The 5 Areas To Focus On As a Jazz Piano Beginner

13 Minute Read

The journey of learning Jazz can often be confusing, frustrating and overwhelming to navigate. As a beginner or someone even a few years into their Jazz journey, it’s very easy to get lost in the allure of complex Theory, amazing harmony, millions of lush voicings and an endless amount of solos and dazzling techniques. And waste a lot of time on things or ways to practice that are inefficient, ineffective and don't produce the results you're really after.

To truly thrive as a Jazz musician, it’s essential to focus on the foundational aspects that pave the way for lasting growth, setting us up for the absolute best chance of success; Ones that build the best habits and skills. In this post, we’ll uncover five critical areas that beginner Jazz pianists tend to focus on first (and even for a while after starting out) vs. 5 areas they should prioritize instead.

Let’s first talk about the 5 areas I see most people make the mistake of spending too much time on when starting out, including myself when I started:

1. Music Theory

New and exciting scales, modes, chords, chord symbols and complex harmony dominate our awareness. We think that by mastering and knowing all of Jazz Theory we’ll gain the knowledge of how to improvise; That it’s the magic key which unlocks everything to becoming a better Jazz musician. However, Theory is only one of many pieces of the puzzle and explains the WHY, but doesn’t explain or teach you HOW to actually improvise! Some key things beginners miss with this approach is that Theory is a means to an end. They don’t spend time on training their ears and HEARING all of this new theory, but instead focusing on all the WHAT, thinking if they’ll be able to play any and all Jazz if they understand all the theory. Unfortunately, it dosen’t work that way. While theory is a vital component to understanding Jazz, you will learn it as you go along. Focus more on your ears and less on the Theory itself and your entire approach to music will change for the better. Jazz is an aural artform.

2. Transcribing Entire Solos

I was guilty of this way more than once, as were many others. While it’s important to see the architecture of an entire solo and how it starts, develops and ends, we think that learning a solo in it’s entirety will give us all the vocabulary and improvising skills in Jazz that we’d ever need. We think it’s THE magic key to be better improvisers and is a (relatively) quick and effective method to do so. Instead what you’ll soon find is, you will be frustrated that none of what you learned really seems to come out in your own playing. And that you won’t be able to recall much of the solo in the heat of the moment! When using a specific lick, it will either come out too late and sound totally forced, throw off your playing and knowing where you are in the tune’s form, or you simply won’t be able to execute it and play it. Or you’ll forget to use it or be unable to access it because you’re focused on so many other aspects of playing! The answer is to transcribe SHORT phrases, learn each individual phrase in all 12 keys, make your own slight variations of the phrase to make it your own, then use the phrase obnoxiously on tunes/in the context of tunes. For example if it’s a Major chord phrase, use it on every Major chord of the tune you’re playing/learning. (For more info on this, see my post about “How to Transcribe the RIGHT Way”).

3. Voicings and Harmony

What initially drew me to Jazz was the rich, lush and complex harmony. In particular, hearing the gorgeous harmonies and voicings of pianist Bill Evans. This is similar for many getting into Jazz piano, as Evans was Classically trained and took the harmonies of Ravel and Debussy and used them in a unique way in his own playing (among other things). As a Classical pianist or a new Jazz pianist, we often start out with weak, corny sounding voicings that are ineffective and our soloing and improv skills are, well, downright terrible. We know they don’t sound great and wonder how we’re supposed to sound like the greats and as pianists we’re supposed to learn chords because we’ll be comping so much. And we’ll do just about anything to sound like them! While this is a noble endeavor and will come with time in your journey (I promise), it’s often an area people spend too much time on, thus neglecting more key skills such as improvising and developing your soloing skills, focusing on rhythm and time, working on fluency and learning how to play tunes. The tendency is our voicings will start to sound good, but we neglect our soloing because it’s much harder.

4. Learning Licks (with no real context)

We want to sound good. Heck we want to sound absolutely AMAZING. When starting out, our vocabulary is incredibly limited. We want to quickly be able to play the dazzling lines we hear from the greats. We’re like babies babbling, trying our best to speak a difficult foreign language. While transcribing is something you want to be doing regularly, there’s a certain way to go about it: What most people do is make the mistake of learning a lick in a vacuum. They think just by learning it that it will make them a better improviser. The problem is not applying/using it in context to tunes or improv situations, or making slight variations of it to make it their own and using it with their own improv in different ways. Just like learning a language, you can learn the most eloquent or sophisticated phrase in the world, but without using it in the right context, or ways to make it sound more or less apparent or subtle, it’s all for not. Make sure to learn a lick slowly, in all 12 keys, with a few of your own variations of it (whether it’s rhythmic or adding a few notes, etc.) and overly use it on tunes and progressions you’re working on to get a sense of where it works. Much like learning a foreign language, speaking the language yourself is harder than listening to it or reading it. Practicing in this way is the “speaking” part. It will be tedious and slow at firt, but if you stick with it for the long haul and trust the process, I promise you’ll see the benefits eventually.

