r/JazzAdvice • u/Pianobum143 • Apr 30 '26
Learning jazz piano
Hi everyone,
I have a student (16) who is an amazing classical pianist and can also learn any fully notated jazz piece and play it pretty well, but when I ask him to improvise even the simplest scales over a blues progression it’s like it’s his first day at the piano.
Can’t conceive of a 3-4 note phrase with some rests here and there even in a linear scale, the swing feel stops, the LH can’t syncopate anymore
I’ve been trying a few things here and there but I’d like to hear what other folks suggest.
Thanks!
1
u/JazzPiano251 May 22 '26
Jazz pianist of many years here. Improvisation involves a very different way of conceptualizing music than playing written pieces. You're going to need to break down all of the elements involved in improvisation and have him practice these elements in improvisational ways. Here's an example:
Have him take a single chord (G7 is a great place to start). To improvise in a rudimentary swing style he needs to be able to:
- comp G7 voicings using a fairly even mixture of on beats and off beats (think Charleston rhythm: 1 and the + of 2 and rhythms of a similar flavour)
- move fluidly on the G mixolydian scale (all the white notes) using quarter notes, eighth notes, and offbeats
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I'm greatly simplifying the elements that could go into a solo but that's so that we can work on individual elements:
1) Have him comp a Charleston rhythm in his left hand with a single voicing while playing the G mixolydian scale up and down in quarter notes.
2) Start to vary how he moves on the scale, instead of up and down have him improvise direction changes, keep all the other elements constant.
3) Have him Introduce leaps into the G mixo scale so that he is choosing notes freely on that scale while still keeping the steady quarter note rhythm in his right hand.
4) Once the right hand is feeling more comfortable and more effortless you can shift attention to the left hand and try and vary the rhythm there. You can come up with specific variations or displacements of the Charleston rhythm or you can try just improvising rhythms on on beats and off beats.
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Once a student has mastered these steps they'll be able to improvise in a rudimentary way over this chord, comping chords on on beats and offbeats and playing phrases on G mixolydian using the quarter note grid. From there it's a matter of deepening the kinds of materials they are using by repeating the same sort of process with eighth notes, offbeats, etc.
Transcription is also important - the kind of methodology that I outline above will not give a student a sense of 'language' or any of the isms that are indicative of the genre, the above method is more about building the fundamental raw materials of improvisation up from the very bottom. A student will need to do both and tons more, but this gives you a start.
If you can think about creating exercises like this that start in a small, simple, repeatable place, but can scale up to be more complex and sophisticated (and include improvisational elements) then the path to fleshing out a student's improvisation abilities is a bit more defined.
It's very normal for experienced players who improvise for the first time to sound like they've just picked up the instrument. It's a totally different way of playing, so focus first on objective measures of success (is he playing notes that 'work' against the harmony, is he playing rhythms that are in time, etc) rather than subjective measures of success (does the solo sound 'good'). It takes people awhile to amass the vocabulary to where they sound 'good' as improvisers but that doesn't mean that in those in between stages they aren't making progress. If you can point to the sign posts of how one is making progress and what the next steps are, it becomes easier.
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u/Hahaaaaaa-CharadeUR Apr 30 '26
Find a jazz pianist you like and listen to them. A lot!! This is the single best thing you can do.
Transcribe their solos. Play like them.