Are you looking 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 joining an existing amateur or professional outfit?
I offer jazz piano lessons at my studio in Sunnyside (Queens, NY) and online via Lessonface (or directly via Zoom or Skype) 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) 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 articles regularly for tips, ideas, transcriptions, analyses, and in depth study of intriguing jazz topics that will 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 a playlist on Spotify you can dig into entitled “FunJazz Piano Lessons: Essential Jazz” (embedded below), which is a selection 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.
Tools / Study Material / Resources
- Basic Theory (intervals, triads, seventh chords, II-V-I, pentatonics, modes/degrees of the major scale)
- Berklee audition practice exercises
- Tertial triads (major, minor, augmented, diminished)
- Quartal triads (2, suspended)
- Modes of the Major Scale
- Intervals Commonly Used in Jazz and Their Inversions
- Low Interval Limits
- Jamey Aebersold, Charlie Parker Omnibook: for C instruments (treble clef) (Alfred Music Publishing)
- Johann Sebastian Bach, Chorales (especially good to practice sight-reading and available online at bach-chorales.com)
- Fiona Bicket, The Barry Harris Approach to Improvised Lines & Harmony: An Introduction (www.barryharris.com)
- Miles Davis, Quincy Troupe, Miles: The Autobiography (Simon & Schuster)
- Clare Fischer, Harmonic Exercises for Piano (Advance Music)
- Jeff Gardner, Jeff Gardner Music School (YouTube channel)
- Charles-Louis Hanon, The Virtuoso Pianist in Sixty Exercises for the Piano (Schirmer)
- Michael Hewitt, Musical Scales of the World (The Note Tree)
- Yusef Lateef, Repository of Scales and Melodic Patterns (Fana Music)
- 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 Corp.)
- Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art (Tarcher/Penguin)
- Neil Olmstead, Solo Jazz Piano: The Linear Approach (Berklee Press)
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (fully digitized here on jazz pianist Bill Carrothers’ website!)
- Nicolas Slonimsky, Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns (Amsco Publications)
- Adam Spiers, Scale Matcher (web application)
- Kenny Werner, Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Musician Within (http://kennywerner.com/effortless-mastery)
- Forrest Wernick, Eric O’Donnell, Jazz Advice (blog)
Lesson Rates
| At your home anywhere in New York City | $90 per hour |
| At my studio in Sunnyside (Queens, NY / 46th Street–Bliss Street subway stop on the 7 train) | $70 per hour |
| Online (anywhere with an internet connection!) | $60 per hour |
| In your home town (when on tour) | $80 per hour |
It is possible to schedule a 30 or 45-minute lesson instead of a full hour (of course, rates vary accordingly!)
You can make your payment in cash 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 TransferWise to make an international payment.
Contact
Jim Funnell
Lessonface profile
FunJazz Piano Lessons on Facebook
FunJazz Piano Lessons Spotify Playlist
FunJazz Piano Lessons YouTube Playlist
Email/PayPal/Google Pay: funnelljim@gmail.com
Skype/Venmo: akiko4djembe
Cell (US): +1 (929) 229-9250
Cell (FR): +33 (0)6 58 34 20 62