5. Learning from Books and YouTube Videos

This happens to EVERYBODY. It’s like being a kid in the biggest candy store in the world. There’s so many cool techniques, juicy complex voicings to learn, scales to learn, how to sound like certain pianists, how to play 2–5–1s, 2–5–1 licks, the list is endless. There’s a million books and videos on Jazz piano. Of course you’re going to be learning from some books and YouTube videos. The problem is knowing what books and YouTube videos are actually useful vs. what are not. We want to know what will be the most effective and time efficient. What typically happens is, you’ll end up spending time absorbing disparate bits of information like licks, little tips from YouTube videos, bits and pieces of information from books and NOT fitting them into a greater context. Especially because there’s just so much information you’re trying to learn and absorb. The result is ending up with isolated bits of knowledge sitting in a vacuum, spreading yourself far too thin and wondering why you can’t improvise or are getting any better. There’s too many licks, voicings, progressions, techniques. Not to mention learning too many tunes! All of this inevitably leads to immense overwhelm, burnout and frustration.

The above topics would seemingly make sense to focus on though, as there’s nothing wrong with anything mentioned above and all are important in their own ways. Eventually people do come to those realizations, but it often happens many months and even years into their journey. Don’t make the same mistakes!

The truth is, there’s FAR more important things to focus on that most beginners don’t realize, can’t see the importance of or simply don’t know any better that will save literally years of time and frustration, work on crucial foundational aspects and will greatly strengthen their playing and development as a Jazz pianist.

My aim is to prevent all of that from happening so you can avoid the mistakes I and so many others have made that we later regretted. And to steer you towards what to focus on instead that will give you the most growth, essential lasting skills and the biggest chances for success.

Now of course, you’ll still be learning theory, voicings, transcribing solos, learning licks and studying from books and YouTube at some level, we all do and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The mistake is spending too much time on those things, or thinking that those things alone/specifically are going to make you better.

Make sense?

So what 5 areas should you be focusing on instead??

1. Listening to LOTS of Jazz music. All the time.

Learning Jazz is very similar to learning a difficult foreign language. When learning any language, you have to immerse yourself in it if you truly want to get better and become fluent. To acquire the best ways to phrase, speak, communicate and understand the subtleties of a language, it’s absolutely imperative to be listening all the time. For Jazz, that means listening to the great players and musicians of this music regularly and often (and not just piano players!).

It will help in so many ways: It’s by far the best for ear training, learning and getting familiar with Jazz standards and commonly played tunes in the Jazz repertoire, training your sense of common song forms. The articulation, phrasing and ways a soloist improvises over the chord changes, how a band interacts and communicates with each other, the rhythms and syncopation of a rhythm section in the band (drums, bass, piano/guitar) and how they all work together, etc.

Most of all, it will help you LEARN Jazz; To actually HEAR the repertoire, the subtleties of the music. And it will develop your ears more than anything else. Listening is big and most beginners don’t listen nearly enough. Fortunately there’s an endless amount of Jazz recordings available these days and if you’re lucky enough to go see some good live Jazz, do so regularly and often. I can’t stress the importance of listening enough. (If you’re not familiar with Jazz, see my “History of Jazz Piano: Brief Overview” article which has explanations of each era and style from its beginnings through the modern day, each with various listening examples).

2. Rhythm

It’s so easy to get caught up with the harmony and theory of Jazz. But what most beginners don’t focus on nearly enough, don’t realize they need to or should, or simply aren’t aware, is that good rhythm makes all the difference in the world. It’s so vitally important to really work on and develop your swing feel, phrasing, playing with good time, feel and groove, touch and articulation, expression. Rhythm is EVERYTHING in Jazz. Have you ever heard the sayings “It’s not what notes you play, it’s how you play them” or “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing”?

The best way to work on your rhythm is playing a Blues tune or much of Thelonious Monk’s original music (which really force you to work on your rhythm and swing). If you don’t have the right rhythm and phrasing, you’ll keep wondering why you just don’t have the “it” factor and why your playing just doesn’t sound right. You can play all the right notes in a scale, or even a transcribed phrase from a great player; But if you don’t play it with the right rhythm, touch, articulation, phrasing, etc. it won’t sound good. On the flip side, you can play all the “wrong” notes, but if they’re played with a good rhythm and feel, it can work. There’s no better situation or style of Jazz to expose your lack of rhythm than playing a Blues. Record yourself playing over a Blues, listen back and hear for yourself!

