Hola Luzio,
Vas a encontrar un ambiente acĆ” que va a ayudarte mucho en aprender el piano. Todosālos instructores y los estudiantesāson muy amables y listos para ayudarte con cualquiera duda que tienes. Bienvenidos! 
Espero que vas a compartir tu mĆŗsica con nosotros.
Warm welcome Luzio! You have certinly found the right platform. PianoGroove is the absolute best. You will be playing several standards before you know it! Enjoy your journey!!!
Hi,
Iām David, and I have now retired from engineering in the communication satellite industry. Four years ago I started playing piano and have had about 3 years of lessons which touched on jazz but did not have enough structure or drills for me. I found PianoGroove on youtube and studied a few of the lessons before signing up. I would like to be able to read and play from jazz standard lead sheets. I play only for myself, and have never played with other musicians. I donāt really listen to much jazz, apart from occasionally the standards (Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald etc).
Hey @David99 
- thanks for sharing this introduction and welcome to our community area!
For learning to play from lead sheets I recommend to check out my newest jazz standard courses which Iāve included below. You can study these simultaneously:
These courses will help you to see the process of learning a tune starting with the basic diatonic harmony, then 3-note spread voicings, and then slowly introducing more sophisticated voicings and harmonies as the courses progress.
As you have been playing for 3 years and just touched upon jazz harmony, I imagine that you will start to encounter new theory areas after the first few lessons in each course. Donāt be intimidated by new or unfamiliar theory, instead just copy the demonstrations to start to familiarise yourself with the sounds and shapes of the voicings and harmonies.
Learning to play from lead sheets is a numbers game; the more tunes we learn, the easier it becomes to learn the next ones.
Here are some other beginner-level jazz standard tutorials that I recommend for you:
These tunes will kick start your repertoire.
Also, with the holidays approaching, you might like to dip into our Xmas songs which we have a course on here:
I also covered the āChristmas Medleyā in more detail in a recent seminar:
For which theory areas to focus on, check out this seminar:
If you have any questions you can post them on the lesson or seminar pages and that will ping me a notification.
Again welcome and enjoy the lessons!
Hi Hayden,
Thank you for your welcoming e-mail, and suggestions for study.
At the moment I have been concentrating on the Jazz Piano Foundations course and working on the drills, and the standards in the course. I canāt wait to get started on some of your recommendations, but I want to get a good grasp of the foundations first.
Best Regards
David
Hi Everyone!
Firstā¦Happy Thanksgiving. Iām āthankfulā to be a part of this community and to be dusting off this gift Iāve had since I was a child.
I took lessons from 5 years old until maybe 10. I didnāt learn much of anything from the 2 teachers I had. They also trained me more classical, but my natural inclination was toward Jazz.
Because I had no interest in what I was being taught, I started listening to music I loved and playing what I heard. That is what started a family singing group that I played keyboard for.
Now at 48, Iāve been writing and producing music for 30 years. Thatās good right? Yes! Except Iām tired of not knowing where to go next on the keyboard. I donāt want to have to feel my way around this instrument anymore or depend on other keyboardists to make my own music āprettier.ā
Soā¦no moe square chords for me. Iām ready to pick up where I left off as a child and actually learn this thing. I know it will make me a better musician and singer.
Blessings to all!
Hey @karenwclark welcome to the community area!
Many students here at PianoGroove - myself included - started with classical piano and so you should find the lessons and courses helpful to make the transition into jazz piano and to gain a deeper and more functional understanding of harmony.
I know I already sent you some recommendations in the lesson comments section so no need to repeat them here.
You might like to take a browse over our āTheory Questionsā & āPractice Inspirationā sections here in the forum which contain a lot of useful information and common questions and answers:
There is also a tonne of information in this thread for new students, where to start with the lessons and courses etcā¦ and so have a browse through some of my replies in this thread.
Again a warm welcome to PianoGroove and I look forward to hearing on your progress!
Talk soon, Hayden
Hi there. My name is James (35, UK) and Iām a relative newbie to the piano world, particularly jazz piano. Many years ago I used to play on my show tunes and pop songs on my dadās keyboard playing just the melody line with chords using the āone finger chordā function. As of May this year, I have purchased a digital piano and removed all assistive technologies to help me play properly. When I started again, I was playing simple triads, reading sheet music and learning some classical and Einaudi songs but, really itās jazz I want to learn. I can play a fairly decent arrangement of Misty, however, this was learned using sheet music. Now Iām a Pianogroove member, I hope to hone my skills with jazz and aspire to be able to play solo jazz piano (lounge, late night, cocktail, slow ballad style jazz) in the future.
