The Jazz Piano 1-YEAR PRACTICE PLAN ✅

The video introduces a jazz piano lesson aimed at providing a structured practice plan to help learners improve their jazz piano skills. The lesson highlights the importance of focusing on five pillars: scales, chords, voicings, lead sheets, and improvisation. The presenter promises that following this plan will yield significant improvements over a year.

The first pillar discussed is learning scales, which form the basis of jazz harmonic language. Beginners should focus on major and minor scales, practicing these in a specific way that includes chords and rhythms important in jazz. The video emphasizes practicing in one key per month to eventually cover all keys in a year.

For intermediate players, scales should expand to modes, such as Dorian and Mixolydian. Major scales are altered slightly to create different modes, useful for soloing over specific chords. Practicing these modes also follows the one-key-per-month approach, ensuring the mastery of these scales in all keys within a year.

Advanced players should focus on altered scales like the whole tone, dominant diminished, and fully altered scales, essential for creating sophisticated jazz solos. Practicing these scales involves resolving to a major chord, aiming for a specific tempo and moving through all keys over the course of a year.

The second pillar is mastering basic jazz chords. Beginners start with major and minor chords and their inversions, practicing these over a year in each key. Intermediate players focus on seventh chords, which are prevalent in jazz. Advanced players delve into chord extensions and alterations, adding complexity to basic chords.

Chord exercises include inversions and the circle of fifths for seventh chords. Advanced exercises involve understanding and applying chord extensions and alterations to create richer sounds. Practicing these daily will help build familiarity and proficiency in all keys throughout the year.

The third pillar is mastering chords, focusing on practical application. Beginners often start with chord shells, simplifying jazz chords by omitting certain notes. Exercises include playing these in various keys and using them to understand the fundamentals of jazz harmony over the year.

Intermediate pianists move to rootless voicings, which sound more contemporary and add complexity to accompaniment. Advanced players apply these concepts in practical settings, aim to use quartal voicings, building chords in fourths rather than the usual thirds for a more modern jazz sound.

Pillar four concerns lead sheets, turning them into polished performances. Beginners use chord shells to play jazz standards, easily adapting tunes. Intermediate and advanced players add complexity by using rootless voicings and walking bass lines, transforming simple lead sheets into full jazz arrangements.

The final pillar focuses on improvisation skills. Beginners start with major scales to create simple, effective solos by targeting chord tones in short phrases. The exercise emphasizes developing a sense of melody and timing. Intermediate players introduce neighbor tones, while advanced players use multiple scales for variety.