7 Sick Jazz Runs and Arpeggios You Should Learn Today

In today's featured video, I'm going to be sharing with you seven incredible runs and arpeggios that you can apply immediately in your jazz vocabulary. Not only do these exercises help you utilize the entire keyboard, but they are also helpful ideas that you can draw upon during improvisation.

In order to learn these runs and arpeggios, I recommend sitting down at your keyboard with the video open and really getting each exercise in your fingers before moving on to the next. A helpful tip is that you can actually slow the video down by clicking the settings button and choosing a slower speed to help you follow along. To further ingrain these patterns in your brain I also recommend trying them in a few different keys aside from the example I play in. This will help you commit the sound and feel of these different arpeggios to memory, rather than simply learning a couple of licks that you just end up repeating during solos. By practicing in other keys, you also may be more inclined to vary the exercises and notes within the run based on the context you are playing in.

These runs and arpeggios are my personal favorite selections from my 30 Sick Runs and Arpeggios digital PDF booklet, which you can find at jazzpianoconcepts.com/store. This PDF is full of high intensity arpeggio exercises for adding modern shapes to your vocabulary, fast.

If you have any questions about how or when to integrate these licks into your playing, feel free to leave me a comment and I'd be happy to help you out!

Check out the full video to learn the arpeggios and practice alongside me:

Noah Kellman Trio Performs 'Have You Met Miss Jones'

Noah Kellman Trio (featuring Corey Fonville and Tamir Shmerling) performs the classic jazz standard 'Have You Met Miss Jones'.

Watch out for chord substitutions, reharms, and dissonance formulas throughout the chord progressions. Leave a comment if you have any questions!

Check out the full performance video here:

Learn This Killer Samba & Bossa Nova Technique for Jazz Piano

Have you ever listened to bossa nova or samba tunes and wondered how to achieve that sound in your own playing?

I'm going to explain to you a technique that will immediately improve your ability to employ these feels in your own solo piano playing. This is a technique that I personally use all the time whenever I am playing a bossa or samba tune without a band.

There are a few different pieces to learning this concept:

1. First, you'll want to solidify your left hand feel. I'm starting by alternating between two maj7 chords one half step apart (Fmaj7 to Gbmaj7). You can play this pattern in intervals of fifths or major sevenths, and the rhythm is explained in the following video.

2. Secondly, you'll want to focus on the right hand pattern. This can be a bit trickier, so let's split our hand into two parts: the bottom three fingers (1, 2, 3) will be playing chords, while the top two fingers (4, 5) play melody notes. To practice this, try leaving out the chord fingers and playing a melody on top of your left hand pattern.

3. Now, it's time to add in the middle chordal piece to this pattern. Essentially, what you want to do here is fill in some more of the chord tones depending on what notes your left hand is playing, and intersperse them with the bass line so that you achieve some syncopated rhythms. Feel free to get creative here!

I highly recommend you practice this technique with a metronome and slowly build up your tempo and control until both hands feel comfortable playing with each other.

Once you have a good grasp on the pattern with only two chords, try arranging one of your favorite bossa tunes in this style: keeping the melody in your upper fingers, comping with your inner right fingers, and keeping that bass groove in the left hand.

This is a really useful rhythmic pattern that you can apply to a lot of tunes, and is especially helpful to know when you are playing solo piano.

For a more in-depth tutorial on this technique, check out this video: