I want to learn piano jazz improvisation, how to jam and playing by ear. I've been playing the piano for 10 years, but only classical music. I know some basics of music theory. I feel overwhelmed with the amount of youtube videos about those topics and I really don't know where to start... so I thought maybe someone who had the same problem or learned it by themselves can show me the way.
My questions are:
\-abt improvisation and jams:
- What's the first thing I should learn? (major scales- should I play it in diatonic triads and diatonic 7th cords?, chords, licks, etc.)
- How I should practice those things? (playing them with metronome until I will feel comfortable?)
\*I have this problem where I practice those things, but I don't really see the purpose and how I could use those things later
Should I learn the circle of 5ths?
After learning the basics, how to make the melody interesting and how not to play only chord notes?
Should I play those scales and chords by ii-V-I?
If I've written melody how to make an accompaniment to it in jazzy way?
How much time it took you to feel comfortable with improvisation and playing jams?
What was the breaking point/ most important thing that you learned/heard about?
\- abt playing by ear:
- How to find the bass line in music piece?
- If I can find the melody and the key what I should do next? How to find the chords? How to make it sound more interesting?
To sum up:
I will be grateful for any help and tips. As I said before it's hard for me to learn those things if I don't know where to start and if I don't see any improvement. I've tried app, but I felt that there where too much things explained at once so I didn't knew how to take the pattern I learned to different things and make it all work out. Also there are a lot of things on instagram, but without basics I can't make much of it.
Submitted 2026-09-02T13:23:37Z by fsg4253 https://www.reddit.com/r/Learnmusic/comments/1w5a9jt/music_improvisation_and_playing_by_ear/?utm_source=ifttt
Javier Rodriguez
Wednesday, September 2, 2026