Whether you’re looking to learn your favourite jazz standard, improve your understanding of jazz voicings or take your improvisation to the next level, online jazz piano lessons are a great way to improve your skills from the comfort of your home.
In this article. we’ll take a look at some of our favourite websites for learning jazz piano.
Not everyone has the time or cash to spend on face-to-face piano lessons but thankfully it’s easier than ever to learn jazz piano skills, improvisation and jazz theory from home.
The internet gives us a great opportunity to learn jazz piano online and at our leisure.
But with so many options available across the web, narrowing down your options and selecting the best one for you might be a challenge. To help you out in your hunt for online jazz piano lessons, we’ve compiled a list of some of the best options.
Udemy
With over 500 jazz piano courses available, Udemy provides a wide range of options to choose from.
It’s a lot to choose from but each of these courses provides descriptions that make it easy for you to make a decision.
These descriptions usually explain the number of lessons included in the course, a rating and the duration of the course, along with the skill level required.
Whether you’re a beginner or looking for an expert jazz piano lesson, you will probably find a suitable course plan for yourself.
The instructors for these courses use high-quality HD videos and excellent audio which makes for a top-quality learning experience.
Artistworks
Designed by George Whitty, a world-renowned pianist, ArtistWorks provides online jazz piano lessons for anyone who wants to learn jazz piano.
The courses on this website begin with the fundamentals of jazz piano and advance to more complex theories and exercises. In the first few sessions, the principles of the pentatonic scale and timing are covered.
A great feature of this platform is the wide variety of interactive, hands-on tasks that allow learners to practice and enhance their skills outside of the virtual classroom.
FutureLearn
Affiliated with the University of London, FutureLearn has a number of courses available for learning jazz piano.
There are five lessons for beginners that cover the essentials of playing jazz piano. After completing this, learners can move on to more advanced lessons.
If you complete the course, there is an opportunity to showcase your skills in two programmed concerts, which gives you something to work towards and provides you with performance experience as well.
The lessons cover topics such as blues chord progressions, incorporating Latin jazz into your playing and jazz piano chords.
Skillshare
Like Udemy, this site has a ton of lessons available, including numerous courses aimed at beginners who want to learn jazz piano. There are many courses available for intermediate players as well.
These lessons have been created by experienced teachers that follow an easy course outline to help beginners jumpstart their jazz piano skills. Each video consists of a short and easy tutorial followed by practice exercises.
The main topics covered in the courses on this platform include ear training, improvisation, music theory, creative lessons, and music production.
PianoGroove
This platform provides in-depth video lessons for jazz piano. Unlike other sites, the course content goes into significant detail, covering a variety of topics.
There are around 20 lessons in the beginner stage alone. These lessons cover the jazz basics, jazz piano chords, balancing harmony, and jazz voicing.
In the beginner course, you’ll learn how to play the major, minor and rootless II-V-I chord progressions which is the foundation of countless jazz standards.
The lessons can be interactive or non-interactive depending on your preference.
FreeJazzLessons
Unlike many other platforms, FreeJazzLessons provides a great opportunity to access lessons for free. There are plenty of resources available on the website for free that you can take advantage of.
You can access the beginner courses for free but there is a charge if you want to progress to the site’s intermediate and advanced courses.
The fundamental courses will help you learn about chords, notation, scales, and jazz vocabulary. If you’re looking for the ultimate beginners course without needing to pay, this is a great option.
OpenStudioJazz
One of the more professional online jazz piano lessons platforms, OpenStudioJazz provides various courses designed especially for intermediate and advanced pianists who want to further improve their skills.
The program provides flexibility and can be accessed by people from all over the world. The learning resources include video, audio, and pdf files that can be downloaded from the website. Plus, there’s a free introductory class available if you first want to gauge the course for yourself first.
KeyboardImprov
This website has a series of free tutorials that can help beginners understand the basics of jazz piano. These are followed by intermediate and expert lessons that can be taken to further improve your jazz piano skills and play the instrument at a professional level.
Created by a passionate jazz piano teacher, Ron Drotos, the lessons are engaging and sometimes interactive. A series of practice exercises are also provided at the end of each lesson to perfect your skills as a jazz pianist.
Dave Frank School of Jazz
Dave Frank’s School of Jazz is a website that offers a host of instructional videos dedicated to jazz piano and the art of improvisation.
All of the videos are hosted by Dave Frank himself and are available either via his website or YouTube channel. The New York based musician and teacher covers the music of iconic musicians like Bill Evans, jazz theory, chord voicing, jazz improvisation and more.
If you want to learn from Dave Frank on a one-to-one basis in real-time, you can book an online piano lesson for $100 for 50-60 minutes.
Online jazz piano lessons are a convenient and relatively inexpensive way to get to grips with the piano, learn new chord progressions and develop your jazz improvisation skills. Any of the websites mentioned in this article are a great place to start.
Looking for more resources about learning jazz piano? Head over to our jazz piano section for more articles or head straight to our top ten iconic jazz piano solos to help get your creative juices flowing!
Looking for more?
Check out our list of 10 essential jazz piano albums, made up with some of the greatest pianists of all time.