Jazz Keyboard Harmony: Take the Mystery out of Jazz Harmony: Piano

Systematic and empowering. Each chapter reveals another layer of how professional jazz pianists think about harmony, moving from practical voicings you can use immediately to sophisticated reharmonization strategies that expand your harmonic palette.

Jazz pianists and keyboardists who want to move beyond comping with chord symbols and understand the architecture beneath the music. This book also serves serious jazz arrangers and composers who need a clear reference on substitution vocabulary and harmonic options.

• Spend at least a week on each voicing type before moving forward. The concepts build on each other, and rushing through rootless voicings will muddy your understanding of spread voicings.
• Apply each new concept immediately to tunes you already know. Taking a ii-V-I progression you've played for years and testing different voicing options cements the learning.
• Work through the 12-key system methodically rather than jumping around. Transposition is the work, and consistency is what develops muscle memory.
• Record yourself playing the same progression with different voicing choices. Hearing the sonic differences between shell and rootless voicings trains your ear faster than reading about them.

Use this as the core text for an independent study or elective jazz harmony course at the intermediate and advanced levels. Pair it with a standards repertoire list so students apply the theory concepts to real tunes in your rehearsals.

• Constructing rootless, shell, spread, and cluster voicings across all 12 keys
• Navigating ii-V-I progressions with flexible harmonic choices
• Reading and applying Giant Steps substitutions and dominant chord cycles
• Thinking in modes and understanding non-diatonic harmonic movement
• Selecting voicings strategically based on melodic context and musical intent