Hello everyone. On monday I am going to have my very first jazz piano lesson. I don't know much about playing jazz piano, I did buy a book a few months ago but found it useless. I was just wondering if you had any tips or suggestions to help me get a good start that I could try over the weekend. thanks

Get some CDs and listen. Listen to the piano player - what bits do you like? why? Even better go and see some live. To play jazz well you've got to do lots of listening to be able to get the style. A bit like how to really be able to speak a language properly you've got to go and live in the country, not just learn it from text books.

Jazz pianists that I like to listen to, with very differing styles, and suggestions of CDs are Thelonious Monk (Straight, No Chaser), Herbie Hancock (Maiden Voyage), Dave Brubeck (Time Out), Bill Evans (pianist on Miles Davis' Kind of Blue - the must have jazz recording) and a couple on today's London music scene - Gwilym Simcock and Andrew McCormack.

This thread may help you .

Car Expert

Your teacher may just prefer you starting off from not knowing anything.
It's a good starting point for a new student. the teracher doesn't have to try to work out what you do and don't know.

I hope your first piano lesson went well - is this gonna be a regular thing? My tip for you is to HAVE A GO at improvising, don't be frightened of "getting it wrong", cos if you play with confidence you'll sound great! Listen to loads of jazz piano on CD and go to live concerts too if possible. Learn your scales, blues scales, modes and pentatonics backwards, forewards and inside-out. Then you need to practise chord progressions, especially II-V-I which is the jazzers' favourite cadence. Jazz chords use a lot of sevenths (all different kinds) and extensions like 9ths, 11ths and even 13ths. Practise getting familiar with these chords. "Jazz Piano From Scratch" by Charles Beale is a great book, with loads of practising ideas to keep you on top of what you're doing.

Have fun!

I'm having my first jazz piano lesson in about 20 minutes, so if I pick up any tips i'll pass them on!

Thanks to everyone else's replies, some good advice there

This is what I did in my first lesson yesterday! I'm learning the Ionian (usual major), dorian and mixolydian scales in all keys and then playing all of the seventh chords in each key. Mostly it was theory yesterday which I was happy with because I wouldn't have felt comfortable being told to just play something without having a clue!

hi guys. it is going to be a regular thing, i had my second lesson yesterday. Thanks for all the advice it really helped. At the moment we're just starting with the theory side of things and similarly to possom playing all of the seventh chords. I'm really enjoying it at the moment even though we're not really playing anything. The way i understand it is, to really be able to play jazz and to improvise you must have a good understanding of the piano as a whole. I'm doing quite a bit of reading around the subject too, i hope it helps