Jazz Piano Lessons for Beginners in London and the UK
In your beginners’ jazz piano lessons you will learn to unleash your inner creative spirit right from the beginning.
It’s a common misconception that beginners’ piano lessons must begin with classical piano music. In truth, jazz piano lessons can be an excellent point of departure for the beginner piano student.
Improvisation, one of the defining features of jazz piano, is easy to learn right from the start. Once your jazz piano teacher introduces you to a few simple patterns and groups of keys on the keyboard, you will be able to experiment and explore different melodies without ever making a mistake. In fact, learning to improvise can be much easier than learning to read music; just as exploring a forest or a new city, nothing you play is a mistake, and everything is a discovery. Gradually your ear will guide you back to your favourite sounds, just as you may return to your favourite cafe in that new city.
Once you become more comfortable with the piano keyboard, your jazz piano teacher may introduce you to the 12 Bar Blues. This provides a structure and framework for your improvisation, and is the basic form for hundreds of jazz and blues compositions. With the blues scale, you will quickly be able to improvise catchy and cool-sounding melodies, just by sticking to a few notes on the piano.
Jazz piano education has come a long way in the past decades. Systems and methods have been designed and perfected to create the ideal jazz piano lessons.
For beginner jazz piano students who want an especially structured approach to jazz piano lessons, the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) offers jazz piano exams from grades one to five. Preparing for jazz piano exams in your beginners’ jazz piano lessons can be a great way to progress while working towards concrete goals. However, it’s important to note that the ABRSM jazz piano exam program, on its own, is not complete enough to encompass the entire course of study for your beginners’ jazz piano lessons. Your jazz piano teacher must supplement additional material and instruction in order for you to achieve a well-rounded and thorough jazz piano education.
And don’t forget, it is essential to involve yourself completely in the exploration of the art of jazz. Listen as often as possible to recordings of the great jazz instrumentalists and vocalists, and work at identifying their influences and important places in the development of jazz history.