Itās a pleasure to be here and I look forward to connecting more with this community.
Hey @jajw and welcome to the community area!
Thatās great that you are just starting out with jazz piano - you should find our step-by-step courses easy to follow but challenging at the same time.
In addition to studying the theory lessons in our Jazz Piano Foundations course, you might like to check out our āessentials practice guideā which contains 6 drills for each key (scales, triads, 7th chords, and the 3-note 251 progression), hereās the lesson:
This drill can be completed everyday, or every other day, and start by grouping the keys into groups of 2 or 3 and slowly build up to covering all keys in a single practice session.
In addition to the foundational material, I recommend to watch the theory lessons in our Chord Extensions course to expose yourself to some more interesting jazz chord voicings:
Finally, we have a dedicated course on Misty here:
This is a mixed-level course which starts with the basics and then we introduce more advanced theory starting in the second module.
As a new jazz piano student, the theory will be new to you from lesson 3 onwards. My view is that itās a good thing to expose ourselves to more advanced theory to see whatās coming up in the next courses and whatās the result of completing the foundation drills.
Thereās lots of useful information in this thread for beginner students, and where to start with the lessons and courses, and so take a browse though some of my responses above.
Again welcome to PianoGroove and talk soon!
Hi Hayden,
Thank you very much for the warm welcome and comprehensive starting plan. I am working my way through the lessons as suggested and am loving it all so far.
Hi,
I originally learnt the accordion, then took classical piano grades, then had a career in IT. Now playing popular songs from 1920ās onwards (shows, films, charts) at birthday/anniversaries etc. In recent years been more attracted to the richer harmony found in some jazz arrangements .
So would like to know more about how it works!. There is no shortage of resources here to delve into. I hope to improve my bossaās, walking bass, improvisation, chord voicings etc etc. Where will I get the time for all this!!
John
Hi @john17
Welcome to the community area!
Youāre certainly in the right place for learning standards and rich jazz harmonies.
Here are a few suggestions based on your interests:
For Bossa Nova, you might like to check out our Brazilian Grooves Course which provides information on the history and development of the style as well as some Bossa Nova classics:
For walking bass lines, here are a couple of forum threads which reference various lessons that we have on walking bass lines by our different teachers:
You can also use the website search feature, for example:
For improvisation you might like to check out the improvisation module of my course on āCocktail Piano Improvisationā:
For developing our improvisational abilities, itās very important to be regularly transcribing new melodic ideas to ābuild an arsenalā of improvised phrases.
Check out our Licks & Lines Library which contains short melodic ideas from iconic jazz pianists. Choose the ones that you personally like and transcribe them, transpose them, and apply to tunes that you are working on:
For chord voicings, here is a seminar which outlines the main theory milestones for beginner/early intermediate jazz harmony:
And this PDF file links to some of the most important drills for mastering the foundations, chord extensions, rootless voicings and stride, and altered harmony:
Another areas of interest could be Upper Structure Triad Voicings:
We have a huge library of lessons and seminars and so I hope this helps to give you some direction John.
If you have any questions donāt hesitate to ask.
Talk soon!
Hey all, I have been with PianoGroove since November and am now getting to the point where I feel comfortable with a few of the jazz standards. Is there a section of the Community where we can share any recordings for feedback please?
If there is, please go easy on me, Iāve only been learning piano for 7 months 
Thank you.
Hey @jajw - congratulations on your progress!
Yes we have the following thread where we can share our recordings:
You can upload audio or video. Audio is a little easier and more lightweight when uploading to the forum. Simply drag your audio file into a message and it will create an embedded audio player.
Yes weāre a very supportive community!
Itās a great idea to record yourself to document your progress and Iāll certainly give you some useful feedback and perhaps some new theory areas that you can explore to enrich your arrangements.
Looking forward!
Hi Hayden,
Thank you very much for the quick reply and for pointing me in the right direction! Iāll share some of my recordings.
Thanks for your support also, Iām working my way through he beginner courses and some of the content is starting to sink in 
Cheers
Hello all,
My name is Ali and Iāve been improvising on the piano for about ten years. Iāve never had lessons but somewhere on the way I picked up a couple of jazzy/bluesy scales and worked out some chords to go with them. As much as I loved my DIY/playful/intuitive approach to piano I realised Iād benefit a lot from learning some Jazz theory and expanding my repertoire which is why I signed up to this site.
Iāve enjoyed going through the Jazz foundations course and understanding a bit more about what I have been playing all these years and although it hasnāt impacted my improv yet I feel better equipped to start some of the improv courses you have on your site which I am excited about.
