How to Play Jazz Piano

Jazz music has always been admired by both musician and non-musicians for it’s expressiveness and the virtuosity required to play it.

To the uninitiated, the language of jazz seems almost incomprehensible. But the truth is, Jazz is governed by a relatively small number rules. Our How to Play Jazz Piano lessons examine these rules and break them down into smaller bite-sized chunks so they are easily understandable by the intermediate musician. Even advanced musician unfamiliar (or even perplexed) with these concepts will value these lessons.

And our Jazz Improv lessons show you how to use this knowledge and apply it to any style of music that you play. Adventurous improviser and accredited composer Landon Knoblock, who was recognized with honors from the University of Miami in Jazz Pedagogy, explains these Jazz lessons in a personable and appealing manner as they apply to guitar, horns, bass, keyboards and every other chromatic instrument.

Plus (but you didn’t hear it here), we’ll also show you the secrets that pros use. There is some smoke and mirrors in improvisation Jazz solos, little tricks that are easy to implement and sound extremely authentic. And we’re not afraid to show you what they are. Some musicians take years of lessons hoping to learn these secrets, and some teachers never give them up!

Your solos will take on new depth and complexity, yet you’ll be amazed at how easy it all was to learn.

So learn how to play Jazz piano with our Jazz Improv Concepts Vol. 1 and play the jazz solos you have always wanted to play.

Guitar Lessons: Chords - Beginner to Advanced

We know that many of you have a guitar in your house, or maybe you got one (or are getting one) for the holidays. But after it’s unwrapped, the string have been strummed, the guitar us passed around, and you’ve strike some rock star poses, you’re going to be looking for the “what’s next?”

That “what’s next?” is guitar lessons.

Luckily, we have the perfect guitar lessons so you can start learning right now, and be up and playing legitimately in just a couple of lessons, and all without learning how to read music.


Our how to play guitar chords is an excellent choice for the beginner just getting started in their musical career, or the intermediate looking to expand on the fundamentals that they already have learned.

Total Guitar Chords Vol. 1 starts on the ground level, and talks you through the instrument, how to hold it and how to position your hands. These guitar lessons then show you where to place your fingers for your first chords and how to strum simple rhythms.

Boom! You’re starting to play music.

Then each continuing lesson builds from there, adding chords to your vocabulary, adding additional notes to the chords you know, and new strumming patterns. Before you know it, you’re becoming well versed in playing rhythm guitar.

Total Guitar Chords Vol. 2 is a series guitar lessons that focus on more complex extended chords as they are used in Jazz, Blues, Funk and Rock music today, as well as the more complex strumming patterns.

As with Vol. 1 these guitar lessons use our progressive method of learning, so you are constantly building upon the knowledge you have learned in previous guitar lessons. Instead of trying to grasp entire concepts, they are broken down into smaller digestible pieces that you learn with ease.

The low price of these guitar lessons is just a fraction of what you would pay for a single private guitar lesson. You get to learn to play guitar in the comfort of your own home, and set the pace that you want to learn. If you conquer a lesson and want to move on, you don’t need to wait a week for your next lesson. Or, if you’re not ready to move on, you don’t need to be embarrassed and/or cancel (and probably pay for) your next lesson: Our guitar lessons are always there waiting for you.

Remember: A guitar without lessons is near useless, but with our how to play guitar chords lessons, it will be a tool for making music, personal expression and perhaps, fulfilling dreams.

Guitar Lessons: Soloing – Build the Ultimate Guitar Solo

Have you always wanted to be a lead guitarist in a band and peel off blistering solos that gets the audience up off of their feet? There’s nothing like the feeling of taking command of the stage and wowing the crowd, or hearing the applause after playing a smoking guitar solo.

Ultimate Guitar Lessons Complete Pack is designed to get you from here to there. Created for the guitarist that has some knowledge of the instrument, this set of four complete series of how to play electric guitar lessons (plus bonus Play Along tracks) start by re-examining proper positioning and hand placement to maximize your technique for speed and accuracy.

Then you are introduced to some exercises that will have you breaking old familiar habits, increasing your finger independence and opening the door way to new solo fingerings. The electric guitar lessons also cover all those little slight-of-hand tricks that add new dimension to your solos and fills.

