The jazz chord exercise I WISH my first teacher had shown me. 

00:00 - Intro 00:40 - 2-5-1 Progression 02:04 - 2-5-1 Chords 03:28 - Step 1: Simplify 03:57 - Chord Shells 04:13 - Step 2: Invert 05:49 - Step 3: Apply to the 2-5-1 06:00 - Form 1: ABA 07:33 - Form 2: BAB 08:30 - Step 4: The Exercise 09:46 - Apply to Each Key 15:05 - Play with Backing Track 16:38 - Conclusion

Two comments: 1.) It's worth noting that the exercise traverses through the circle of fifths. 2.) To anyone aspiring to play jazz piano who is new to 2-5-1: if you become proficient at this exercise, IT WILL TRANSFORM YOUR PLAYING. Trust me, I know from experience. Years ago, I took jazz piano lessons with a teacher who taught me a nearly identical exercise. After I had it under my fingers, he had me embellish it by doing a walking bass line with the left hand (i.e. walking up the scale from the 2 to the 5 and walking down from the 5 to the 1). Finally, he had me learn it with just the left hand, where your hand bounces back and forth between bass notes and the upper chord tones. This last version frees your right hand to play melody or solo over the changes. Before learning this exercise and its variants, I only used basic root-position chord voicings. Once I had this concept down, my playing sounded like jazz. Furthermore, it made playing by ear much easier. I was always decent at figuring out song melodies, but getting the chords right was challenging. With the 2-5-1 pattern, I found that even if I didn't have the chords of popular songs exactly right, I could usually play them such that they were not only recognizable but also used jazz interpretation. I went from sounding amateurish to sounding professional enough to gig a few nights per week at a local Chinese restaurant, providing solo piano background music. For anyone new to jazz piano, this may be the single best video I've seen to date. Edit: for anyone who's interested, I posted a video to demonstrate what I described in this comment. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tBFhPD8u6Cc.html I'm not really a RU-vidr and I'm nowhere near as accomplished as Jonny, so don't set your expectations too high, LOL. If anything is unclear, please let me know. I'll do my best to clarify, or post a follow-up video, if necessary.

As a very experienced musician, and claissically trained, I am blown away by the clarity and complexity of information that you pass along here, it is really remarkable to achieve such a level of guidance like this on the internet.

This guy is honestly my favorite piano tutorial guy on RU-vid. Very easy to understand and very practical skills. Thanks for doing what you do, man!

Thx Jonny, really really GREAT summary, crystal clear and very useful !

Thank you for this exercise, I found it very useful. I've already learned many musical pieces from your lessons. I like your arrangements, it is much easier to learn than others. Your lessons are the best, thank you!

I think we need more exercises about jazz, not only hannon but the esencial like chords progression, passing chords, rithm , the scales, and how to get in and out of the key, Jonny Please share more exercises!! you're the man

ThanksJohnny. I'm constantly looking for micro adjustments in my voicings, and this is something else that I can play with. Much appreciated.

This was very easy to follow. Thank you!

Really great video! Thankyou.

WOW!! Great lesson...very well explained!

I started 8 months ago, and probably spent 2 weeks trying to get this information and Johnny spins it out in 16 minutes. I used to practice this regularly, but I've been trying to get through method books since I'm still a beginner. But this was so much fun to play, I think I'll pick it up again.

Indeed I enjoyed it ! As usual !

Very useful video. Thank you so much.

This sounds good for beginners, thanks and can’t wait to try it when I wake up tomorrow!!

Great instructional video! I kept up just about to the point of practicing all twelve keys. Then I was totally lost at sea, so I think I'll be watching this video many more times after I learn the basics and get ready to absorb the rest.

Great lesson! I grew up studying classical piano, later became a jazz lover via my time as a trumpeter… and eventually spent most of my music making time on acoustic guitar and as a rock singer. 😂 My point being that although I’m a jazz lover, I’ve never attained a level on any instrument to be a competent jazz player. And although I’ve had exposure to everything discussed here, these was a really great lesson on how to drill those changes in an efficient manner. I look forward to having some fun with this!

This is great stuff jonny,kinda shows how songs are constructed,thx.

This piano channel is simply awesome. All of the videos are always very usefull... Doesn´t matter if you are not a very well formed in chords theory.... I really like the aproach to the piano plying centered in observing the paterns so then you can understand that kind of theory which is normally kind of hard bussines... It is just how to deal with hard info in an very simply way...

An excellent teacher!!!

Very useful exercise perfectly explained

The BEST! :) I found face-to-face music teachers just don't teach like this and this is exactly what I want and need! Having now moved to my piano to re-visit this, Jonny I owe you $ for an hours tuition.

Great basic refresh

Tq Johnny, I am a guitarist, when I first started Jazz by a Berkeley tutor, he taught me this, then he put the Jamey Abersold backing track 2 5 1 in 12 keys play along...this is what being used in Berkeley. There are many good Jazz improvisation stuff with Jamey's material, I would recommend students to check it out ..

