Download PDF practice plans & watch performances by our students & teachers to inspire your practice sessions. Discover useful tips, tricks & exercises on harmony & improvisation.
For many of us, we have busy lives, lots of commitments, and a limited amount of time to dedicate to practicing jazz piano.
The goal of this category is to create a collaborative environment for sharing our practice routines and schedules, as well as general tips and advice from the PianoGroove Community.
If you have any of the following questions… you are in the right place!
This is very early stages, I have lots more ideas to build out this section and create an awesome resource for all of our community.
Let me know what you think so far, and I’m completely open to all ideas and suggestions - this idea came from our students initially, so let’s run with it and create something awesome
Having a bit experience in three others internet sites of learning piano helps me immediately finding the gaps in some area .
The three others sites havent got an area of Practice plans and neither Practice groups , i discover this in the bass learning SBL and i m pretty sure it is the most important thing in the process of learning an instrument on internet and keeping the motivation going. Internet give us the possibily to share much more than in even a real live course with other students who have same goals . Only in big institute of learning jazz like Berklee where students can get in little groups to practice together, and all students talk about the importance of this in their journey in studying jazz … and this must be even more effective with real relation. But internet should try to reproduce that , to give a plan and in my opinion little groups of 4-5 students with same motivation. Other interest for you would be to keep the same students during more years so you will know there even better, you will get some more money for building the site even stronger .
So other step, in my opinion , should be to motivate people to create little
Practice groups. Maybe creating even a Practice groups Topic … i maybe a litttle too exicted , theres only one group of 2 guys which even not have begin. But if it is coming from you Hayden i am pretty sure the students will get more in , they trust and are in admiration with your playing and nice way of learning process . I believe in practice groups that must be enough clear
Another gap in your great site is we have no direct live session of learning ; and this should be another great direction … sure must be a little time consuming too but the technology make this now possible. Or another more easy way is to share video of our playing where we are asking something and to have reply in videos , on SBL site Scott give every month a student feedback video.
The last idea i see is to have some podcast videos of musician around you who are involved in music talking about different area of the music journey : how they grow in music , some tricks in their playing, how they warm before a concert, amplification…
Yes live session would be great.You can work with 2 live sessions.One for youtube for all your suscribers and newcomers and one here for the members of the community. On you tube you can pick a topic that you like and develop it from there for the general public.They can ask you questions live etc.But here it can be a topic that can be voted by the members of piano groove.Olso live sessions here can be longer more longer and you reply more questions…basically on you tube you give a taste of what you can get by beign a member of piano groove but you do it a bit less…The important part is to gather a fanbase and reach audiênce by oferring a little for free.I think that you should definetly show your face more on your youtube vídeos…to create a connection and familiarity with your future audiênce… Beign part educator and parte youtuber while staying professional could do wonders.Just look at Antonios Santanas vídeos… he Talks about men style etc…he shows that he is composed and professional but olso he reaches to his audience as a cool dude who could be your friend in your day to day life.I personality like to dress stylish and i only go for his vídeos for advice because he is professional, he has knowledge to share and olso because i m familiar with him…he is easy to listen to and he communicates with you as your friend without even knowing you. https://youtu.be/yoqRPb_Uvms
Maybe Hayden you could do the last plan for the jazz standard Studies : how you imagine this last 30minutes discovering a new standard
first learn the melody ,2nd the chords progression, 3rd … for instance.
But even there 15 minutes of transposition must be added in the plan because i know you always repeat it and you have not written it (an omission ?). ARggg i still didnt integrated it in my practice routine , despite i’m convinced of its necessity … but all my practice routine plan still in gestation (hope it will not take over 9 months )
Thanks
Awesome thanks Pierre, lots more to come… I’m really excited about this new section of the forum.
Great idea regarding jazz standards, I’m still working out a nice format for the bottom half of the practice plan PDF files. The bottom half looks a little empty currently
Here’s A Process That I Follow To Learn Jazz Standards:
Check this post out Pierre if you havn’t already, this is a process that I find to be very effective.
I think this will be different for everyone based on their level and ability.
