Essential Daily Jazz Piano Exercises for Improvisation

[00:00:00]do you want to improvise jazz but you're not sure what to practice well unfortunately many students are not given clear instructions on what to practice and so they oftentimes feel stuck in their playing well in today's lesson I'm going to show you three essential Jazz exercises that you should be practicing every day and I promise that if you go through these exercises you will see massive Improvement in your Jazz playing for each of these exercises there's a beginner intermediate and advanced version so it doesn't matter your playing level there are three exercises in this lesson for your level so let's go ahead and dive in all right in exercise One You're Gonna Master the most important scale that you should know if you want to play jazz it's called the diatonic scale and before I show you the exercises I want to actually play this scale so you can see what it sounds like on some jazz standards and then I'll teach you the exercises here it is on Fly Me to the Moon foreign here it is on Autumn Leaves here it is on the way you look tonight [Music] now believe it or not on all three of these Tunes I was using one simple scale called the diatonic scale and the diatonic scale is simply a major scale like the c major scale which is all white notes now you might be thinking Johnny really my major scales I can play my major scales but if you don't learn your major skills in a very specific way which I'm going to talk about in just a minute you're not really going to understand how to use major skills in jazz so I'm going to walk you through this exercise I'm going to start with a beginner version then intermediate and then Advanced okay so if you're a beginner jazz pianist how do you practice your diatonic scale or major scale so that you can successfully improvise jazz piano well first of all you need to know your major skill in all 12 keys but I do not recommend that you practice your major scales by playing a scale up the piano and then doing it in the key of D flat like so many students practice them instead what you want to practice is called scale shifting and this is when you transition from one major scale to another major scale very smoothly and this is a Hallmark of Jazz playing so let me show you what I mean I'm going to briefly solo on all the things you are and I'm going to show you what it sounds like to smoothly transition between two major scales a flat major and C major foreign how was I able to do that well it's through practicing the exercise that I'm about to show you but before we do that if you're enjoying this lesson please hit the like button and if you're new to the channel be sure to subscribe for more videos just like this what you want to practice is called the scale shifting exercise and with this exercise you end up practicing all 12 of your major scales but more importantly you practice transitioning between the skills so that you can get some really nice smooth lines so here's how it works it's actually really simple we're going to play the c major scale up the piano we're going to use the standard fingering for C okay so thumb under and when you get to the high note C we're going to use our thumb and guess what we're going to do here we're going to transition to the D flat major scale coming down but we're starting on our two finger so we have you see that so what I did is I'm playing my d flat major scale I'm starting on the two finger Crossing finger four and playing the standard fingering on d flat okay and once again it's not just about practicing your major scales it's about transitioning between them smoothly see what's happening and so this is kind of the first step of building Jazz lines you have to be able to switch between scales in a smooth manner okay so we left off on the d flat let's go to D major that's going to be the thumb we're going to play this up standard fingering and then when we get to the D guess what we're going to do on the E flat we're going to use that third finger and we come down on E flat okay you see what's happening so we're very quickly shifting between scales okay so once you land on E flat by the way you can use the two or the third finger there then we go to e that's going to be the thumb standard fingering [Music] we're going to use thumb there and then on the F we're gonna go two let's go two one four three two one okay and then G flat two finger standard fingering and then for the G we're going to use that third finger and we're gonna go three two one three two one three two and then a flat third finger and then we're gonna go thumb standard fingering thumb and then on the a we're gonna use the fourth finger see what's happening and then fourth finger on the D and then finally B flat second finger we're gonna come up thumb third finger and then for the B we're going to use the pinky it's going to be there and we're going to take the scale down this is the B flat major scale and end on the B so what you just did is you practiced all 12 of your major scales but you practice that smooth transition between the scales so if you speed it up just a little bit check out what it now sounds like now a quick note you can swing your eighth notes like the way I'm playing it one and two and three and four and or you can play them straight one and two and three and four and it depends on the style that you want to play so if you're playing pop rock contemporary or Latin you'll typically play your eighth notes straight but if you're playing jazz or Blues you'll typically play them swung now the gold tempo for this will be 100 if you're more on the beginner side and it will be 150 if you're more on the intermediate side now this lesson comes with two backing tracks for this exercise one at the beginner speed one at the intermediate speed so let's go ahead and play this at the beginner speed and then I'm going to teach you the intermediate to advanced level exercise here we go [Music] d flat [Music] f g flat g a flat a B flat B by the way this lesson comes with 12 downloadable backing tracks at different tempos you can also download the lesson sheet music you're seeing on the top left of your screen and you can change the key of this entire lesson with the click of one button with our smart sheet music so I'll put a link to all of that below now you may have noticed that the fingering of these scales is not traditional meaning if you took classical piano lessons this is probably not the fingering that you learned for each of these major scales so why are we using this non-traditional fingering well whenever you're improvising at the piano you want to be able to change the fingering on the skills that you're playing depending on whatever type of Passage that you're improvising meaning that you do not want to get locked in to one way of fingering the major scale so something that I would encourage you to do is to actually come up with your own fingering for this exercise that you just learned by the way if you want to learn all 12 of your major scales you want to learn all of your diatonic chords common chord progressions how to play lead sheets with these chords accompany with them you can in our beginner foundations learning tracks I'll put a link to those below all right if you're more on the intermediate to advanced level you need to know all 12 of your major skills to play jazz but again I do not recommend that you just play your major scales up and down the piano instead the best way to practice your major scales is to practice them as modes and the modes are basically when you take the major scale and you start on a different note from that scale so if you play a C major scale starting on C we call that ionian if you play the c major scale starting on D we call that Dorian this is called E phrygian F lydian G mixolydian A aeolian and B locrian and there are many ways to practice your modes but one of the best exercises is this one what we're going to do is we're going to play the c major scale up the piano and bring it down and it'll skip sets us up for D Dorian you see what we're doing so it's the c major scale same fingering except now we're starting on the D now from here we use the transition note F and this takes us to E phrygian see what we're doing there's the skip to f same fingering as the c major scale G mixolydian same pattern there's the skip now to a aeolian B locrian C so the goal is to get this to a faster Tempo if you're more on the intermediate side I recommend 150 bpm and if you're more on the advanced side I recommend 200 BPM so let's go ahead and play this with the advanced backing track at 200 BPM so you can hear what it sounds like and here it is here we go [Music] and once you're able to play at the Gold Tempo then I recommend that you do this exact same exercise in the key of D flat major so same thing E flat minor F minor and so on by the way if you want to learn how to solo with each of your modes you can learn in our soloing fundamentals learning track I'll put a link to that below exercise number two is to master your diatonic chords and diatonic chords are simply the chords that come from a key so if you're playing jazz tunes like Fly Me to the Moon guess what all of these chords come from the key of C major or Autumn Leaves foreign all of these chords come from the key of G major so you need to practice playing all of your diatonic chords in all 12 keys to truly Master jazz piano so first I'm going to show you a beginner to intermediate level exercise then an intermediate to advanced level exercise so if you're more in the beginner to intermediate side I recommend that you play your diatonic Triads in a major key and basically these are all of the three note chords that come from the major scale so we have C major we have D Minor we have E minor F major G major a minor and B diminished okay they're all of the three no chords that come from the major scale so a very simple exercise is to take each of these chords and break them up using a simple pattern okay doesn't that sound nice it's actually really simple I'm basically taking each chord starting on the middle note going middle bottom Middle top and then on the next chord D Minor I start on the middle note but I use my four finger okay so middle bottom middle use the third finger top and then E minor middle bottom Middle top and then F major middle again we're using the fourth finger the ring finger bottom Middle top middle bottom Middle top middle bottom Middle top middle bottom Middle top and then you end on the C now if you're more on the beginner side I recommend a Target tempo of 100 BPM and if you're more on the intermediate side I recommend a Target tempo of 150. now we have two backing tracks a beginner and an intermediate one so let's go ahead and play this with the intermediate backing track and here it is here we go now once you can play at your target Tempo then I recommend that you transition to the next key so you can play the same exercise in D flat major you need to know your diatonic chords these are all of the three note chords that come from the d flat major scale and then you can apply that little right hand pattern now if you're more in the intermediate to Advanced side it's very important to learn all of your diatonic seventh chords in all 12 keys and the difference between what I just taught you and the diatonic seventh chords is that you're going to add a seventh to each of the chords so the first chord C Major seven we're adding another third on top of the C Triad and then