... very good systematic outline of the structural phenomenon - thanx for uploading! David from Germany, the silver fox 😉🦊

Brilliant👍👏

Awesome!

Amazingly helpful. Thank you!

I have to admit: I only watched half of this excellent video. I, a pretty good guitarist who cannot play keyboard🤔, got distracted about half way through. Trying to mentally get the feel of a 2-5-1 chord sequence, I got so vibed up that I paused the video and spent the next few minutes concocting a verse and chorus that are, ahem, pretty damn sick. Think Sultans of Swing meets Another Day of Sun, except COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Thank you!

This is EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO LEARN ! I’m going to take one of these 2 courses, I’m just not sure which 1 to start with…

You are the best always always always

Grazie

Excellent. As long time guitarist learning piano, I was wondering what the A and B voicings were and how they worked; this explained that perfectly. (wondering why this was never adopted in guitar pedagogy). I'm more inclined to use cycle 4 but that isn't a huge change. Bravo, Jonny!

Jonny, it’s easier to learn the chords rootless all in the LH, and much more jazzy. Advantage is that it frees up the RH.

This has been very helpful. I have a few questions: (1) Should this exercise be practiced with the chord in the left hand seeing that the Jazz melody uses the right hand? (2) Both hands? (3) What other drills can be done to enhance the learning?

I usually used the ABA form when I play 2-5-1

could you please let me know what kind of camera setting you use for your keyboard to look so flat ant nice :))) what is the camera :) nice video though! very professional!

this guy is actually agreat teacher... i havent even started yet

So Dm7 with the “A” removed is called the “A voicing” and G7 with the D removed and the “B” moved above the F is called a “B voicing”….that shouldn’t confuse anyone.

haha I watched 3 minutes and felt 1000 things click into place in my brain. like memorizing a room in the dark for ten years and someone turns on the light.

Now I can comp on Giant Steps 😉!

I must be thick as I could not grasp it quickly enough. You never showed how to use the chords when playing a standard? In that situation, would the 7th chords not be played with the left hand only leaving the right hand for playing the melody? Also, I thought that the suitable inversions either first, second or third etc in the left hand would be used but this also blows my mind in trying to determine at speed of playing which inversion to use? I am 74 and have been a note reader all my life and want to learn my 7th chords and suitable inversions but it all seems to overwhelming for my old brain to take in.

Great exercise for muscle memory! But it only goes so far. When I come across a 2-5-1 in Bb, for example, I'm not gonna have my hands on the 1 chord of C (whole step above) as in the example above. I am gonna have to know the 2-5-1 in Bb without the help of the previous progression. Make sense?

This is called voice leading, where the seventh resolves down and the leading tone resolves up. Basic voice leading

Hm? I was waiting for something more mindblowing. What Jonny shows here should be - or is normally - a very standard exercise to learn 2-5-1 progressions.

Thank you Jonny, but what I don't understand is why we need to learn to play in different keys? Is it in case a singer cannot sing in a particular key, then you switch key? I'm a mid-beginner in piano.

I've learned. This don't get mad at your beginning teachers because they didn't show you something. 1. You may not be ready 2. They may not know it. 3 by them not showing you you learned to appreciate it when you learned it. I've had my fair share of sitting blaming my teachers and been blamed as a teacher. And finally had this epiphany

You got both hands playing harmony. Who’s playing melody?

Just a comment that in sheets you are using sharps but on digital keyboard flats are shown for same keys. This is not good, try to fix this since not everyone is common to quickly reverse sharps to flats

Huh? So ... Simplification by super- _complication._ - Great. Where do I begin? 😂

Is there a reason why the 5th not is most commonly omitted?

the way you look tonight = I - IV - II - V

Why is the 2 a minor chord?

This is a great exercise and the ii-V7-I is VERY important but in NO WAY will you be able to play 99% of Jazz compositions. Again, this is a wonderful video but a little misleading...

I'd need a 88 note key board 😏

I love steamy children

Referring to first and second inversion chords as A and B is unnecessary and potentially confusing.

"A-Voicing"? ... "B-Voicing"?? I'd stop watching here. Nope. Triads have: Root-position c,e,g; First Inversion e,g,c; and 2nd Inversion g,c,e. Four-Note-Chords have 3 Inversions plus Root-position. If you leave out the fifth - which is _only_ recommendable_ or let's say _common_ with dominants, it's still *Inversions*. The key thing is to move notes as close as possibly while the roots move in fourth's or fifth's. Skip the nice haircut system. It'll lead nowhere or worse.

Yes I'm a beginner. And struggling like hell. Losing faith. Lessons like this do not help. Been a beginner for almost 1 year now. This lesson confuses me more. I can't follow this lesson. Too much assumed knowledge.

The wording in the thumbnail is painful...

Dude, just play the excercise first than talk it through.

I subscribed to full membership with PWJ 3 years ago. I was very quickly overwhelmed by the amount of material there is on the platform, lost my focus and dropped out. I never started with something like this 2-5-1 lesson with chord shells today…