In this short audio, listen to the use of 'sequences'; short melodic ideas that are repeated a little higher or lower on the keyboard. Sequences are a fantastic way to reap musical 'compound interest' on your melodic ideas.

For more on learning this technique, read our article on sequencing.

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By 'close' block chords, we mean where the top and bottom notes of the block chord are about an octave apart. In contrast, 'big band style' block chords will tend to have left and right hands playing chords quite far apart, giving a more expansive sound.

Notice in this demo how, with a fairly easy technique, you can produce a really varied sound. In the context of longer solos, a section of close block chord playing adds fantastic energy and vigour.

You can practice close block chords just as you would scales; get your hands in position and play up and down scales. Then work in segments of arpeggios. Playing an arpeggio fragment in a solo, in block chords, really adds a massive rush of energy. Oscar Peterson, George Shearing, and Bill Evans were famous masters of this.

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In this short audio, note that the pianist was deliberately not trying to play musically, but simply acting as a 'button pusher', playing fragments of diminished scales. At the same time, however, note how colourful it sounds. At times, this audio is evocative of Bill Evan's melodic style (which drew heavily upon diminished runs). Today’s lesson? Learn or review the diminished scales (there are only three of them), and simply practise playing scale fragments in solos over different changes. Listen to the sound it makes, the colours of the diminished sound.

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Listen to how the pianist plays an idea, a ‘question’, and then the next idea ‘answers’ it. It’s another technique that’s outrageously simple, yet profoundly musical.

Once again, the key to making this technique work for you is to think differently. Rather than thinking like a button pusher, think in terms of question and answer. Notice the simplicity of this. If you are thinking in terms of question and answer, then you’ll automatically be thinking in terms of leaving space between ideas. You’ll automatically be thinking in terms of developing an idea, and so on. There will be some similarities between the questions and answers, which means it’s inherently musical.

If you’re not sure how to get started, here are some simple first steps:

* The Q motif goes up a scale, the A comes down. And vice versa.

* The Q repeats notes, and the A plays an idea resolving on the main note.

* The Q is low or high on the piano, the A is high/low (the opposite).

* The Q ends on a given note, the A starts on that note.

* The Q uses one scale, the A uses another.

* And so on…

Over to you. Pick a standard, and practise playing questions and answers. Record yourself, listen back, and go from there.

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As you listen, notice:

* How simple the musical ideas our pianist is playing actually are!

* How musically effective it is simply to repeat a simple idea. It’s as if each repetition of an idea gains you ‘compound interest’ on the value of the original motif.

Over to you! Get a backing track playing, and play deliberately simple ideas - just keep repeating them in different ways, and notice the musical effect.

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