The Complete Jazz Keyboard Method: Intermediate Jazz Keyboard: Keyboard/Piano CD

Baerman structures this intermediate book to bridge the gap between foundational concepts and real musical application. The etudes and songs tied directly to each new topic mean students aren't just learning theory in isolation; they're immediately playing through the ideas, which accelerates the transition from student to working jazz pianist.

Working through this book feels like learning to speak jazz fluently. Early sections review the fundamentals, building confidence before introducing modes, extensions, and chromatic pathways that open up the harmonic landscape. The combination of written exercises and play-along tracks creates a natural rhythm between intellectual understanding and visceral, embodied playing.

Intermediate jazz pianists and keyboardists who've completed foundational study and are ready to develop the harmonic sophistication and improvisational vocabulary that working jazz musicians use. This book is essential for students preparing for advanced study, jam session participation, or professional work.

• Slow down the recorded accompaniment when first learning a new concept. Most players rush through chord extensions and guide tones; working at half or three-quarter speed locks in voice leading before muscle memory crystallizes bad habits.
• Isolate the left hand voicings from the melody exercises. This book builds toward comping under your own solo, so practice the harmony moves without the right-hand line, then layer them together.
• Loop individual etudes or song changes rather than playing through them once. Repetition builds the fluency needed to hear and play these harmonic ideas in real time.
• Record yourself playing along with the CD and listen back specifically for clarity of guide tone movement. This trains your ear to hear what separates adequate changes from confident ones.

Use this as the core text for a semester or year-long intermediate jazz piano class. Its structured progression and built-in reinforcement through etudes and songs allows students to advance at a consistent pace while maintaining focus on harmonic mastery rather than jumping between disconnected concepts.

• Modes of the major scale and their applications in improvisation
• Chord extensions (9ths, 11ths, 13ths) and voice leading
• Guide tone lines and chromatic connecting tones
• Chord substitution techniques including tritone and modal substitution
• Blues changes and their variations
• Altered dominant chord extensions and resolution
• Comping rhythms and accompaniment voicing
• Making harmonic changes in real time during improvisation