Sadly, jazz is slowly becoming a dying art. Cities were once full of jazz clubs, schools were teaching jazz as part of their curriculum and the “coolness” of jazz was alive and well. It was as much a part of American culture as baseball.

The modern day is much different. Many of those storied downtown clubs have closed, schools don’t have the budget to teach the many different styles of music, and only the major colleges and universities now have jazz studies curriculums as part of their degree programs.

With all of the headwinds facing jazz music, that doesn’t mean that it is dead. Still, there are a large amount of people who like to play as well as listen to jazz and if that’s you, there are plenty of reasons why learning how to play jazz piano is not a waste of time. There are many places to play, bands to join, and modern jazz musicians are still producing a lot of new music. With that in mind, let’s look at how we can get started learning.

It’s Easier than you Think

Jazz is not an easy style of music to learn but from a practical standpoint, you can sit in with a jazz band and sound half-way decent much earlier in your development than orchestral music. Imagine trying to sit in with a professional orchestra playing a piano concerto just a few months in to your lessons. With jazz, you can do that.

Why? In part because the amount of chords you deal with in jazz is smaller and those chords often come in a predictable pattern. Every jazz pianist, for example, must learn the 12 bar blues progression in all keys that are common to jazz music. Once you know that, you know the chord progression of a large amount of jazz music and for those songs that don’t fall in to the pattern, you quickly learn by experience.
You should also learn to read a lead sheet. A lead sheet has the melody written out in traditional music notation as well as the chord symbols above it. Learn to read those chord symbols and how to properly voice the chords and you can play with a jazz group. You probably can’t solo with them yet but you can provide chords and background accompaniment. The best way to learn how to read a lead sheet is to purchase a fake book. The New Real Fakebook is one that is well known among jazz musicians.

Anybody who studied jazz in school or took lessons on any instrument related to jazz probably used the Aebersold recordings. This collection has more than 100 volumes of common jazz music. Some of the recordings have the lead line taken out so you can practice soloing and other tracks only have the melody so you can practice accompanying a melody. The Aebersold recordings may be the best way to learn how to play along with a jazz band and best of all, they’re fun!

Every jazz musician will have to learn to solo at some point. Most teachers advise to start with the first 5 notes of the chord and only play 2 or 3 notes per measure. From there, you can work up to more notes and more complicated rhythms.

As always, the best way to learn how to play jazz piano is to take lessons. If your goal is to learn jazz piano, make sure your teacher has experience in this area but remember that regardless of the style you want to learn, you should take the time to learn the basics of piano playing so expect some “classical” training in addition to studying jazz.

For a course in Jazz & Blues Runs On The Piano, click here.

Professional musicians often play from “lead sheets”, and I’ve noticed that most amateurs don’t quite understand what a lead sheet it, so I thought I would briefly define it.

A lead sheet is a piece of music that contains only the melody (tune of the song) and the chord symbols that go with it (and sometimes the lyrics). Musicians read the melody while taking their clues from the chord symbols. Let’s say the song starts on a “C” and the chord symbols above it is Fm7. That means that the musician would play the Fm7 chord with C as the top note of the chord. For an example of what a lead sheet looks like, please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_sheet

Collections of songs in lead sheet formats are found in “fake books” available in music stores.

Watch this short video on the difference between playing music from a written score as opposed to playing from a lead sheet in a fake book:

If you have trouble viewing the video here, it also appears at
How To PLAY More Notes Without READING More Notes

For those who have been playing piano for several years, learning to play from a fake book can be a useful skill. In order to play from one, you need to have an understanding of chord theory. You should also be familiar with the names of chords. Once you know chords, a fake book provides the wherewithal for you to play just about any song without the entire musical score written out.

A fake book contains songs that are not written in their original, full score. Instead it is a series of pages also known as lead sheets. Each lead sheet contains the lyrics and melody line to a single song along with the chord symbols such as G7, Fm7, etc. Often, a fake book contains only the treble clef notes (melody line), although some include a rudimentary bass clef score. The accompanying chords are notated in the places they should be played, usually over the word in the lyrics that they go with.

I bought my first fake book when I was 16 or 17, and it cost $25. — a fortune back then for a teenager. They were illegal then too — but sold under the take by many music stores. Now of course they are entirely legal, and contain a thousand or more songs per book and cost about the same as I paid way back when.

Fake books are intended as guides so experienced musicians are able to play any song without the benefit of the full musical score. If you’ve ever seen jazz musicians at work, you may have witnessed this concept in action. Jazz relies heavily upon improvisation. A jazz band may use a fake book to ensure that each member is playing in the same key. The musicians can then improvise the rest of the song. In other words, they can fill in the spaces between chords with other notes.

It is likely that fake books originated as a convenient way for musicians to have access to lots of songs. Their use also sparked copyright debates, however unintentionally. Early versions, and many versions that are in print today, often deny royalties to the copyright holders of the original song(s). Fake books may contain hundreds of unauthorized versions of songs. There are so many on the market that it is a difficult area to police.

Another place that fake books are commonly found is in churches. Churches often have a large library of songs that they use during regular worship services. It can be a storage problem to keep sheet music for hundreds and hundreds of songs for each band member. Instead, some churches use fake books because they take up less space. Band members are then able to play the same song in the same key, while improvising between chords. Churches usually purchase a license that gives them the legal right to use all of the songs in public performance. This way, there is no need to worry about paying royalties to individual copyright holders, and there are no prohibitions against photocopying music.

As already mentioned, reading a fake book requires a good knowledge of chords. A musician who knows the name of all of the basic chords should be able to play any song off of a lead sheet. Even musicians who aren’t gifted at improvising can at least provide accompaniment to a song by using a lead sheet.

If you are interested in playing from a fake book, consider taking the course on “How To PLAY More Notes Without READING More Notes”