Steve Nixon
With a career spanning global tours and collaborations with legends like B.B. King and Buddy Guy, Steve Nixon is more than just a Berklee-trained pianist. He’s a bridge-builder for the next generation of musicians. As the founder of Freejazzlessons.com, Steve turns his performance experience into accessible education, reaching over 70,000 students each month. He’s on a mission to keep the soul of jazz and blues alive in a world where music budgets are shrinking. Read Steve's full bio here.
Your Free Guide To 15 Jazz Piano Legends
If you truly want to learn jazz piano you have to listen to the right people. As your online jazz piano teacher, I want to make sure you are listening to and learning from some of the best jazz pianists who’ve ever lived. What we listen to definitely influences what comes out of our ears…
Jazz Rhythm – How To Practice This Important Skill
Would you like to improve your jazz rhythm? Today we’re going to talk about one of the most fundamental skills that you need to succeed as a jazz piano player. Even though this skill is incredibly important I’m always amazed by how many jazz students seem so ready to blissfully ignore it inside the practice…
13 Killer Practice Tips To Ignite Your Playing Today
Hey Everybody! I’ve been thinking a ton about motivation and inspiration recently. I’ve also been doing quite a bit more touring and local gigs recently too. To say that I’m motivated right now would be an understatement! For years I’ve used all kinds of motivation and practice strategies to keep me energized and focused while…
4 Completely Bizarre Gig Stories That You Need To Read To Believe
As I’m sure you can imagine, doing music for a living can be very fun. Although, 95% of the career has been really enjoyable there have been times that have not always been filled with sunshine. In fact, after 2,000+ gigs around the world there have been a fair share of completely bizarre and utterly…
All The Things You Are: Jazz Piano Lesson And Reharmonization
I get a lot of requests from people who ask me to teach more jazz piano arrangements. I always aim to please! So, today I thought it would be fun to teach you guys a bunch of new jazz piano chords and reharmonization tricks using the tune All The Things You Are. This is a jazz…
5 Classical Pieces That Helped Me Become A Better Jazz Musician
In today’s jazz lesson I wanted to go in a bit of a unique direction and discuss something I haven’t talked about too much before on this site…classical music. As I’m sure most of you know, 90% of my gigs these days are in the jazz, blues, and rock genres of music. It’s what I…
Dominant Jazz Piano Chords – The Ultimate Guide
Hey there! Welcome to this free jazz piano chords voicing tutorial. We’re going to explore some must know dominant jazz chords today. Happy to have you hear with me! In today’s video lesson I’m going to teach you 5 dominant jazz piano chords that everybody piano player must know. We’ll offer cover some piano jazz…
4 Jazz Turnarounds You Need To Know
If you want to successfully learn jazz piano it is extremely important that you spent time learning jazz tunes and studying common jazz chord progressions. The more knowledge of chord progressions you have the easier it will be for you to learn jazz songs efficiently and quickly grow your repertoire. We all want to be…
Ask Me Any Questions You Want
I’ve had the pleasure to spent the last 13 years of my life as a full time musician. From day 1 of my music career my goal has always been to constantly push myself as an artist, learn, and continue to grow while simultaneously being able to put food on the table and pay my bills….
Some Incredible Testimonials For The Jazz Masters Method DVD
I’m completely honored and very excited to learn that Making Music Magazine has just published a very nice review of my Jazz Masters Method DVD in their latest issue (May/June 2013). Every time I go into Guitar Center and check out new keyboards I seem to always find myself pickup a copy of their magazine. So,…
Sonny Clark’s Blue Minor Solo: Jazz Piano Transcription
Do you like free jazz piano transcriptions? Awesome! Then, you’ll love this Sonnny Clark jazz piano transcription. One of the most powerful ways to learn jazz piano is to transcribe and study the playing of your favorite jazz musicians. It is for this reason that I have included a number of jazz piano transcriptions on this…
Learn A Miles Davis Jazz Lick
One of the best ways to learn jazz improvisation is to really study and model the jazz licks of master jazz improvisers. So, today I’m going to teach you how to play a Miles Davis II-V-I lick. I love this lick because not only is it simple but it’s got some really nice concepts that…
3 Jazz Education Questions Revealed With A Video Response
The goal for this site has been to always provide a 21st century jazz education experience. 🙂 So, in today’s lesson I thought it would be fun to create a personalized video response to some of the questions I’ve received through comments and emails on the site. (video below) Normally, I like to have a…
Learn Jazz Piano Chords in 4ths
In today’s jazz piano lesson we’re going to learn how to play some very cool jazz piano chords built in 4ths. These types of chords using quartal harmony can really add a more modern sound into your jazz playing. New To Jazz Piano Chords in 4ths? Why not take 4 minutes and watch the video…
Jazz Ear Training – 5 Tips For Hearing Chord Extensions
Today I want to tell you how I drastically improved my musical ear by using jazz ear training. Chord extensions, tensions, alterations, color tones, whatever you want to call them, I am always interested! I can’t write enough about this subject of musical ear training because it’s so important for mastering jazz piano. As pianists…
Summertime Backing Tracks and Free Chord Chart
Would you like jam on a Summertime backing track? Well, you’ve come to the right place! One of the main goals of this site is to consistently teach you how to improvise jazz on a higher level. (Summertime backing track, chord chart, and extra tips below. :)) Learning jazz licks and jazz piano chords is…
12 Jazz Questions Answered
You’ve got jazz questions you say? I have jazz answers! Today’s post I’m going to try something I’ve never done before. This will be an experiment of sorts. I’m going to publish and answer several of the email questions I’ve received recently. As I mentioned in my jazz holiday post this site keeps getting bigger and…
How To Mix The Blues Scale With Bebop Over A Jazz Standard
Would you like to learn how to use blues sounds to improvise over a jazz standard? In this lesson I want to talk about some of the discoveries I made on my tours with B.B. King. Most newbies think that there is a big separation between blues and jazz. A Big Discovery From B.B. King In reality,…
The Blues Scale For Piano: A Simple Guide
If you want to learn how to play the the blues scale on piano you’ve come to the right place! This scale can add a lot of soulfulness and richness to your piano playing. You can hear the blues scale used everywhere and it’s very simple and easy to learn! Even though it’s called the…
7th Chords Guide Part 2
Welcome to our second free piano tutorial on 7th chords! In today’s piano chord lesson we’re going to continue our exploration of basic 7th chords. If you’ve always wondered how to play minor major 7th chords, fully diminished seventh chords, or minor 7th flat 5 chords this will be the lesson for you! (Youtube video…
7th Chords: A Basic Guide Part 1
In today’s free jazz tutorial we’re going to learn how to build and play basic 7th chords like the major 7th chord, minor 7th, and dominant 7th. These types of chords are used in almost every single jazz standard, lots of rock songs, R&B songs, and even classical music too. So, getting comfortable with them…
1 of My Favorite Jazz Piano Chord And Reharmonization Tricks Revealed
Want to learn some great sound jazz reharmonization? Are you sick and tired of the same old boring chords and stock arrangements you find in your average fakebook or chord chart? Well, in today’s free piano lesson we’re going to learn one of my favorite techniques for reharmonizing the chords to any of your favorite…
Don’t Explain – Solo Jazz Piano Video Performance
Hey everybody! I wanted to share a quick video performance I just made of the great jazz standard ‘Don’t Explain’. This tune was written and made famous by the late great Billie Holiday. In my opinion she is an extremely underrated songwriter and should absolutely be in the same conversation with other great jazz writers….
Minor 7 Flat 5 Piano Chords Video Tutorial
In today’s free piano lesson we’re going to learn how to play the minor 7 (flat 5) chords in a fun and interesting way. After teaching piano lessons for over 15 years now I’ve noticed an overwhelming trend in regards to this chord. Many people who are learning piano either… a) Don’t know how to…