we do the same thing on the D Minor so D minor seven E minor seven F major seven Okay g seven a minor seven and B half diminished seven these are the most important chords that you need to know if you want to play jazz piano alright so here's the intermediate Advanced exercise basically you're going to take these diatonic seventh chords and you're gonna do this sweet little pattern on them foreign super cool and Jazzy and I love this Rhythm because it's so commonly used in jazz lines so we're going to take our C Major seven chord we're going to arpeggiate it up and then take D Minor down it's that simple E minor arpeggiate it up F major down G up a minor down and B half diminished up and C major down if you're more in the intermediate side a good Target Tempo is 130 BPM and if you're a little more on the advanced side a good Target Tempo is 180 BPM so we're going to play this exercise with the intermediate backing track at 130 BPM here we go [Music] now once you've hit your target Tempo I do recommend that you practice this in the other 11 keys so you could go to d flat major and practice all of your diatonic seventh chords that come from this key and then you can apply this fun little pattern foreign by the way if you want to learn all of your diatonic seventh chords and all 12 Keys plus a bunch of amazing exercises to help you master them check out our diatonic seventh chord exercises chorus I'll put a link to that below all right exercise number three is probably one of the most important exercises that you should learn if you want to solo on a jazz standard and I'm going to actually go ahead and play a little solo to show you how this exercise will help you become a better soloist [Music] when I was just soloing 99 of the notes that I played came from one scale the major scale but how was I able to create so many interesting lines using just one scale well this exercise is what helped me to do it and it's called the scale pattern exercise I'm going to show you an exercise for beginner to enter immediate level players and then intermediate to advanced level players alright if you're more in the beginner to intermediate level what you want to practice with this exercise is playing every interval using the major scale and here's what I mean if you only have seven notes to choose from you really need to be creative with the types of intervals that you play [Music] I'm being very creative with the intervals meaning the distance between all of the notes and so the way to practice intervals is to do this scale pattern exercise and the way it works is we're going to first do our second interval which is this and we're going to practice this up the c major scale okay it's actually really simple so we go c d d e e f f g g a a b b c okay that's it once you've done that then you're going to play your third intervals so we play like this c e d f e g see what we're doing all the way up the piano okay and it's really helpful to swing it okay it gives it a nice sound okay once you've done thirds then you're going to do fourth intervals and then fifth intervals and then sixth intervals okay and then finally once you finish six then you want to do your seventh intervals and again I'm swinging it to give it kind of a lilting sound now if you're on the beginner side you want to get this to 100 BPM and if you're more on the intermediate side you want to get this to 150 bpm so let's go ahead and play this with the intermediate backing track at 150 bpm let's start with seconds [Music] thirds fourth fifth six sevens now if you're on the intermediate to Advanced side you want to practice your intervals but instead of playing each interval by itself you want to mix your intervals because this is what Pro Jazz improvisers will do they'll mix their various intervals to create some very interesting sounding lines so there are three ways to do this what I recommend first is to play a combination of fourth and second intervals so we're going to start on our C Major seven and we're going to play a fourth interval c f and then a second interval from the D so d e that's our pattern then we're going to repeat the same pattern except this time we're going to do it on the D minor seven so up a fourth and then we're going to do a second starting from the e you see that and then up to the E up a fourth we're going to go down a third and then up a second does that make sense you seeing the pattern g a B and then you can end on your C all right next you want to mix your fifth interval with your third interval so for this exercise we're going to start on the C go up a fifth and then we're going to do a third from the D so D to f and then we're going to repeat this pattern on the D so up a fifth and then a third from the e and then on the E we're going to do a fifth and then a third from the f same thing on the F and then G a and then B and then we can end on the C all right we've covered all of our intervals except a seventh and a sixth interval so for the final exercise we're going to play a seventh interval from the C and then we're going to play a sixth interval from the C make sense and then same thing on D seventh six seven six seven six seventh sixth seventh sixth seven six and then we end on C now intermediate players your gold Tempo is 150 bpm Advanced players your goal Tempo is 200 BPM so let's go ahead and play this with the intermediate backing track at 150 bpm and here it is here we go [Music] hey thanks for watching and if you enjoyed the lesson please let me know in the comments also be sure to check out piano with johnny.com we have over 1 000 step-by-step lessons for all playing levels where you'll learn your favorite songs Styles and how to improvise at the piano thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one