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How To Become A Better Musician

As I mentioned in my last article, I recently celebrated my 15th year anniversary as a full time professional musician. After playing over 1500 gigs I’ve learned tons of musical lessons over the years (both good and bad!) That’s why today I want to share 5 more pieces of musician advice. These tips will show you how…

Professional Musician: What I Learned From Playing Over 1,500 Piano Gigs

About 2 months ago I celebrated my 16th year as a full time professional musician. Time definitely goes by quickly! In honor of my ‘anniversary’ I thought I’d create a list of important things I’ve learned from playing 1500 gigs in 16 years. Although, I could fill an encyclopedia with all the lessons I’ve learned, I…

Piano Practice – How To Build Better Habits

Today I want to teach you about a really useful piano practice technique that I’ve started using in my life. I’ve found a lot of benefit from it in both my music and in my personal life. It’s easy and I think you’ll really enjoy it as well once you start using it too. (We’re also…

Jazz Theory Cheat Sheet: The ii V I In All 12 Keys

As you continue to develop your jazz theory skills you’re going to want to make it a goal of being able to instantly play a ii-V-I chord progression in all 12 keys. Since you’ll hear the ii V I chord progression in so many great jazz tunes it’s vitally important that you learn how to play it quickly. It’s…

Piano Rhythm – 3 Strategies To Improve Your Rhythm Today

Want to improve your piano rhythm? Well, one of the cool things about learning jazz piano is there are so many different things you can practice that will help you improve your piano rhythm skills. Jazz is a very deep art form and there’s always something new and fun to explore. For example, you can spend time learning…

How To Play Christmas Songs On The Piano Using Jazz Arrangements

We have finally opened the doors again on the “Christmas Jazz Piano Super System“. To celebrate the relaunch of the 2 DVD set, I wanted to share an exclusive sample video right from the actual course (below). I’ve also gotten a TON of emails about the course so I’m also going to answer some of the most…

What’s The Most Important Thing You’ve Learned Studying Jazz?

One of my favorite parts of studying jazz at Berklee was that there were lots of great musicians around me to learn from and share ideas with. The sense of community was very helpful! We had so many like minded people working together on a common goal to become better jazz musicians! This created an incredible environment…

Jazz Piano Chord Substitutions Lesson

In this jazz piano tutorial we’re going to learn a cool technique that you can use to decorate chords that are held for long periods of time. If you’re just getting started learning check out this guide: How To Play Jazz Piano – The Ultimate 5 Step Beginners Guide. This technique will work particularly well…

2 Ear Training Exercises – Hear Chord Progressions More Easily

This lesson is the first in a series which presents a method for learning tunes while also developing your ear. The tune “Autumn Leaves” is used as an example. I first learned this ear training method in a masterclass taught by the great alto saxophonist, Phil Woods. Phil sat down at the piano and played…

Jazz Piano Practice Strategy Guide Part 1

If you’re reading this lesson there’s no question that you have a love, a passion, and a commitment to learning jazz piano. You and I have a lot in common in that way! Part of my job, as an online jazz piano teacher, is to help keep you motivated and focused on your musical goals. Now, I…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Jazz Masters Method Special Video Blog Thank You

Hey everybody! Today’s post is going to be short but sweet. I’m truly humbled right now. I’d like to thank everybody who’s ordered the Jazz Masters Method DVD so far during this launch week. The response has been simply been AMAZING. I am truly blessed! Thank you!! I prepared a quick little video blog as I…

11 Tips On Playing Piano For Your Career

A few days ago I received an interesting email from a reader of this site by the name of Jake. Jake asked,“Hey Steve! What are the basic skills a piano player needs to play piano for a living, even a very basic one?” I knew this would be a question many of the readers here…

The Gold Medal Jazz Piano Practice Challenge

Hey jazz fans! Hope you’re having a fantastic day today. Ok, in today’s post I’m going to share an exciting new practice challenge I’ve just taken up. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Some people will call me crazy after this but that inspires me even more! 🙂 I’m sharing…

7 Inspirational Books For Musicians

Hey fellow musicians! I hope you’re having a very musical day today! So, after I released the latest article on building more creativity as a musician, I received a ton of follow-up questions. Many people asked me if there were any inspirational books I could recommend that were written specifically for musicians. We already have…

Why Do You Play Jazz?

Hello my fellow jazz fanatics! I’d like to welcome all 21,879 subscribers to the free jazz lessons subscription list. We’re growing by leaps and bounds every day and I’m thrilled to have you here! Today, we’re going to help you solve some of your musical problems. In order to do that I’d like to share…

Altered Scale – A Simple How To Guide

Are you curious how to use the altered scale? Are your dominant chords getting a bit boring? Do you wish you knew some more interesting scales to use over them? Well, in today’s jazz scale lesson I’m going to teach you a very cool sounding scale you can play over your dominant chords. This scale…

5 Recommended Recordings That Have Made Me A Better Jazz Musician

You’ve heard the common phrase, You are what you eat before right? Well, when you’re learning to play jazz you are what you listen to! If you want to learn this style of music you’ve got to listen to the right music! So, today I’m going to talk about some recommended jazz albums that helped me…

How to Play Jazz Piano – A Beginners Guide

Alright, so how do you really learn jazz piano? Since I started this site I’ve received numerous emails from readers asking me the best way to learn how to play jazz piano and how to get started learning jazz as a beginner. Let’s first start with my jazz piano journey to give you an example……

Tritone Substitution – The Ultimate Guide

Check out this cool tritone substitution tutorial: In this video I’m going to teach you how to play a tritone substitution. We all know how important the II-V-I chord progression is to jazz music. It’s used in thousands of jazz standards. Now, it a beautiful sounding chord progression but sometimes in order to not sound…

What Do You Struggle With The Most When Playing Jazz?

Hello readers! For today’s jazz post I’d like to start a very important discussion with you guys. One that should have taken place along time ago. If you are reading this article you have no doubt a love and passion for learning jazz and improvised music. Playing jazz is an unbelievably rewarding journey. Learning such…