Here are two songs that represent the kind of improv I"d like to play, any suggestions on courses to get me there would be welcome
Hey @AliJ
Welcome to the community area!
Please excuse my late response, I wanted to take a listen to your recordings before repying to you with some suggestions.
Itās great that you have a specific style of improvisation that you are aiming towards, and in particular you have identified specific recordings where you think to yourself āWow Iād love my improv to sound like thatā. Thatās the first step to taking āyour soundā in a specific direction.
Have you ever tried transcribing parts of these solos?
This the best approach to learn improvisation ā¦ more on this below.
What a groovy recording - thanks for sharing!
Skimming through the recording āAlice Coltrane - Turiya And Ramakrishnaā, most of the melodic ideas are based on the Eb minor blues scale: blues licks, repeating motifs, bluesy inflections etcā¦
The beauty is not just which notes of the scale are being played, but also how the notes of scale are being played (phrasing/accents/attack) - which is of equal or sometimes more importance than the actual notes being played. Thatās the important stuff that you will learn by transcribing, emulating, and playing along with the recording.
If you are new to transcription, we have a step-by-step ear training program here:
Watch the featured video on the ear training homepage to understand how to work through the exercises.
These exercises will teach you how to recognise intervals, bass notes, and chord qualities so that you can start to dissect the solo.
Understand that any melody line or improvised solo, is simply a series of intervals and so interval training and recognition should be a top priority for you. All 50 beginner exercises focus on this.
Perhaps start with a short section of the recording that you like best, maybe 10 or 15 seconds of it, and than gradually work up to analysing larger segments of the solo.
Or you could just start with the first 20 seconds of the recording which contains a few interesting melodic ideas, and go from there.
Iād recommend the software Transcribe! which will help you identify the melodies, the harmonies, the bass notes and bass lines, etcā¦
and here is a seminar where I demonstrate the features and functionalities of the Transcribe software:
Once you can emulate some of the melodic ideas and phrases, the next step is to transpose them to different keys and apply them in other settings ie. jazz standards, blues forms, or anything else you are working on.
I created a step-by-step course on cocktail piano improvisation which is different to the style of improvisation in your recording, but none-the-less I feel that itās important that you understand some of the most common building blocks of improvised solos which are:
You can find the improvisation module in this course:
I hope that helps Ali and have fun working on this stuff!
Hi, Iām Bob. Iāve been thinking that I should post some things about myself on the community page, mostly because Iām really enjoying being part of the community. Itās very cool to have other people to play for, and itās really awesome to hear everyone elseās contribution. So Iām a big fan of the Piano Groove website! Iāve found here many things I missed out on when I was studying in college including great teaching and an āin-depthā look into jazz theory. So glad to find it now, and a cool community is a bonus indeed.
MUSICAL BACKGROUND
Iām 73 years old and have had a nice long life of being a professional piano player. By the word professional, I mean that I make money when I leave the house to play and have been doing that since my college years. I started classical training at 6 years old, started playing jazz in junior high (I remember playing ātake 5ā in a high school talent show, played in the high school jazz band, got scholarships to go to university of Nevada Reno for the jazz band and also to accompany opera singers. Then ultimately was hired to play in the bands in the casino showrooms in Reno. Also my friends and I had a jazz group that played Miles Davis quartet tunes at pop-up concerts around campus. When I left college, I moved to Northern California in a top 40 band which meant playing jazz was very secondary. As I continued working, all my gigs were either top 40, country western, blues, rock and roll or whoever was paying at the time. Over the next 50 years I had some really great gigs and some really terrible gigs, and even a few āElvisā tributes. I played after-hours gigs with some amazing people in some amazing places like āthe California Clubā, a very smokey blues joint where Big Mama Thornton sat in on a regular basis. (If you donāt know who she is look her upā¦she wrote āaināt nuthin but a hound dogā but didnāt get the $$$$$).
I think Iām a pretty typical LA area keyboard player. I played with a lot of interesting people, worked on a lot of projects that got close to a lot of record deals and played in a lot of very interesting venues from San Francisco to San Diego and every crappy toilet night club between.
LIFE HAPPENS
I do have one interesting and very different story to tell.
