How to Reharmonize a Melody in REAL TIME

Today I'm covering one of the most sought-after skills an aspiring jazz pianist can have: how to reharmonize any melody on the spot. The ability to do so can completely open up your sound and expand your creativity over any tune you find yourself playing.

This exercise should help you to really hear alternate harmony at a more advanced level; I am also going to show you how to take a single melody note and find nearly endless harmonic options to play underneath. In other words, you'll leave today's video having the tools to create a unique chord progression under just one note.

To begin this exercise, you're going to want to choose one single melody note which is going to become the top note for all of our voicings. I've chosen F here, but I encourage you to try many different notes in your practice. Underneath this top melody note, we are simply going to move our bass note up chromatically, trying different options to harmonize with the melody. Once you have these two outer voices covered, we will fill in the space between with different chords. Continue moving the bass note up, and test your knowledge of what chords work with the two outer notes that you have playing together. As you go on, you'll being to see how our top melody note begins to take on different roles in each of the chords you create - from the root note, to the major seventh, a minor third, a sharp eleven, and so on.

The exercise doesn't have to stop there! Try some variations in the left hand changes - can you complete the same exercise, but moving up in whole steps instead of half steps? What about moving the bass note up in major thirds? These are all great ways to continue challenging yourself to come up with new chords and progressions beneath the same melody note.

For a more in-depth tutorial on how to implement this concept into your practice, check out this video:

6 Must-Learn Neo Soul Improv Licks

Have you ever listened to artists like Robert Glasper or Cory Henry and wondered how to get that modern, neo-soul sound in your playing? While these players have had years of playing and experience, one of the fastest ways to achieve this sound is to learn some jazz vocabulary that fits the genre. Not only will this give you ideas to draw upon during your own improvisation, but it will attune you to the different patterns and inflections involved in the captivating neo-soul style.

In today's featured video, I'm highlighting a few of my favorite excerpts from my jazz piano PDF guide, 20 Neo Soul Improv Exercises: Exercises for Mastering Neo Jazz Improv and Harmony (super clever name, I know!). If you want to check out the full PDF, you will find the exercises transcribed and written out in all keys.

These licks are going to help you focus in on all aspects of neo-jazz influenced harmony and improvisation. They are heavily inspired by the current greats of the neo-jazz style. Here are a few aspects of your playing that will be strengthened by practicing these exercises:

1. Technique

2. Improvisational right-hand vocabulary

3. Sense of harmony

Check out the video to hear the licks and practice alongside me:

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: