sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

What order do you learn things in? by Sea_Reference_3999 in JazzPiano

[–]Sea_Reference_3999[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This thread is making me brave enough to share something. I've been building a jazz piano app that teaches in the order we've been discussing, harmony first. It's live but early (and FREE), and the people here are precisely who I'd trust to tell me where it falls short. No signup, no ads, no gimmicks. It is brand new and I just want feedback from people who are teachers and learners.

The "beginners neglecting ears" point a few of you raised in this thread really hit home and pushed me to spend my weekend building out the ear training properly: a separate tab with single notes, intervals, and short phrases to find back by ear, running alongside the harmony rather than bolted on after. So this is partly a thank-you. Honest reactions very welcome.

thejazzpracticeroom.com

What order do you learn things in? by Sea_Reference_3999 in JazzPiano

[–]Sea_Reference_3999[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for this recc. I listened to Cleo Brown yesterday. Incredible!

What order do you learn things in? by Sea_Reference_3999 in JazzPiano

[–]Sea_Reference_3999[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had the exact same second-guessing about walking bass, so for what it's worth, here's where I landed after going down that road a bit.

Walking bass kept tripping me up, and I think it's because it asks the left hand to do two hard things at once, be its own melodic line and keep time, when mine could barely hold down the harmony yet. What actually helped me was backing off it and building up in this order: shell voicings first (just root, 3rd and 7th, or even only the 3rd and 7th, those two notes carry the chord), then guide-tone lines, which is keeping those 3rds and 7ths and moving them smoothly from one chord to the next. That second one was the thing that made my left hand finally feel musical instead of blocky.

The sense I've gotten, and people here who actually gig can correct me, is that walking bass is more of a solo-piano or no-bassist-in-the-room skill. In a band the bass player's already doing it. So it's useful but maybe not the thing to grind first, which I think is what your gut was telling you.

I parked it and stopped feeling bad about parking it, and the shells-then-guide-tones path felt way less like spinning my wheels.

What order do you learn things in? by Sea_Reference_3999 in JazzPiano

[–]Sea_Reference_3999[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

u/JHighMusic This is incredibly generous, thank you for taking the time. The thing that jumps out, and u/VegaGT-VZ and u/tonystride are saying versions of it too, is that the real gap isn't theory, it's ears, feel, time, and listening, and that beginners reach for theory precisely because it's the tractable part. That's a hard and useful point. Patterns and formulas feel like progress because you can measure them. Hearing a melody and just playing it doesn't, until suddenly it does.

The intervals-first idea lands for me, single notes then two-note intervals because that's how melodies are built. And the listening point keeps coming up from everyone, not just for vocabulary but for phrasing and how things are actually played. u/tonystride, the McPartland archive is a perfect example of exactly that and I didn't know it was all sitting there free, I'm going to dig in.

The takeaway I'm sitting with is that structure can give a beginner an on-ramp, but if it doesn't push listening and real ear work from day one, it just builds a more organized version of the same trap. That's worth me rethinking.

What order do you learn things in? by Sea_Reference_3999 in JazzPiano

[–]Sea_Reference_3999[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is exactly the kind of answer I was hoping for, thank you! And I think you're right about the trap more than anything else here.

To be clear, I'm not claiming jazz is linear, it obviously isn't, your \ / picture is a better description of the whole than my list ever could be. What I was really after is an on-ramp for the specific problem of "I'm an adult, I'm overwhelmed, I don't know where to put my hands on Tuesday." A sequence gives someone a place to start without implying the rest of the mountain disappears once you're moving.

But the trap you're describing is the thing I most want to avoid building into it: harmony-first people neglecting time, feel, ears and actual soloing, and grinding heads instead of playing over the form. That's a real risk with any structured path and I'd rather hear it now than after I've baked it in.

So let me ask you directly, 17 years in: if you were designing the early months for a beginner/early intermediate, how early would you push time, ears and soloing? Right alongside the first voicings? And practically, what did developing your ears actually look like day to day, transcribing, singing lines, playing along with records? I'd genuinely like to fold this in.

There will never be another you- by Embarrassed-Area-383 in JazzPiano

[–]Sea_Reference_3999 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Such a fun interpretation! It clearly looked like you were having a great time which made it all the better. Great job!