Beginners, here's how to play Cocktail Piano

[Music] do you want to learn how to play cocktail piano well many beginner students think that in order to improvise in this style they have to learn a ton of chords and scales but this couldn't be further from the truth you see you can get started today improvising in this style even if you're a beginner if you understand these four chords and one amazing scale that you can use to improvise over these chords so if you're ready to start improvising at the piano with total freedom let's go ahead and dive into the lesson all right the first step to improvising cocktail piano is to learn these four chords they are so simple to play here's your first chord okay we have the notes f a c and e okay this is a gorgeous chord that we tend to use in jazz the second chord that you need to learn is super close by all we do is we take our c and we move it down to a b that's it go ahead and play this chord kind of a crunchy jazzier sounding chord okay that's the second chord the third chord you need to know we're gonna shift down to e g b and d very simple all we're doing is stacking thirds from that c major scale very very simple chord and then the fourth chord we're gonna we're gonna hop up here just a little bit and we're gonna go to this gorgeous a7 chord oh very jazzy and cool sounding this is a g c a c sharp and f okay so these are the four chords that you really want to know if you want to improvise in this style now before we move on if you're enjoying this lesson please hit the like button and subscribe for more videos just like this now this progression is called the turn around progression and it's one of the most important progressions if you want to play jazz piano it's used in tons and tons of different tunes so we're going to be playing these chords in our left hand when we play with that backing track you're going to hear the bass note lock that chord in in fact if you want to play the bass note you can you can just cross your right hand over grab that d on the bottom gorgeous g7 chord really nice and then our c major chord it's gonna be like that and then our a chord is the name of this chord now the specific name of these chords they're called rootless voicing chords they're a little bit more on the intermediate side when it comes to theory but they're not very hard to play and so that's why i encourage you to play these even if you're a beginner and over time you'll start to understand a little bit more of the theory okay let's go ahead and play this with the included backing track we're gonna play a chord on each beat we're gonna play each chord four times then we switch and then we go to our next chord this beautiful uh what we call c major seven okay does that make sense let's go ahead and play with the backing track here it is here we go [Music] here's our g chord that sounds gorgeous beautiful here's that a ah it's so pretty by the way this backing track is downloadable over at pianowithjohnny.com as well as the lesson sheet music you're seeing up here on the top left of the screen you can print it you can even change the key of the sheet music and practice it in all 12 keys all right that's step number one step number two is to learn a scale that you can use to improvise over all four of these chords and one of my favorite skills to use is called the mixo blues scale let me play a little bit of improv using this scale and then i'll teach you the scale and we'll talk about how to improvise with it okay it's got a very cool bluesy sound and so i really recommend that you use this scale if you're getting started with improvisation okay the scale is only nine notes are you ready to learn the notes here they are it's actually very very simple we're gonna start on middle c we're gonna go d that's our index finger d sharp that's the third finger thumb on the e [Music] index on the f third finger on the f sharp [Music] thumb on the g index finger on the a and middle finger on the b flat okay that's the scale and it's actually an incredibly simple scale because you only have to use these three fingers in fact what i encourage you to do is block each set of three notes so we can block these and then these and then these and this will help you actually memorize this scale so before we move on and talk about how to improvise with this scale i encourage you to practice this scale up and down the piano and you really want to try to build some speed okay so this is a pretty good tempo i think a really nice tempo is going to be about here okay so you really want to work on some speed and if you're really ambitious you can try this in multiple octaves so you can come up when you get to that c and instead of using the ring finger on the c you can put your thumb on the c and then you can continue the scale of the piano okay that is the mixo blues skill and i love this scale because you can use it to improvise over all four of these chords okay so we have the left hand accompaniment we have the right hand scale you are now ready to improvise and i'm so excited to teach you how now at this point many teachers would say okay you've learned your left hand chords and you've learned a right hand scale now just start making up some jazz lines but how do you create interesting jazz lines unless you know the most common techniques that jazz musicians use with this scale so that's the next part i'm going to teach you three different essential techniques plus exercises to help you master these techniques are you ready i can't wait to teach you our first technique which is using eighth notes this is the most common note value that jazz improvisers use and i'll do some eighth note improv okay that's the sound of eighth notes so here's a quick little exercise to help you master your eighth notes we're gonna play our left hand chord progression right hand we're gonna play the scale up the octave and we're gonna play two notes in the right hand for every chord in the left hand so it's gonna go like this one and two and three and four and and then on that b