3. Playing the Blues and Blues-based tunes

The Blues is the absolute best thing you could do as a primer and foundation for Jazz playing, improvising and is crucial as a beginner: It works greatly on:

• Swing feel

• Phrasing and Articulation

• Keeping good time, rhythm and groove

• Using compositional devices like Motivic Development as the basis and building blocks of your solos (and any solo you ever play) along with other common devices such as: Repetition, Imitation, Sequence

• Knowing common chord progressions used in other Jazz tunes (I to IV, V to I) and Turnaround Progressions (1–6–2–5 and 3–6–2–5 Progressions)

• Independence of the hands

Common rhythms for soloing on any tune (Straight 8th note with accenting, swing 8th note, 8th note triplet, quarter note triplet, 16th notes,

• Rhythmic displacement

• Articulation and Accenting

• How to to think in key centers

• How to effectively combine scale with arpeggio and vice versa

• Bass lines and root/bass motion

• How voice leading works with Dominant chords

• Gets you familiar with common forms of tunes found in Jazz, common chords and harmony found in Jazz

• Ear training

• It’s much easier to improvise on than Jazz standards

• Gets you used to hearing, playing within and having the awareness of a common song/tune form, a crucial skill for playing any Jazz tune.

• Getting familiar with common scales used in modern music such as the Blues scales and Minor Pentatonic scales. As you advance, you’ll still be using the Blues scales and especially Minor Pentatonic scales heavily in Jazz playing and beyond.

All of the skills you learn with the Blues translates to much of the same techniques and skills used in Jazz playing.

Blues tunes make up about 1/3 of Jazz repertoire and are played/called on jam sessions and gigs frequently. It’s pretty traditional for the house band of a jam session to start their set by playing a Blues.

Beginners should spend at least their first 6–9 months starting out on Blues and Blues-based tunes such as: Bag’s Groove, Watermelon Man, Blue Monk, All Blues, Mr. PC, Cantaloupe Island and Freddie the Freeloader. It’s also a style of tune you want to revisit often and there’s many ways to spice it up as you advance and learn more complex harmonic techniques.

4. Playing with Fluency and EMBRACING Mistakes:

For many, especially coming from a Classical background, this is perhaps the single hardest aspect of Jazz piano to deal with but one of the most crucial for development. It’s so unbelievably crucial and important for you to work on your flow and be able to play a tune or take a solo without losing the form, not stopping and fixing mistakes and to accept and play through any mistakes. These are some of the WORST habits to get into and the hardest to break. It’s something I personally struggled with for so long and tried to sweep under the rug for YEARS. I was focused so much on sounding good, I worked heavily on voicings because I wanted to sound great. I even neglected working on soloing. I was always searching for complexity, rather than fluency. It’s SO EASY to waste time on not learning tunes, (or just learning fragments of tunes) and not working on getting to performing them straight through even if they’re played simply, which is way more important.

The best way to work on those skills is to play and practice things SLOWLY. Practice slowly and in time until you’ve mastered it, then gradually speed up the tempo. Anything new you learn, play it slowly at first. Play the music with others often because there’s no second chances compared to when you’re practicing by yourself. At the end of your practice session, play the tune like you’re performing a concert, mistakes and all.

In Jazz, you have to be a warrior. The best improvisers are MASTERS at covering up their mistakes. Your mistakes will eventually become your own style. Even if a tune is played simply and slowly, it’s better to be able to play at a simple level FLUENTLY than to be sounding really hip but dropping the time, adding beats, fixing mistakes, starting over, not being able to perform a tune in its entirety. Make this something you actively work on in your practice and GO SLOW! If you can’t play it slow, you sure won’t be able to play it fast.

5. Actually Improvising, Experimenting, Trying Things Out:

Beginners naturally may have a hard time with this because they have no real reference point, which can lead to neglect (as was the case for myself). Even if you learn one pentatonic scale or Blues scale, learning the scale is just step 1. It’s how you’re going to use it rhythmically and melodically that will make it work effectively. As an improviser it actually comes down to, well, improvising and experimenting! All the time. On any tune. Even Classical pieces.

Improvisers love solving puzzles, seeing what happens, willingly being open to trying different things, seeing where things go and where something takes us. You want to be more curious about process rather than product, even when you’re advanced! As improvisers we want to hear something, we want an EXPERIENCE. “What will happen if _____?” Or, “What will it sound like if I play in this kind of way? Let’s find out.” Curiosity is the guiding light of an improviser.

Think of learning to solo and improvise as if you’re a sculptor, carving a statue. At first you have a big hunk of stone that looks nothing like how you want (sound, in this case). But if you keep chipping away at it…working with it, chiseling and chipping at different angles, trying things out…over time it will turn into a beautiful work of art (effective good sounding solos). Or if you’re a potter using clay on a pottery wheel; You have to shape, mold, work with the clay, try different ways to shape it how you want.

For either a sculptor or potter, they didn’t start out being able to do it well right away. They learned to work with the tools and knowledge they had by doing and by taking action. Do you think they didn’t make any mistakes along the way? Of course they did! Do you see the point I’m trying to make here? It’s the exact same with Jazz and learning how to improvise. So improvise often. Have fun. Be playful. Be curious. Embrace and welcome mistakes. Try things out. Experiment. See what happens. Don’t worry or be fixated about particular outcomes and perfection. Rest assured that with much time and dedicated practice, improvisation gets easier and more refined over time.

“Perfection is the enemy of the very good.”

- Voltaire

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