Thoughts and Experiments with Solo Piano

Level 4Fred HerschPianoShow more

Fred Hersch focuses you on the underlying process of music making – regardless of the level of “music information” you have at your command – all in the service of helping you become a better solo pianist, and a more creative and empathic jazz musician.

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Love the music, and it will love you back

Equal parts zen master, psychologist, and old-school piano teacher task master, Fred Hersch brings 45 years of experience as a master jazz pianist and composer to bear in his teaching.  

Fred focuses you on the underlying process of music making – regardless of the level of “music information” you have at your command – all in the service of helping you become a better solo pianist, and a more creative and empathic jazz musician.  

And as Fred says, “Love the music, and it will love you back.”

  • LEVEL 4
  • 28 videos
  • 6 hours
  • LIVING NOTATION
  • PDFs
  • Subtitles: English

Meet Your Instructor

A select member of jazz’s piano pantheon, Fred Hersch is a pervasively influential creative force who has shaped the music’s course over more than three decades as an improviser, composer, educator, bandleader, collaborator, and recording artist. 

A fifteen-time Grammy nominee, Hersch has regularly garnered jazz’s most prestigious awards and has long set the standard for expressive interpretation and inventive creativity, whether through his exquisite solo performances, as the leader of one of jazz’s era-defining trios, or in eloquent dialogue with his deeply attuned duo partners.

Course Contents

Start Here

  • Introduction

Lessons

  • Playing the Piano
  • Experiments with Touch, Sound, and Color
  • The Piano as a Drum Set
  • Process: Becoming a Jazz Musician
  • Melody
  • Space Is the Place
  • Experiments With Harmony, Chords, and Counterpoint
  • Body and Soul: Contrapuntal Playing and Voicings
  • Experiments With Deep Listening
  • Intros, Endings, and…
  • How To Learn a Tune
  • Thoughts on Playing Without Fear and in the Moment
  • Composing and Building a Repertoire
  • J.S. Bach and Charlie Parker
  • Experimenting With the Blues, Monk, Coleman, and Parker
  • What and How To Practice
  • Conclusion
  • Interview

Watch. Listen. Now. Again. – Performances

  • "Pannonica" – Thelonious Monk
  • "The Song is You" – Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein
  • "Upper Manhattan Medical Group" – Billy Strayhorn
  • "How Insensitive" – Antônio Carlos Jobim
  • "Whisper Not" – Benny Golson
  • "Round Midnight" – Thelonious Monk
  • "Blue Monk" – Thelonious Monk
  • "Turnaround" – Ornette Coleman
  • "Au Privave" – Charlie Parker