flat we're gonna come down one and two and three and four and then we do it on the c chord one two three four and then we come down on this a chord one two three okay does that make sense and you're going to want to build a little bit of speed as you're doing this now a quick little tip make sure you're swinging your eighth notes one and two and three and four to get that authentic swing sound all right let's play this exercise with the backing track and then i'll show you how to improvise using eighth notes here we go here it [Music] is and the c all right very nice so once you have the exercise down you want to start making up some jazz lines using eighth notes and you can use any one of these nine notes in the right hand over these four left hand chords the key is to play lines and a musical line has a start and an end point meaning each little line or phrase should have a gap in between it so here's an example of a line and then we give a gap and that's my second line okay and i might play another line here okay does that make sense all right let's go ahead and play this with the backing track and i'll walk you through some improv here it is here i'd start simple [Music] very simple let's play another line in this position now we can come up the scale maybe let's jump up to the thumb on the e little slides we'll talk about that later notice how i come up here to that higher position let's mix the positions [Music] maybe come up the piano little octaves there okay lots of really cool things that you can do all right before i teach you technique number two if you're enjoying this lesson and you want to do a deep dive and learn more techniques like these check out our jazz ballad soloing challenge over at pianowithjohnny.com okay the second technique that i love to use is the sound of triplets here's what triplets sound like okay triplets move just a little bit more and they create a lot of excitement in your playing okay so the first step to playing triplets is to practice an exercise to master the triplet sound and with triplets you're gonna play three notes in the right hand for every chord in the left hand okay so if we start the scale triple lit we play three notes and then another chord triple it and then triple it and we'll do a hold on the c and then we're going to come down on the scale and we're going to change the chord now because remember we play each chord four times so we go come down on the scale triple it and then triple it and then triple it and then a hold on the c okay does that make sense and then we change chords again to the c chord triple let triple let triple it hold and then the a chord triple it triple triple okay now you want to gain some speed on this i think a good tempo is about here one two three four and then we bring it down okay so that's gonna be the goal for you and let's go ahead and practice this with the backing track and then we'll do some improv here it is with the backing track one two here we go and down same thing [Music] sounding awesome all right let's go ahead and improvise using some triplets and so again i'll walk you through my improvisation and we're going to do it with the backing track all right so here we go and here it is i'd start simple here's my line you can do a little hold here let's do some more triplets see that maybe come up to a higher position [Music] maybe come down little slides here you can mix positions little octaves okay lots of cool things that you can do with triplets all right i want to move you on to the final technique and this is the topic of slides and slides sound amazing here's a quick example of how i like to play my [Music] slides okay gives it a very bluesy sound and there are three notes on this scale that i love to slide and here they are the first slide note is going to be your e and the way we slide the e is an up slide from the d sharp or the e flat okay so you strike the e flat and you slide up to the e i like to use one finger for my slides but you could use two fingers like that okay that's the first slide the second slide is a down slide to d from the same note so we grab that e flat and we slide down to the d okay and once again i recommend using one finger but you could use two fingers if you wanted the third slide that i like to use is an up slide to the a okay and we're going to grab that g sharp and slide up to the a using one finger or you can use two fingers now here's a quick exercise to practice your slides we're gonna slide the e down slide the d up slide the a and we go to the g that's it and we're gonna repeat this over all the chords okay here it is we're gonna play one slide in the right hand over each chord in the left hand so we have one two three four and now our g chord one two three four and now the c chord one two three four and the a chord one two three four okay let's go ahead and play this one with the backing track two here we go you can actually slide that g as well you don't have to it's not just another option all right you're sounding fantastic let's go ahead and improvise using slides two here we go notice i'm playing lines so i'm giving little gaps hey thanks for watching and if you enjoyed this lesson be sure to check out piano pianowithjohnny.com we have over 1 000 step-by-step lessons for all playing levels where you'll learn your favorite songs styles and how to improvise at the piano thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Piano With Jonny

Views: 369,887

Rating: 4.9662986 out of 5

Keywords: cocktail piano, piano improvisation, jazz piano, cocktail piano tutorial, jazz piano lesson, jazz chords, jonny may, piano with jonny, how to improvise jazz, how to play cocktail piano, easy cocktail piano, how to improvise, cocktail jazz piano easy, jazz piano for beginners, jazz improv, how to play jazz, cocktail jazz piano, how to play jazz piano, jazz piano tutorial, jazz piano improvisation, jazz piano lessons for beginners, jazz piano chords

Id: lyjCSSL4wPU

Length: 17min 18sec (1038 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021