Pop & Jazz Keyboards & Harmony (intermediate)

Where this course will take you :

This Intermediate course is a follow-on to the Beginner level of Pop and Jazz Keyboards and Harmony. It leads to the next level of your jazz and pop keyboard studies, first of all through in-depth study of Seventh-Chords, where you’ll get comfortable at playing more harmonically-sophisticated styles of pop-standards.

Next, you’ll move closer to classic jazz piano-playing perhaps as a solo-player or accompanist. You’ll learn how to make chords sound richer by using Tensions, and then, how to arrange them over the keyboard to suit any jazz-standard melody.

Finally you’ll progress to the level where you could join other musicians in a modern-jazz combo, with your ability to play, at sight,  the most sophisticated jazzy chords and progressions, with maximum fluency and smoothness in both hands. 

You’ll learn to :

• Extend your knowledge of all 7th chords and their use in chord progressions

• Play all 7th chords types smoothly in all inversions and in both hands 

• Add richness to all 7th chords by adding 9th, 11th and 13th Tensions

• Add “Altered” Tensions (b9, #9, b13) to Dominant 7th chords

• Use two-hand “Spread Voicings” for solo-versions of jazz-standards

• Understand II-V-I patterns and their importance in jazz-standards

• Study II-V-I exercises in both hands and all keys to greatly improve your overall chord memory and group-playing

As a possible student, you’d be likely to have completed some or all of the Beginner level of Pop and Jazz Keyboards and Harmony or have achieved that level through other study. The Intermediate course moves on by concentrating on how increasingly complex chords and harmony are used in pop and Jazz composition and performance. As it progresses, the focus moves further from Pop and nearer to Jazz, something that should match your interests.

Content and Overview in more detail:

The course has 6 lessons and 1.45 hours of video. In the first two lessons, it moves on from basic triad and seventh chords, covered at Beginner Level, to more complex seventh chords.  The aim is to understand theoretically how each chord works within a progression, and to play progressions fluently by using suitable chord-inversions.   

In the next two lessons, the concept of chord-tensions is explained, that is, using 9th, 11th and 13th notes, and which ones suit which chords.  Here, the emphasis is not so much on using chord-inversions, but “Spread-Voicings”, that is, arranging chord-notes over wide areas of the keyboard so as to create, for example, a solo-piano arrangement of a jazz-standard, or a chord accompaniment for a singer.     

In the final two-lessons, the emphasis returns to playing different inversions of seventh chords, including tensions, so that II-V-I patterns containing these can be played as fluently as possible in either hand.  Also, within a narrow area of the keyboard as possible, so as to give ample space to a bass-player’s accompaniment in a typical small-group setting.  

The final lesson shows several drills or exercises directly aimed at giving you practice in playing  in both hands II-V-I chords in every key and inversion. and also every possible type of seventh chord, including  standard tensions, on every note of the keyboard,  giving you  a great foundation for your basic jazz-piano technique. 

Along the way, there’s full explanation of the chord and harmony theory involved, backed up by text,  fingering-charts and, of course, lots of filmed playing at the keyboard, including pop and jazz chord progressions and standards.. The only thing there isn’t is notated music: everything is shown by visual demonstration, letter-names and numbers.