www.pianopig.com

Jazz 101

Resource Pack

Lesson 1: Stuff You Need To Know

www.pianopig.com

There are a few things you should be familiar with before continuing on with this course.

1. Major Scales The 12 major scales are the foundation of what jazz is built upon. It’s a really good idea to be familiar with this scale in every key before diving into jazz.

2. Minor Scales You need to be at least familiar with all the minor scales; Natural Minor, Harmonic Minor & Melodic Minor. Knowing these aren’t quite as important as the major scales but it’s still very important to understand them.

3. Five Types of 7th Chords There are five main types of 7th chords: Major, Minor, Dominant, Half Diminished & Diminished. Pretty much all chords in jazz stem from one of these five types, so it’s a really good idea to be familiar with all of them before continuing on with this course.

Lesson 2: Chord Extensions (9, 11, 13)

www.pianopig.com

Chord extensions give your playing a much fuller and richer sound. They are used extensively in jazz.

• When you extend a chord past the octave, this is when chord extensions come into play.

• If you continue stacking thirds above the 7th, you get the 9th, then the 11th, followed by the 13th.

• The 13th is the highest chord extension.

• The 9th is the same note as the 2nd. The 11th is the same note as the 4th. The

13th is the same note as the 6th.

• In a major chord, the 11th is quite often sharpened to give the #11. The reason for this is to avoid the clash between the natural 11th and major 3rd.

• When adding chord extensions to dominant chords – you can go crazy! The

main purpose of dominant chords is to create tensions, so you can pretty much add any extensions you like.

Lesson 3: Rootless Voicings

www.pianopig.com

A rootless voicing is just a voicing where we have chosen to take out the root note. They are used extensively in jazz. If you’re ever playing with a bassist you would be expected to use rootless voicings, they are also very helpful in a solo piano context as well.

• They help achieve smooth voice leading

• They reduce the hand movement between chords

• They allow you to stay out of the bass players way

To construct a ‘Type A’ rootless voicing for Cmaj7: build a minor 7 chord from

the major 3rd.

To construct a ‘Type A’ rootless voicing for Cmin7: build a major 7 chord from

the minor 3rd.

Practice constructing these voicings in several different keys. Make sure you are comfortable with the idea of omitting the root note from the voicing before moving on.

Lesson 4: Major 251 Progression

www.pianopig.com

The major 251 is one of the most important and common chord progressions in jazz. You’ll be able to find it in pretty much every single jazz standard that exists. To build a major 251, begin with the major scale:

Next, build a 7th chord from each note of the scale:

To construct a 251, we need to play chord 2, then chord 5, followed by chord 1:

We can use rootless voicings to create a much more sophisticated sound:

Type A:

Type B:

Lesson 5: Minor 251 Progression

www.pianopig.com

The minor 251, as well as minor harmony in general, is far more complex than the major 251. There are many variations of the minor 251 you can play, but when you’re first learning them it’s best to stick with the most basic version. When constructing a minor 251, we use the harmonic minor scale:

Next, build a 7th chord from each note of the scale:

• When playing chord 1, we can either play a Cm(maj7), Cm7 or Cm6/9. It’s best to stick with the Cm7 when starting out.

• It’s important to remember that chord 5 always has a flat 9.

Like before, we use rootless voicings to create a much more sophisticated sound:

Type A:

Type B:

Lesson 6: How To Practice 251’s

www.pianopig.com

Now that you’ve learned about major & minor 251s, you need to practice them. If you want to seriously get into jazz, you need to learn these chord progressions like the back of your hand. It’s also very important to learn them in your left hand, as well as your right hand. A good goal for you to set yourself is the following: Master both major & minor 251s, in both hands, in all 12 keys. That might take you a while to achieve, but it’s great to have something to work towards. A great resource for practicing chord progressions is an app called ‘iRealPro’. I recommend practicing your 251s using this app, or at the very least just a metronome. Make sure you practice them in your left hand, as well both Type A and Type B variations.

Lesson 7: Basic Comping Rhythms

www.pianopig.com

The word “Comping” is a just shortened term for “Accompanying”. It means to play the chords in a varied and interesting rhythm to support a melody line or solo. Here are a few basic comping rhythms below to get you started. I’d actually recommend not using this sheet music, comping isn’t really something you want to be reading music for – but I have included it just in case you are struggling with the rhythms.

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Lesson 8: A Couple of Sneaky Tricks

www.pianopig.com

To finish this course, I want to provide you with a couple of tricks that you can use to quickly give you the starting point of a major 251 in any key. (The examples below are in the key of C major, but keep in mind you can use this method in any key) Constructing a ‘Type A’ major 251 in any key Step 1: Play the root note of chord 1

Step 2: Go up by a 4th

Step 3: Build a major 7 chord this note

Constructing a ‘Type B’ major 251 in any key This one is much simpler. You just need to play a Type B rootless voicing for a minor 7 chord, with the lowest note being the same as the root note for chord 1.

This then gives you a rootless voicing for chord 2 (Dm7).

Lowest note = root note of chord 1