Piano I
This entry-level course for absolute beginners serves to guide students through a comprehensive, gradually paced introduction to the piano focusing on technique and reading. Concurrent enrollment in Beginning Music Theory is highly recommended. Recommended texts: Mastering Piano Method 1A, Mastering Theory 1A, Hal Leonard, available in The Bassment.
Saturdays 10 – 11:30 am
JEANNE WALPOLE (6 weeks) $250
Piano II
A continuation of Beginning Piano I, this beginning/intermediate course focuses on technique and reading. Instructor also covers basic functional harmony with an emphasis on scale and chord theory providing students with a solid harmonic foundation. Recommended text: Bastien Piano for
Adults II, available in The Bassment.
Prerequisite: Piano I or equivalent.
Saturdays 11:45 am – 1:15 pm
JEANNE WALPOLE (6 weeks) $250
Piano III: Applied
Keyboard Harmony
Through innovative and fun exercises, this hands-on class serves to acquaint students with playing tonic-dominant, basic turnarounds, and chord inversions in all keys. Students then play standard tunes using those basic progressions, in lead sheet format. This class prepares students for Jazz Piano I and is designed to free note-reading pianists from the printed page. Other instrumentalists can gain a deeper understanding of jazz harmony. Instructor provides handouts.
Prerequisite: Piano II or equivalent.
Saturdays 1:30 - 3 pm
JEANNE WALPOLE (6 weeks) $250
Jazz Piano I
This hands-on class provides students with a basic understanding of jazz piano. This course covers rhythmic, melodic and harmonic terminology as applied to jazz — including all aspects of interpreting a “lead sheet”— and provides several basic approaches to jazz improvisation. More specifically, this course provides an overview of the harmonic functions in major and minor keys; an exposure to a variety of structural forms such as AABA “song form” and 12-bar blues; a palate of chord voicings, including root position, inversions, simple open voicings, rootless voicings, and chord extensions; and an introduction to voice leading. Instructor coaches students in developing their sense of time and “swing feel” at the piano. Students listen to a number of pianists in different settings from solo piano to sextet, and are given specific practice skills to develop the ability to understand what they hear.
Prerequisite: basic piano proficiency, knowledge of major scales, and ability to read treble and bass clefs.
SECTION I (BEG/INT)
Wednesdays 6:30 – 8 pm
BOB KARTY (6 weeks) $250
SECTION II (BEG/INT)
Saturdays 3:15 – 4:45 pm
BEN STOLOROW (6 weeks) $250
Jazz Piano II
An in-depth study of voicings and voice leading, guidelines for improvisation focusing on major and minor tonalities, patterns, comping techniques, modal concepts, and development of style through analysis of various modern jazz pianists. Maximum enrollment: 10 students.
Prerequisite: Jazz Piano I or quivalent; and the ability to interpret a lead sheet. Telephone consultation required.
Section II Saturdays 11:45 am – 1:15 pm
DAN ZEMELMAN (6 weeks) $250
Bebop Piano
Learn to play in the bebop style over blues, rhythm changes, and jazz standards.
Class draws from early bebop pianists including Bud Powell and Al Haig to 1950’s
mainstays Wynton Kelly, Red Garland, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris and Sonny
Clark among others. Students focus on the linear 8th-note approach to soloing characteristic
of the bebop style.
Prerequisites:ability to play major and minor scales and read through a lead sheet with the melody in
the right hand and chords in the left.
Mondays 6:30 – 8 pm
ADAM SHULMAN (6 weeks) $250
Solo Jazz Piano Techniques
Solo jazz piano has a long and venerable tradition with outstanding practitioners in each era of jazz history from the Harlem stride school through the swing and bebop eras of the 30s and 40s to the present day. This class for intermediate to advanced pianists covers the skills necessary to become a proficient solo jazz pianist, including basic technique, playing in time, creating intros, interludes and endings, the use of dynamics, and balance between the hands.