There is also an extensive study of the scales. These are the building blocks to melodic ideas and the foundation to creating musical solos. These electric guitar lessons also show you some of the tricks that will help you jump in and solo with some “tried and true” licks till your own musical consciousness kicks in to take you to that other place.

Our guitar lessons will show you how to breakdown the chord changes of a solo section so you can create well thought out cohesive solos that make musical sense rather than a blur of notes that don’t say anything. You find your solos become expressive and more truly reflect your artistic ability.

You feel more pleased with your playing as you break out of the box and the box patterns that so many guitarists fall into with simplified fingerboard patterns.

Regardless of the style of music you play, electric or acoustic; these guitar lessons will set you on your way to more eloquent and articulate playing, as well as a mindset for more complex music theory. These guitar lessons are perfect as a pre-requisite for our Jazz Improv Concept lessons or as stand alone lessons for the lead guitarist in you.

Blues Guitar Lessons – Play Authentic Blues

B.B. King has said everyday he gets the blues. Now you can, too, and learn to play the guitar in the manner of the master.

Our blues guitar lessons Vol. 1 & 2 will steep you in the soulful, expressionistic, and arousing Blues as found on the streets of Austin, Memphis, Chicago and the Mississippi Delta. We show you the grooves and the feels, the slow burnin’ blues and the upbeat shuffles, and all the blues guitar licks to play that will take your playing to another world.

The elements of some killer Blues solos will be broken down, so you can learn note-for-note exactly what to play. Without getting involved in music theory, these blues guitar lessons concentrate on increasing you Blues vocabulary and adding licks to your arsenal.

This is clearly shown to you with video close-ups of Blues guitar instructor Joe Smith playing each example along with standard music notation and guitar tablature, so no music reading is required! The licks in these blues guitar lessons are played slowly so even beginners can grasp the fingering, and increase the speed as they become more comfortable.

Plus, we show some of the secrets used by the professional guitarist in America’s finest blues clubs that they use to get the house jumping! You’ll hone your chops and play authentic blues with our included downloadable MP3 jam tracks. You can even download these tracks to take with you on your MP3 player when your away from home. (Hint: many student amplifiers and many digital effect units now have 1/8 inputs for MP3 players created so you can jam with these tracks.)
So you can jump on a jet to Memphis and try to find a Blues master to teach you how to play Blues guitar, our you learn our Blues Guitar Chords in the comfort of your own home all for a fraction of one single private guitar lesson. Every day you can get the blues!

Buy a guitar - What to look for when buying a guitar

Who wouldn’t want a shiny new guitar under the tree for the holidays? But it should come as no big surprise that not all guitars are created (literally) equal. So, what should you look for when buying a guitar?

Well, first, you need to decide what kind of guitar you are looking for. This is largely dependent of what kind of music you’re looking to play. If you’re looking to become (or by a guitar for) an aspiring singer/songwriter you probably want a steel string acoustic guitar. If it’s a future rocker or blues guitarist, you’ll most likely want a solid body electric guitar. And Jazz musicians and Rockabilly guys tend to favor hollow body electric guitars. If you are buying an electric guitar you'll need an amplifier in most situations, as they are extremely quiet when they are not plugged in.

In the most general terms, it is easier to play on a quality instrument. Not too long ago quality was just another way of saying “big bucks”, but thankfully that is no longer the case. Some of the less expensive brands carry familiar names: Epiphone, Ibanez, Yamaha, and Washburn to name a few. These are a good place to start.

Buy a Guitar Tips

Keep in mind the size of the person who the guitar is for. Many acoustic guitar and Hollow body electrics bodies are rather large (dreadnaught and jumbo bodies) and younger smaller students might have trouble just reaching the strings. So in these cases it is better to opt for the smaller body versions of these instruments. Solid body electrics are typically small and this is seldom an issue.

The height of the string over the fingerboard determines how much pressure is going to be required to play the guitar. The height is lower towards the nut and headstock of the guitar and should only increase slightly up the neck, to about 3/32” at the 12th fret.

