Do you want to learn jazz piano, improvisation, harmony, composition, arranging? Sit in at a jam session? Be admitted to a jazz school/music college? Build a repertoire of standards, write tunes, maybe even put your own band together or feel comfortable playing within an existing amateur or professional ensemble?
I offer jazz piano lessons at my studio in Saintines (a village in France located between Paris and Compiègne) and online via Lessonface, or directly from me to you (on Zoom/Skype/Google Meet), that are well suited for:
- pianists of all styles (jazz, classical, blues, gospel, pop, R&B…) and levels (beginners welcome);
- instrumentalists (non-pianists including computer musicians/producers) eager to strengthen their basic piano skills and harmonic knowledge or deepen the practice of improvisation on their principal instrument;
- vocalists who wish to hone their piano accompaniment skills.
In addition to the actual lessons, make sure to check out these FunJazz Piano Lessons blog posts regularly for practice tips, “EZ piano arrangements,” transcriptions, analyses, and in depth study of intriguing jazz topics. I hope that they’ll help you walk in the masters’ Footprints and make Giant Steps towards your Freedom Jazz Dance!
Repertoire
The repertoire studied during the lessons can be as vast as jazz is diverse. I curate both a Spotify playlist and a YouTube playlist you can dig into, which are selections of standards, jazz tunes, Latin tunes, rhythm changes, blues, and ballads performed by a wealth of diverse musicians, and covering a wide range of styles and eras. In fact, exploitable melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic elements for the purpose of these lessons can be drawn from most music, within and beyond the scope of jazz… I’m therefore open to – and encourage – students’ suggestions: practicing a piece one actually knows and enjoys can be a strong motivational factor and often enhances the learning experience.
Study Material / Resources
- Blank staff paper
- Intervals and Their Inversions
- Tertial triads (Major, Minor, Augmented, Diminished)
- Quartal triads (2, sus4 and 7sus4)
- Major and Minor Seventh Chords
- Dominant Seventh Chords
- Half-Diminished and Diminished Seventh Chords
- Modes of the Major Scale/Characteristic Notes
- Low Interval Limits
- Johann Sebastian Bach, Chorales (especially good to practice sight-reading and available online at bach-chorales.com)
- Charles-Louis Hanon, The Virtuoso Pianist in Sixty Exercises for the Piano (Schirmer)
- Oscar Peterson, Jazz for the Young Pianist (Hansen House) (available here on Internet Archive)
- Christian Schäfer, Op. 45 – Volume 1 – Sight Reading Exercises (Piano) (available here on Musescore)
- Christian Schäfer, Op. 45 – Volume 2 – Melodious Exercises (Piano) (available here on Musescore)
- The Real Books – Volumes I – VI – C Edition (Hal Leonard)
- The New Real Books: Vol. 1 – 3 (Sher Music Co.)
- Jamey Aebersold, Charlie Parker Omnibook: for C instruments (treble clef) (Alfred Music Publishing)
- Mark Levine, The Jazz Piano Book (Sher Music Co.)
- Mark Levine, Jazz Piano Masterclass: The Drop 2 Book (Sher Music Co.)
- Mark Levine, How to Voice Standards at the Piano: the Menu (Sher Music Co.)
- Frank Mantooth, Voicings for Jazz Keyboard (Hal Leonard)
- Neil Olmstead, Solo Jazz Piano: The Linear Approach (Berklee Press)
- Fiona Bicket, The Barry Harris Approach to Improvised Lines & Harmony: An Introduction (www.barryharris.com)
- Clare Fischer, Harmonic Exercises for Piano (Advance Music)
- Michael Hewitt, Musical Scales of the World (The Note Tree)
- Robert Hutchinson, Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom
- Yusef Lateef, Repository of Scales and Melodic Patterns (Fana Music)
- George Russell, Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization – Volume One: The Art and Science of Tonal Gravity (Concept Publishing Company)
- Nicolas Slonimsky, Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns (Amsco Publications)
- Miles Davis, Quincy Troupe, Miles: The Autobiography (Simon & Schuster)
- Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art (Tarcher/Penguin)
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
- Kenny Werner, Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Musician Within
- Barron’s Online Test Preparation (AP music theory exam prep)
- Berklee audition practice exercises (sheet music & play-alongs)
- Dave Frank Masterclasses (YouTube playlist)
- Guitarscale.org (for guitarists: fretboard diagrams and more)
- iReal Pro (app available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, & Android)
- Jazzadvice (blog)
- Jeff Gardner Music School (YouTube channel)
- Loop Player (app on Google Play)
- Scale Matcher (web application)
- Tap Tempo – BPM Counter (web application)
Lesson Rates
| At your home anywhere near Compiègne / Chez vous n’importe où près de Compiègne (communes de l’ARC) Conditions générales de prestation (PDF) | contact me for rates / me contacter pour tarifs |
| At my studio / À mon studio (202 rue du Château, 60410 Saintines, France) Conditions générales de prestation (PDF) | contact me for rates / me contacter pour tarifs |
| Online (anywhere with an internet connection!) | $75 per hour |
| Catch me on tour in your hometown | $90 per hour |
It is possible to schedule a 30 or 45-minute lesson instead of a full hour (of course, rates vary accordingly!)
Should you prefer not going through the Lessonface platform (i.e. booking your lessons directly with me), you can make your payment in cash, Bitcoin, or via Google Pay/PayPal/Venmo/wire transfer to one of my bank accounts in France or in the United States (bank information will be communicated through email at time of scheduling). If your account is outside of the Eurozone and outside of the US, I recommended Wise to make an international payment.