If you are brand new to jazz piano, then I would recommend simply studying the beginner jazz standard lessons, and copying the arrangements note-for-note.
The above process is more of a self-guided approach, which is better for late-beginner/early-intermediate students.
The Importance Of Listening, Try To Listen To Every Recording You Can Find!
Listening is such an essential part of learning jazz, every spare moment in the day should be dedicated to it. I often try to listen to every recording I can find for the tune I’m working on. Using tools like YouTube and Spotify, I can do this over the course of a few days whilst I’m doing other tasks like driving, cooking, or whatever.
Start By Listening, Then Pick Up The Lead Sheet
If you are learning to play a new tune, the most elementary thing you can do - before even picking up a lead sheet - is to listen to the famous recordings of the tune.
This will naturally lead onto transcribing your favourite parts, and before long you will be developing ‘your sound’ in the direction you want to take it.
That is the beautiful thing about transcription, instead of being shown something of the teacher’s taste, you are actively seeking the learn the material of your own taste.
Let me know what you think Pierre. Hopefully the above will give you some insight on my approach to learning jazz standards
My post was more get you to create another short video about the “30 minutes standard studies” ( as you does the 4 others videos )so all students could have all at the same place in this practice plan categorie. numbering the chapters might also be a good idea, because when comin on the “practice plan page” it gets confusing
for instance :
1-major minor 9th
2-9th 11th 13ths
3- extensions and 251major
4-minor voicings
5- standard studies
Yes i agree the current structure will get confusing. I need to implement @ivan’s suggestion for Beginner / Intermediate / Advanced.
And then also number them starting with ‘#1’ as the easiest.
Yes thinking about it, we should have all these lessons in the same thread. I will combine the threads today.
So we will have the following threads so far:
#1 - Foundations Of Jazz Piano #2 - Extended Chords & Voicings
And in each of thread, it will contain all of the exercises listed 1 though 6.
Great idea Pierre. I will implement shortly.
How would this be different to the current lessons?..
For example, the plan highlights the following lessons where I walk through how to arrange the tune. I’m more than happy to make an additional lesson, but I want to make sure that I’m not simply repeating what I have covered below.
I appreciate that the “30 Minutes Jazz Standards” section of the plan needs more focus/directions, but I’m unsure how to do this - that’s the only thing I’m unsure on, I think the rest of the PDF document is great.
Let me know what you think.
Perhaps it could be as simple as
“You Have 30 Minutes To Watch & Work On These Lessons:”
Great job this structuration !!
But I’m afraid the extended chords part might frighten a beginner in jazz studies. I think it should be me more for intermediate player, to avoid overwhelming the student who just begin. The basic part is already a pretty big journey.
Even you introduce them in the beginner jazz standard, not sure a beginner should spend too much time on it .
But know we can see a big chapter is missing : improvisation . The biggest and challenging part !
I think you could resume what you do already in those current beginner lesson but without applying it in a whole song ( melody-root, melody 3-7, reharmonisation) but especially highlights the other point you dont talk in those lessons
The Importance Of Listening, Try To Listen To Every Recording You Can Find of the tune !
Start By Listening, Then Pick Up The Lead Sheet
remembering the whole song without needing sheetmusic
learning song by chunks
transposing some some part of recording we love, and transpose in some keys.
how integrating the ideas you expose in your current songs lessons and in the transcription to be able to apply it in other tunes, small end by small end with showing some examples
maybe giving the steps to learn a tune like you do it here:
Brilliant thanks for this Pierre… you got my cogs turning on how this could work.
Really great suggestion with 1 thread per course by the way…
I can now go into each thread and update it when new lessons are added. For example, a beginner lesson on “Just Friends” will be added shortly, I’ve just finished editing, and so I can simply add it to this thread.
, to give a plan and in my opinion little groups of 4-5 students with same motivation. Other interest for you would be to keep the same students during more years so you will know there even better, you will get some more money 
for building the site even stronger 
.
that must be enough clear 
… but all my practice routine plan still in gestation (hope it will not take over 9 months 
)