The neck should be fairly (almost totally) straight. An easy way to check, even for non-players, is to hold the lowest string down of the first fret and the twelfth fret at same time. The string should be equal distant off the frets the entire distant between your fingers. If there’s an increases distance between the strings and the fret in the center, or if the strings touch the frets in the center the neck is not straight. This might be fixed with an adjustment of the neck’s truss rod, but don’t do this yourself. Ask the dealer to do it, or look for another guitar.

Fret every note on the guitar and listen for buzzing, and try turning the tuners (tuning gears). They should feel smooth and moving easily, not hard, stiff or gritty. Listen to each string as you turn the tuning gears, the pitch should smoothly raise and lower without pings.

When buy acoustic guitar generally speaking solid woods sound better than laminates (a high-end name for plywood). Unfortunately, they are usually more expensive. I would recommend a guitar with at least a solid top (face of the guitar). The top is the soundboard, and its vibration fueled by the strings is the largest part of the instrument that you hear.

The back and sides of the guitar are usually mahogany, maple or rosewood, though many other woods are now being used especially on less expensive guitars. Maple usually sounds very bright, rosewood tends to have low lows and an articulated high end, and mahogany emphasizes the mid-range frequency. This is all a matter of personal taste, but I prefer the warm sound of mahogany guitars.

Solid body electric guitar bodies are usually made of two or more pieces of wood usually ash or alder though mahogany is not uncommon, sometimes with a cap made of another wood is placed on top.

If you choose to buy electric guitar keep in mind that the string’s vibration is transferred to the amplifier through the guitar’s pickups. Generally, there are two types of pickups, single coil and double coil (also called humbuckers or humbucking pickups). Obviously, the double coil pickups are about twice the size of a single coil pickup and they tend to have more mid-range and less high-end than their single coil counterparts. Again, it’s all a matter of taste…great music has been made with both styles of pickups in just about every style of music, and just about every guitarist have used both at some point in their career.

Don’t forget that a guitar in itself is a great gift, but is near useless without guitar lessons. I encourage you to look at the guitar lessons offered at EasyMusicLessons.com, where you can find lessons for yourself or the guitarist in your life.

Easy Music Lessons is a company created by musicians, for musicians, run by musicians. Nowhere will you find a company more compassionate about providing a product applicable to the needs of their customers. We know exactly the level of passion and dedication it takes to learn (and master) an instrument, the requirements expected of working musicians, and what it take to be considered at successful musician at large. We combine our wealth of experience with the best that technology has to offer and pack it into each and every lesson series we have to offer, along with 24/7 customer support for every lesson we sell.

If you find a great guitar or a great deal let us know so we can pass it on. Good luck, good licks & happy hunting!

Bass Lessons: The Bass Electrified!

Well, maybe not really. Still, one might point out that when James Brown toured in the late eighties that he toured with two bassists in his band. Any guess how many guitarists were on that tour? Zero. But it is interesting now some twenty years later that the bass’s tonal capabilities are just beginning to be fully recognized with new techniques of playing, extension of the range the instrument with additional strings and advances in electronics such as sub-woofers and octave generators.

This life long necessity of any musical ensemble was given a new breath of life when Leo Fender turned it into its electric form. No longer a cumbersome acoustic instrument that demanded its owner also had to concurrently own a station wagon (or later, a van) in order to transport it from gig to gig, the smaller amplified electric bass opened up new expressive and technical possibilities.

Easy Music Lessons offer bassists in any stage of their studies bass lessons that take advantage of all these new approaches to this instrument that is just beginning to reach the apex of its musical possibilities.

For the beginner, we teach the rudiments with an eye to the future. Each simple bass lesson leads directly into the next, adding another element to advance the player while cementing solid musical principles and practical responsibilities of those holding down the low end.

More experienced players can use our how to play bass guitar lessons to refine their personal style, add new harmonic concepts, and expand their knowledge various music genres, whether it be Reggae, Funk, Classic Rock, Metal, Country, Jazz or the Blues.

Regardless of your level of playing, Easy Music Lessons has the bass lessons that will not only teach you what you want to learn, but keep you on the cutting edge of this progressive instrument.