On October 4th, 1999 I was involved in a horrendous car accident, rear-ended by a big-rig truck on the freeway in a fatal accident which caused a huge fire. I barely escaped with my life but my right hand, right arm, right side of my face and body all were badly burned. Actually both hands were burned, the left was 2nd degree but the right was third degree. I was hospitalized in the ICU for 6 weeks on life support and required 20 reconstructive surgeries just on my right hand and arm, including many skin grafts and months of brutal hand therapy. Playing the piano became a huge part of hand therapy but in the beginning it was pure tortureā¦super painful, sometimes i left a trail of blood on the keys, entire fingernails would fall off in the process. I was in and out of surgery twice a month for about 2 years. I had a push pin in the tip of my little finger extending to my wrist for a month to keep it straight and then therapy for 6 months to make the finger bend. Ultimately the support of my wife, my pal the guitar play in my trio, other burn survivors, my family and a unique piano player named Michele Petruciani brought me through the worst times and back to a meaningful life of the best times.
I tell this story not looking for sympathy but because I truly celebrate the fact that I did get a double gift in my life. By that I mean I know that Iām not the worldās greatest pianist but I always loved to play and could do so well enough to keep working at what I love. Then, when it was so close to being gone forever, I found the strength and joy to work hard and regain what was nearly lost.
To any of you folks who read my bio, thank you for listening and celebrating with me!
FAVORITE PIANISTS
Herbie Hancock
Michele Petruciana (my inspiration when I was burned)
Chick Corea
Jay Oliver (with the Dave Weckle band. Amazing deep pocket!!!)
Bob James
Thelonius Monk
My name is Elizabeth
I was brought up in England and had piano lessons at a young age. I gave up in my teens and took it up again about 5 years ago with online lessons. At done point I found my way to Piano Grove. I learned a lot and still have and use the practice sheets and lead sheets. But I found myself lost in the website without a clear way to make any progress. I ventured off to other sites. But In stuck. Very stuck and frustrated. I want to play like Haydon Hill - Embraceable You on You Tube. What do you call that type of Jazz? Blues, cocktail jazz ??? What it it? Thereās lots of jazz I donāt like. I can play chords, voicings progressions lead sheets quite well but I canāt put it together to have fluency in my playing. I need help. Where to I start in the program to make some progress. This sounds like a dear Abbey letterā¦ and it is 
Hey @mymbills61 and welcome to the community!
Firstly Iām glad that you like my arrangement of āEmbraceable Youā, I created a tutorial on that arrangement here split into 2 lessons:
As for the style of this arrangement, itās a jazz ballad performed in stride style.
I incorporate different techniques commonly used in solo piano performance such as inner voice movement, suspended chords, and altered harmony. I also add sprinkles of blues scales for melodic embellishment. Click the links in this paragraph for related theory lessons on these topics.
We have many jazz standard tutorials that can be found listed on this page: https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-standard-index-difficulty/ - Iād recommend to click the tunes that interest you most. Perhaps sample a lesson from each difficulty (Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced) and find the best fit for your current level.
There is some overlap between the difficulty levels, for example some āIntermediateā arrangements might be more on the āBeginnerā or āAdvancedā side, so take a browse through to find some tutorials that interest you.
From a theory standpoint, here is a PDF called the āBeginner Jazz Piano Roadmapā:
This PDF links to the most important drills for beginner and early intermediate level jazz studies. The theory in these 4 courses accounts for most of the voicing and arranging techniques that I am using in the arrangement of āEmbraceable Youā.
Again I recommend to find your comfortable level and progress from there. It may be that you are already comfortable with the foundations, or perhaps all of the material in the PDF, in which case I recommend to spend more time studying and emulating my arrangements and jazz standard lessons.
Here are 3 seminars that explain the drills in the Beginner Jazz Roadmap in great detail. These seminars will help you to visualise the main theory milestones for the techniques that I use in my playing:
The first 2 seminars are 1 hour 20 minutes long, and the practice planning seminar is 1 hour long. You can use the chapters on the right hand side to watch these seminars in multiple sittings.
I recommend to watch them in this order, starting with voicings, then chord progressions, and then practice planning.
After watching those seminars, it will be clear on how to progress, how to structure your practice time, and which drills are the most important.
As a general rule of thumb, I recommend students to spend 50% of their time on theory studies, and 50% of their time studying the jazz standard lessons. The latter is the more enjoyable side of learning jazz piano and so balance both parts to ensure that you are having fun and enjoying the learning journey.
This split will also help you to learn new theory, and then directly apply it in context of songs so that you understand the practical application.
I think that should be enough to get you started Elizabeth - if you have any questions along the way you can post questions in the lesson page comments section and that pings me a notification.
Alternatively you can always post here in the community area and myself and our other teachers and students will be happy to assist 
Enjoy the lessons and I look forward to hearing on your progress!