I’ve watched the entire “Jazz Piano Course” and have completed “Nearness of You” (simple version) smoothly. Now working on the 3-notes playing style of 251. Already completed 6 keys and shall move onto the remaining 6 keys later.
As a beginner, I wonder should my next course be the “Extended Chords & Voicing” or “Master Left Hand Voicing” or any course within your portfolio which you may like to recommend.
My short term aim is to develop how to use chords and voicing freely so that I could spice up a song anytime I feel like.
Congratulations on learning “The Nearness Of You” and on completing the foundations course. Onto your questions:
You are very much on the right path with breaking down the 3 note 251s into groups of keys to make the task more manageable. The 251 progression really is the foundation of jazz harmony and so learning each key thoroughly will make your life a lot easier later down the line.
I recommend that you continue with the jazz standard tutorials in the “Beginner Jazz Arrangements” course which you are already working on. I also recommend that students study multiple courses at once and in particular, the following 3 courses together tie together nicely for students who are new to jazz piano:
Much of the theory is interrelated and it will give you more of a sense of progression when you see how the foundational material is applied and developed in the subsequent courses.
Don’t worry if you encounter theory that doesn’t make sense. When I started out I was just copying the voicings that my teacher showed me and at the time the full theoretical understanding was not there. Over time it will all make sense.
Structuring Our Practice Time:
I recommend to broadly split our practice time in half, starting with the theory drills and exercises outlined in our PDF practice planners and then for the second half of our practice time just have fun playing the standards which are listed on each practice planner.
With your aspiration to play any song create a nice arrangement using your own harmonic knowledge and creativity, I’d recommend to study the jazz standard lessons and the voicing techniques used. Also out these post in the forum where I give a lot of similar advice:
It does take time so be patient with it and aim to gradually build out your repertoire of jazz standards. This will then inform the way you choose voicings for any song you would like to play.
Above anything else Lawrence enjoy the journey and have fun with it. Learning jazz is definitely the most difficult, and challenging, but also rewarding thing I have ever chosen to pursue and it’s a constant learning journey. There is always more to learn which is one of the fascinating things for me.
Enjoy the lessons and any other questions let us know
I just finished recording 7 beginner songs from your site. Now into my 3rd year playing. The last 12 months using your site and watching you play was enlightening. I learned the pieces in tempo but mostly play them freely as I feel like playing them, adding my touches to a couple. My big concern is the tempo on some. feedback hasn’t raised that as a criticism but would like to hear if tempo makes those pieces hard to listen to.
I just turned 60 and feeling a bit nervous about how to spend my time over the next 12 months, want to get the most out of this time. My original plan was to learn as many songs as I could in 12 months then record them. Then go back and deconstruct them to figure out what’ going on, watch your lessons again ect… I will do that and along the way play closer attention with new pieces. Also plan on spending more time fundamental tutorials.
It is nice to see new beginner pieces, so thanks for that. I thought I had picked off the easy stuff ( still hard for me), now I have a few more to learn. Darn the dream is taking forever, nice song though, it will be worth it. fyi,. Nearness of you, is a nice level, was able to get the notes down in a week and getting the tempo up now, it’s a winner. note; Love audio files that go with the transcription, huge for me.
I love the way your play and teach. Your gifted with the video presentations, I hope your appreciated for this talent as well as your playing. Your video lesson presentations are another talent.
How would one post the songs on the forum for feedback. I used a sound cloud link to share with family, does that work?
thanks! I look forward to the next 12 months on your fantastic site.
That’s wonderful to hear on your progress. I’m sure many other new students will be inspired reading this.
Yes some of the arrangements on the site are challenging. Remember that we will be playing these tunes for the rest of our lives and so as each year goes by we we get more and more comfortable with them.
Thank you very much Ben. It’s always wonderful to hear such feedback.
It would be delightful to hear your performances and yes I will give you my feedback and I’m sure our others teacher and students will do too.
Yes Soundcloud is a great choice, simply click “share” on the Soundcloud recording and copy the embed code. It creates a nice looking embed, see here an example:
Cheers and thanks again for sharing your experiences it’a pleasure to read and I’m sure will be very useful to others.
@ben - I think your playing is brilliant and it’s wonderful how you are adding your own touches here and there. With each new tune you learn, the easier it becomes to learn new ones.
I’d be very happy with the progress you have made within a year, to be able to play 8 tunes so beautifully. Congrats!
Here’s some ideas which may help:
Once we have learnt and memorised the harmony of a tune tune, we can start to listen to transcribe little fills and ornamentation from our favourite recordings. Perhaps create a Spotify or YouTube playlist for each of the songs you will hear little things that you like. It could be the phrasing of the melody (I hear you are already adding little ornamentations here and there which is awesome). It could be a particular voicing, introduction, fill, or ending etc… The goal is to transcribe those things are with our ears, and then add them to our arrangement.
If you are new to transcription check out Tuomo’s transcription section of the forum:
I also noticed that most of the tunes you are playing are in Eb:
Over The Rainbow
Misty
Tenderly
Someone To Watch Over Me
Like Someone In Love
It can be nice to use the 1625 progression to link our arrangements together. Particularly when playing for friends and family to create a medley of jazz standards in one continuous stream. Check out the lesson on that here:
Thanks again for sharing these, as I’ve mentioned I think your playlist will serve as great inspiration for others students. It’s also a fantastic example of what can be achieved within a year of studying.
Cheers and let me know if I can help with anything you are working on.
Ben, it’s a pleasure to listen to your tunes. May I ask how you record? I’ve been trying to learn Logic Pro X.
You mention turning 60 and wondering how to best spend your time learning jazz piano. I’ll be 68 this year and have been wondering the same thing. I study something and hear that it may take a lifetime to learn this or that. Well, based on the actuarial tables, that puts us at a disadvantage. At any rate, thanks for sharing.
Also thanks for the positive feedback. Know that without being able to see and hear your examples and this site for inspiration. I’d be stuck in some beginner song book, “a little lamb who’s lost in the wood”
so here’s to you!. thanks!
Thanks for “Nearness of you” easier but interesting. Just added it to the Sound Cloud playlist above. Gave it the old good enough for now. When I instructed golf the most rewarding part was when someone worked on the information provided to them. Figure you may feel the same way.
I took your survey, and was interested in hearing more about online one on one instruction.
Wow! Ben - so beautifully played! Really have enjoyed listening to your tracks!!! I would ask the same question - not sure if we already have a thread for Tips in Recording for Piano - etc but yeah - how do you record your songs?
That is nice to hear, you are very kind. Thank you!
They are recorded directly to a Keyboard as a wav. file which is saved to a USB drive. The sound is a multiple part performance that came on board. Just tweak the volumes of each instrument to ones preferences. If you would like more details don’t hesitate to ask, I enjoy the conversation.
Hey Ben. Thanks so much. Fantastic tip! That was helpful! And will sure ask in case I have other questions. I think I will spend some time with my digi-piano this holiday to explore it more !
Wow! on Darn that dream There’s definitely something about your playing, Hayden’s superb arrangement, then your wonderful additions to it - that gets the listener to stop! and just listen! I think I listened to it more than 3x now haha - trying to get that melody (and feels) ingrained in my brains …
seriously same with Hayden’s and other instructors’ playing in every course or lesson - their music interpretation alone (all the time for me) makes me just want to listen and shut every other sound around me that gets in the way of my listening - hahah!
Question Ben - so these first songs you have recorded, which one did you know to sing or were quite familiar with already - before you ever started learning to play it?
Was there a song that you did not know much at all - and then learned to play and interpret too?
Do you internalize them differently before playing if you already knew the song? how about those (if there are for example) you didn’t know much?
or which Piano groove lesson or song did you repeatedly listen to the most? and why?
my very little discovery (I’ve only learned a number of songs) was if I knew the song before or have sung it (for ex. When I fall in love) it was so much easier to practice or study the feels of it - no matter if I knew nothing much about the jazz chords in it at first…
Then with other tunes (I didn’t really know about) I was/am learning - am continually, repeatedly listening to how they were played, interpreted - now makes - me want to search the courses and check Hayden’s lesson on it - plus listen to YT too and find out about “Darn that Dream” Sometimes, takes me a lot more time listening to other jazz standards as I need to find clues, little research for the purpose of those tunes when they were composed or performed for example… (a day in the life of beginner jazz players haha - maybe we all can have that kind of thread too )
This was very refreshing and motivating! Thanks so much for sharing it with us. Sorry that got long Looking forward to more!
I’m just putting in lots of hours trying to copy Hayden best I can, using the suggestions from his lessons, my listening focus is there. I do find the lyrics of the song very helpful. I’m always shocked how poorly the song sounds once I start trying to record it but for me that’s where the most improvement happens for me, more of the process.
The on-board performance I’m using in the keyboard has a Pad Choir instrument along with the pianos. The Choir is set to the lowest effects setting and I recently moved this effect into just the melody keys, this change cleaned up the harmony which I like much more, but still gives me some cover in my playing. This adds a floating effect people seem to like.
Thanks again for positive feedback.
Keep us posted!
Thank you for sharing your lovely recordings. You brought Darn that Dream to my attention. How did I miss that one?!!! I am having such fun with it. I wonder how many other gems I have missed?
At any rate, thanks for sharing.
There’s definitely something about your playing, Hayden’s superb arrangement, then your wonderful additions to it - that gets the listener to stop! and 
just listen! I think I listened to it more than 3x now haha - trying to get that melody (and feels) ingrained in my brains …
- so these first songs you have recorded, which one did you know to sing or were quite familiar with already - before you ever started learning to play it?
Looking forward to more!