Jazz & Improvisation
Learn the language of jazz — and find your own voice within it.
Jazz is about listening, responding, experimenting, and making musical choices in the moment. You don't have to already be an experienced jazz musician to explore it.
Lessons can be tailored to your experience and interests, whether you're curious about jazz for the first time, want to become more comfortable improvising, or are looking to deepen your understanding of harmony and melody.
Improvisation
Improvisation doesn't mean making things up completely at random.
It's about developing enough musical vocabulary and confidence that you can make choices in the moment.
We'll work on things like:
Improvising with simple melodies and rhythms
Creating variations on a melody
Call and response
Scat singing
Improvising over chord progressions
Developing melodic ideas
Using rhythm to create interest
Listening and responding to what you're hearing
Becoming more comfortable making mistakes and experimenting
You don't need to be fearless before you start improvising. The confidence comes from doing it.
Jazz Standards
One of the best ways to learn jazz is through the songs that have become part of its shared musical language.
We'll work with jazz standards that interest you, learning the melody, lyrics, chords, form, and harmonic movement. You'll develop the ability to hear and recognize common patterns while also learning how to make the song your own.
Depending on your goals, we might explore standards such as Autumn Leaves, Blue Moon, Summertime, All of Me, Fly Me to the Moon, or other songs you're drawn to.
Standards can be approached from a singer's or pianist's perspective, including learning melodies by ear, understanding chord symbols, accompanying yourself, creating introductions and endings, and developing your own interpretation.
Scales & Musical Vocabulary
Scales are useful when you understand why you're using them.
Rather than simply memorizing a long list of scales, we'll connect them to chords, melodies, and actual music. Depending on your level, we might explore major and minor scales, modes, blues scales, pentatonics, arpeggios, chord tones, and other sounds commonly used in jazz.
We'll look at how these sounds relate to the harmony underneath them and, most importantly, how they actually sound.
For singers, this can also be a great way to develop range, pitch awareness, flexibility, and a stronger musical ear. For pianists, scales and arpeggios can become practical tools for improvisation, accompaniment, and understanding the keyboard.
Ear Training & Musicality
Jazz is an aural tradition, so learning to hear what you're doing is just as important as understanding it on paper.
We'll work on listening for intervals, chord qualities, melodic patterns, bass movement, rhythm, and harmonic changes. You may learn melodies or musical ideas by ear, then connect what you're hearing to the theory behind them.
The goal is to gradually make the connection between what you hear, what you understand, and what you can play or sing.