Jamcast! — Tips on piano, songwriting, home recording and musicianship

Soft rock piano exercise

July 4, 2011

This tutorial looks at the way you can use a repeated right hand lick over a chord progression in the left to get a distinctive soft-rock sound.

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Why piano scales are important

April 19, 2011

Piano scales often get a bad press. Repeated scale practice is often cited as a reason for quitting piano lessons among beginners. The simple fact is, though, that scales are incredibly important…

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Suspended ninths - a.k.a. “the country third”

April 9, 2011

The suspended ninth is incredibly common in pop, folk and country music, most often as part of the so-called “country-third” - a ninth resolving on to a major third in a tonic triad.

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Intervals - the basics

April 4, 2011

An “interval” is the technical name for the distance between two notes, although it’s also used to describe the particular character of two notes being played together…

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Easy piano improv - the 4 minute jazz piano tutorial

March 19, 2011

Here’s a piano tutorial I made this afternoon for fun, and to try to prove a point. The point is that improvisation can be very easy.

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I - IV - V piano chords

March 17, 2011

If you’re going to master piano chords, the most basic essentials are the I, IV and V (1,4 and 5) chords in any key - also known as the tonic, subdominant and dominant.

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Adele - and arpeggios on the piano

March 14, 2011

In this video tutorial I use the song Someone Like You by Adele as an example of how arpeggios can be used as a very effective tool by pianists and songwriters.

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This video tutorial focuses on Elton John’s piano style. Elton John is really important in history of pop piano and modern piano comping because, in effect, he pioneered many of the techniques that are so widespread today.

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Pentatonic scales for improvisation

February 17, 2011

Pentatonic scales are really handy for improvisation. This tutorial focuses on using pentatonics for improvising on the piano, but can be applied to just about any instrument playing in any genre.

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