A jazzy cocktail piano improvisation exercise against a four bar chord progression

Jazz Piano
http://www.billspianopages.com/cocktail

(Links to other useful piano tutorials at the bottom of this description.) This tutorial teaches you a jazzy cocktail piano improvisation exercise that you can use to improve your right hand improvisation over a relatively complex chord progression.

The chord progression itself is a pretty interesting one to improvise on, because it contains a couple of diminished seventh chords which you might expect to be a bit ‘clashy’ with regular scales over the top. In the tutorial, I show you how you can actually use ordinary pentatonic and major scales to improvise over chords like these and get a good sound.

If you’re relatively new to piano improvisation, make sure you get the left hand chords practised thoroughly before you start working on the right hand. If, at first, you find using both hands tricky, limit the notes you’re using for improvisation in the right hand (this is the secret to building you skills at jazz, cocktail and blues piano – in fact, in most melodic improvisational piano styles).

If you’re still learning the basics of piano improvisation and cocktail, here are some links to other tutorials and resources you might find useful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az1c_5A5cYI&list=PLBF7D1C98E441233F (really basic harmony playlist)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E48HNXpys4Y&list=PLA9A28AAB35AE39F8 (piano chords tutorials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg68eElpmn4&list=PLpOuhygfD7QkAet_PLBrT94Ziqzz_WWgn (a selection of jazz piano tutorials)

www.billspianopages.com/how-to-really (my other book, How To Really Play The Piano)

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