Prerequisite: Ability to play and improvise over a jazz tune solo piano style from memory, in time. Audition required.
Saturdays 1:30 – 3 pm
DAN ZEMELMAN (6 weeks) $250
Salsa Piano
This hands-on class provides training in the fundamentals of Salsa/Afro-Cuban piano, with emphasis on the rhythmic skills essential to playing "in clave" and locking in with a salsa rhythm section. In an interactive, ensemble-like setting, students learn basic montunos (piano vamps), bass lines, and percussion rhythms, and how they fit together. Other topics include history of Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz piano styles.
Prerequisite: some reading ability and facility on piano.
Wednesdays 8:15 - 9:45pm
BOB KARTY (6 weeks) $250
Jazz Piano for Young Musicians
This hands-on class provides students with a basic understanding of jazz piano. This course covers rhythmic, melodic and harmonic terminology as applied to jazz —
including all aspects of interpreting a “lead sheet”— and provides several basic approaches to jazz improvisation. More specifically, this course provides an overview of the harmonic functions in major and minor keys; an exposure to a variety of structural forms such as AABA “song form” and 12-bar blues; a palette of chord voicings including root position, inversions, simple open voicings, rootless voicings, and chord extensions; and an introduction to voice leading. Instructor coaches students in developing their sense of time and “swing feel” at the piano. Students listen to a number of pianists in different settings from solo piano to sextet, and are given specific practice skills to develop the ability to understand what they hear.
Prerequisites: basic piano proficiency, knowledge of major scales, and ability to read treble and bass clefs.
Saturdays 10 – 11:30 am
DAVE SCOTT (6 weeks) $250
Boogie-Woogie Piano
This class serves as an introduction to boogie-woogie piano, one of the most fun, exciting, and jubilant styles of blues piano, and a precursor to early R&B and rock & roll. Boogie rhythms, bass lines, right-hand vocabulary, classic repertoire, and quintessential players (Jimmy Yancey, Albert Ammons, Meade ‘Lux’ Lewis, Pete Johnson, etc.) are explored. All class materials are provided by instructor.
Prerequisites: ability to read standard keyboard notation, familiarity with major chords and inversions, and familiarity with 12-bar blues form.
Tuesdays 4:45 – 6:15 pm
JENNIFER JOLLY (4 weeks) $140
The Genius of Ray Charles
This class serves as an introduction to Ray Charles’ piano stylings and his unique synthesis of blues, gospel, jazz, R&B, soul, and country. Quintessential tunes from several different eras of Ray’s career are studied and played. All class materials are provided.
Prerequisites: ability to read standard keyboard notation.
Tuesdays 6:30 – 8 pm
JENNIFER JOLLY (4 weeks) $140
The Piano Trio
This hands-on performance class for intermediate to advanced pianists focuses on how to play most effectively in the traditional jazz piano trio format. Maximum class size: four pianists. Accompaniment provided by a professional bassist and drummer. Please note: class available
on a first come, first served basis.
Prerequisites: ability to play and improvise over a jazz tune in time.
Section I Mondays 5:00 – 6:30 pm
Section II Mondays 6:45 – 8:15 pm
Section III Mondays 8:30 – 10 pm
PETER HORVATH (6 weeks) $265
Rhythm Gym!
This interactive class builds rhythmic dexterity and awareness while providing an introduction to some of the most fun, common rhythmic feels. Basic concepts of rhythm and time-feel are covered, along with syncopation, rhythmic displacement, polyrhythm, additive rhythm, “degree of swing,” and other topics. Funk, jazz, swing, doo-wop, New Orleans, reggae, Caribbean, African, Afro-Latin, and other world rhythms are introduced and played with instruments, the body, and the voice. All class materials provided. Open to all instrumentalists and vocalists. Prerequisites: ability to read rhythmic notation.
Thursdays 8:15 – 9:45 pm
JENNIFER JOLLY (4 weeks) $140
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