 3. That's the triplet. Instead of playing 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 I'm playing 1 2 3.
Now, an additional tip is try to end your lines on the root third or fifth. Whatever chord it is, if it's the one chord, end on a fifth, a third, or a root. That's just going to make your line sound finished. And a final tip is to switch octave for every line. So if you finish a line down here, start your next line up an octave and then switch down an octave and then switch up an octave. Let's jump down an octave.
Free resource: I've notated 29 Jazz licks as sheet music. They use all of these techniques we're discussing here. You can download all of that for free at the link below:
Chord Voicings for Jazz piano
So next let's talk about chord voicings. Now a chord voicing is a way to play a chord. So we've looked at the chord symbols C major 7, C minor 7, C dominant 7, but all of these chords can be voiced different ways. For example, we could take C minor 7. You can voice it like this. This is a voicing. Or we could go with something like this. A shell or like this or an open voicing or a Kenny Baron voicing or a rootless voicing or a rootless voicing like this or a crunchy voicing like this or like this. Or we could do a fourth voicing like this or the so what voicing like this. We could take this voicing. So, there's many ways that you can voice any type of chord. And to end this video, I'm going to show you a series of chord voicings which I think you'll like.
Shell voicings
First of all, we have shells. And that's going to be to play simply the root in the left hand, the third and the seventh in the right hand. And you can voice it like this called position A or like this position B. We can do this for a minor 7 chord as well. We're just going to tweak the third and seventh to fit the chord type. So C minor 7 as a shell. Position A looks like this. Position B looks like this. And you could do it for a C dominant 7 like this. Now you can also use shells on a ii-V-I. D minor 7 we voice like this. Goes to G dominant 7 goes to C major 7. And you can take that through the 12 key pattern. and so on. You can also switch the inversion and play D minor 7 like this. It's still a shell, but it's position B. You have the seventh as the lowest note and the third as the highest note.
Rootless chord voicings
The next voicing you could learn is rootless voicings. So for a C major 7 chord, you're going to play the root in the left hand. You're going to find the chord's third, which is E, and you're going to build a minor 7 chord. Looks like this. So this is a rootless voicing for C major 7. Then for a C minor 7 chord, you're going to tweak the third and seventh to match the chord type. We'll play an E flat major 7 chord over C. That's a really nice voicing for C minor 7. You've got the nine up here. And then lastly, the C dominant seven chord. You would think it would be like this, but we actually tweak the fifth. We move it up a whole step. And that gives us the 13th. And with just four notes in our voicing, we get a very nice colorful sound. So those are three chords. You can play them in position A like this. You can invert them. Play them like this. Position B. Same for the C minor 7 chord. You can take the top two notes, bring them down an octave, play it like this. And same for the dominant seven chord. You can take the top two notes, bring them down an octave, and play it like this. You can also beef up the left hand, play a stack of fifths. Sometimes nice. You can ripple these chords. And of course, you can practice this building these chords from all 12 notes. Just jump around at random. Make sure you count the intervals accurately. And that's how you learn any chord voicing. You just have to practice building it from all 12 notes.
The Kenny Barron voicing
Now, if you can stretch it, you might like the Kenny Baron chord voicing. It's a stack of fifths in your left hand and then a stack of fifths in your right hand built from the chord's third. So if it's a minor chord, build the stack of fifths from the minor third. Play this. If it's a major chord, you can build it from the major third. Perfect fifth. Perfect fifth. If you can't stretch a ninth, you can arpeggiate it. Just hold down the pedal.
Now, a pro tip when you're choosing which chord voicings to play is to look at the melody note because it's best if you choose a chord voicing which already has the melody note as its top note. For example, if you're playing Crimea River, the first chord is a C minor 7 chord and the melody note is the ninth. So, it' be good if I use the chord voicing that has the ninth as its top note. In this case, I can go with a rootless chord voicing, which we just looked at. And that way, you're playing just the chord voicing, but you end up playing the melody note with the chord voicing. And that's really how I choose my chord voicings. I call it melody matching. I'm always looking at the melody note and choosing a voicing that has that melody note as its top note.
So if the same C minor 7 chord was being played, but the melody note was a B flat, then I could use a shell. Or I could use an open voicing like this. Root, fifth, third, seventh. Or I could use what I call a 'sawn off' Kenny Barron voicing like this. Instead of going up to the 11th, you could just play this. How about if the melody note was the fifth? Well, in this case, I'd play a rootless voicing position B. Because the rootless voicing position B has the fifth as its top note.
Now you can also use rootless voicings for the 251. So for the major 251 you can play D minor 7 like this. Just find the chords minor third and build an F major 7 chord. That's your two chord. For the five chord, all you have to do is move this note down a half step. The second top note goes like this. And then for C major 7, find your major third, E, and play E minor 7. So you take it through the 12 key pattern.
Then you can take these rootless voicings and invert them. Take the top two notes, bring them down an octave. You can start in position B. This is called position B when the seventh is the lowest note instead of position A where the third is the lowest note. So you can play position B. And when you go to the five chord, you only have to change one note. This finger just comes down a half step like this.
Now, I've put all these voicing patterns as sheet music at the link below. You can download all of that for free at the link below:
Upper Structure voicings
I also want to quickly show you upper structures. Now, these are a type of voicing for dominant seven chords. So if we take C dominant 7, an upper structure plays the root, third and seventh in your left hand. And then in your right hand, there's a series of triads, usually major triads, which you can play, and they create sophisticated chord extensions in your right hand. D major is the most common use for me. I love playing the C, E, and B flats, and then find the D major triad, play it in the right hand. You can also invert these triads depending on the situation. You can add an octave, but this gives you C dominant 7 sharp 11. It also gives you the 9th and the 13th. Another popular upper structure is to play a major above this chord. So the root, major 3rd, and minor 7th in your left hand. You can play a major like this in inversion. That's usually how I play it.
Recommended Jazz songs for beginners
So, the next step is to learn three jazz songs. Choose three songs from your real book and play them 100 times each to the point where you can play these songs by heart.
Now, song selection is key for beginners. You want to choose the right songs. You've got swing songs like All the Things You Are, Afternoon in Paris, and Autumn Leaves.
I also recommend ballads like Misty and Tenderly.
Or you could choose some Latin jazz songs like Girl from Ipanema, or 'So Nice' Summer Samba.
You can download my list of recommended Jazz songs (ideal for beginners) at the link below:
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