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.
Great Red Garland Solo – Jazz Transcription
For today’s free jazz lesson we’re going to take a look at a jazz transcription of Red Garland’s famous solo on the jazz standard What is This Thing Called Love. This is one of the first jazz solos I ever transcribed and when I studied Red’s solo it paid off big time! So, let’s take…
How To Play Extensions on Dominant Seventh Chords
Want to spice up your chords and arrangements and make them more jazzy? One of the best ways to do this by adding extensions to your chords. Unfortunately, most people don’t understand how to do this properly. So, you’re probably saying right now, “Steve, How do you play extensions on chords?” “I heard…
What’s the first jazz solo you should transcribe?
Have you heard that you should be transcribing solos but just aren’t sure where a good place to start is? Are you having problems finding a jazz solo that is not only easy to play but has tons of great jazz licks in there? Or perhaps you’ve already tried transcribing for a bit but found…
How To Play Satin Doll With Spread Voicings
A couple weeks back we learned about a very famous style of jazz chords called spread voicings. (If you missed the lesson and have no idea what spread voicings are make sure you check out the how to play spread voicings lesson). Anyway, since then I received a couple emails from subscribers to the site asking me…
How To Play Spread Voicings on Piano – Great Jazz Piano Chords!
– Are you struggling to find good solo jazz piano voicings? – Do you only feel comfortable when you’re playing in a trio and there’s a bass player laying down the bottom end for you? – How about accompanying vocalists? Do you have trouble finding the right voicings to play behind a singer? If you…
How To Practice Jazz For Long Term Growth
One of the most common questions I get from my beginning and intermediate jazz students is, “How do I practice jazz successfully?” Or, in other words, “How do I practice so I’m consistently moving in the right direction and not wasting my freakin’ time??” There are hundreds (maybe even thousands) of directions you can…
4 Tips to Get More Jazz Gigs
Ok, so you want to get more gigs huh? Here are a few tips that have helped me secure gigs over the years, keep working on the jazz art form, and even put food on the table. 1. Know lots and lots of tunes (but start with 20). You must realize that you will increase…
Misty Chords & Cool Reharmonization
If you want to learn Misty chords to the jazz standard Misty then you’ve come to the right place! Ok, so as promised I charted out the chords for the jazz piano video lesson I made on reharmonizing Misty. If you haven’t seen the video check it out here: Misty reharmonization lesson. Thanks to Bill Evans…
How To Play Misty – Jazz Piano Reharmonization
Make Your Jazz Standards More Interesting Have you ever noticed that great jazz piano players seem to play so many more chords than are written in your everyday run of the mill fakebook? Why is this? For starters, most of the time the chord changes written in a fakebook are either very bland, boring, or…
Shell Voicings Lesson – Super Simple Yet Powerful Jazz Chords
Have you ever wondered what shell voicings are? Do you ever wonder what chords people like Bud Powell, Barry Harris, and Al Haig play in their left hand when they’re soloing in their right hand? Well, most of the time they are using a particular type of chord voicing known as shell voicings. Shell voicings are super…
Bebop Piano Lick Lesson II – V(alt) – I
Here’s a new II – V- I bebop lick instructional video I just shot. This particular lick is one of my favorites because it uses alot of the classic building blocks of bebop. I’ll list some of the more “theoretical” elements of lick that make it bebop. (video below) 1. chromaticism with mostly chord…
Jazz Comping Chords – How To Play Two Handed Comping Chords (Rootless)
When I was first learning jazz I searched for a long time trying to find a good book or a method to learn how to comp in a jazz rhythm section. Sadly, there isn’t a ton of information out there on this subject. How To Comp It’s vitally important for everybody to learn how to…
Wes Montgomery’s solo on Satin Doll
Here’s a Wes Montgomery solo I transcribed about a year ago on the jazz standard “Satin Doll”. (scroll down for the solo.) There’s all kinds of great jazz licks in this one. I could write a 10 page essay on everything that I like about this solo but I’ll just mention 4 things here: 4 Wes…
How To Solo Over the Jazz Standard All The Things You Are.
Would you like to be able longer jazz licks? Do you feel like your licks sometimes sound like run on sentences? How do you play those beautiful and long flowing lines that a lot of the great jazz masters play? You know the ones that always sound good no matter how long they go? Your Jazz…
Barry Harris Transcribed solo “On Green Dolphin Street”
Here’s a transcription I made about two months ago of Barry Harris’ solo on the jazz standard “Green Dolphin Street”. Barry has some really killin’ II-V-I licks on here and really plays some really nice stuff through the break section. Check out his lines over the major chords and the break section as well. …
Turnaround Lick Lesson
Need a cool lick to play over a jazz turnaround? Great! Here’s a new jazz piano lesson video on playing a turnaround lick. I recommend you watch the video tutorial first and then scroll down for a bunch of extra tips and resources for you to learn jazz. The lesson features a lick in the key…
Swingin’ II- V- I lick lesson
Here’s a very cool bebop jazz lick over a II – V – I chord progression. I break this lick down to it’s core elements so you can master it and add to your own playing. There is some very nice bebop source material in there including arpeggiation minor line cliche approach patterns altered tones…
ii – V- i Jazz Lick in Minor Lesson
Here’s a very fun bebop lick over a ii -V-i in a minor key. I teach you how to play every note on there and break it down for you. This lick is not just for jazz piano though. This lick will sound great on guitar, saxophone, and trumpet as well. If you are looking…
Rootless Jazz Voicings-Min7th’s
Want to learn some cool left hand jazz chords? In this video I teach you how to use and apply rootless jazz piano voicings. This video specifically focuses on Minor 7th voicings. Rootless voicings are essential for any jazz piano player’s toolkit. Be sure to also check out part 2 in the series where we…
7 Tips For Playing Better Jazz Piano
Here it is! World touring jazz pianist Steve Nixon’s tips for playing great jazz piano. 1) How to play chords 100% authentic to the jazz style That means using chords that contain the prettiest notes. If you only play triads and basic chords you’re missing 99% of the style. You don’t want your playing to sound…
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