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Jazz & Other Popular Piano
ONLINE/REMOTE
Fall 2025
"It was when I found out I could make mistakes, I knew I was on to something." —Ornette Coleman
“One thing I like about jazz, kid, is that I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Do you?” — Bix Beiderbecke
Objectives ~
This course will teach some of the fundamentals as well as more advanced concepts of Jazz and popular Latin music styles, with an emphasis on harmony and analysis, strong rhythmic interpretation, and development of good left and right-hand independence. As we will have students of varying levels of experience, we will indicate which materials or text pages should be used by each student according to his/her level. In this way we can cover similar concepts while students can expand their individual study and move at their own pace. Areas of focus will include the Blues, Afro-Cuban and Brazilian music and jazz standard repertoire, while touching upon the concepts of jazz theory and musicianship.
Learning Outcomes ~
After successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
A. Distinguish and select the skills involved in playing a variety of popular jazz piano styles.
B. Formulate basic popular piano harmony for a given melody.
C. Prepare the melody in various ways.
D. Assemble left hand accompaniments integrating right hand melodic material.
E. Differentiate and construct stylistic differences in playing jazz, blues, Brazilian, Afro-Cuban and other musical styles.
F. Choose rhythmic variety in the interpretation of pieces.
G. Create and perform a piece of music from the standard Jazz piano repertoire.
Watch this amazing duet with Dr. Billy Taylor and Ramsey Lewis playing Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm."
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