Pop Soloing – 1
Build a strong foundation in pop improvisation with five approachable techniques that make your solos sound musical from the start. You'll learn to target the right notes, add ornaments and color your chords.
Learn the most common techniques used in pop soloing.
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Pop Soloing with Chord Tone Targets
Stop meandering and start playing clear, purposeful solos by landing on the most important notes of each chord. This is the foundation technique for confident pop soloing over your favorite songs.
Pop Soloing With 3rds and 6ths
Learn the warm, lyrical sound of 3rds and 6ths that pop pianists from Elton John to Coldplay rely on. You'll combine these two intervals into sweet, singing lines over popular chord progressions.
Pop Soloing with Slip Notes
Give your melodies a smooth, soulful lift by slipping into the notes that matter most. You'll learn which notes to slip, how to time them and how to build an engaging solo around this expressive technique.
Pop Soloing with Turns
Bring lively, energetic movement to your right-hand solos with turns, one of the most useful ornaments in pop piano. You'll learn the essential turn types, the right fingering and the rhythm, then use them to improvise over popular chord progressions.
Pop Soloing with the One Chord Wonder
Make every chord progression sound more colorful and sophisticated with one simple right-hand shape. It's an easy way for beginner and intermediate players to take both their chords and their solos to the next level.
Beginner
Intermediate
Pop
Pop Soloing
1 sections
Full Description
If you’re new to soloing, or you know your chords but aren’t sure what to play over them, this track is the place to start. It covers five essential techniques that pop pianists use all the time. Each one is simple enough to learn quickly and effective enough to make an immediate difference in your playing.
You’ll start with Chord Tone Targets, which teaches you to land on the most important notes of each chord so your solos have direction instead of wandering. From there, you’ll add the warm, singing sound of 3rds and 6ths, give your melodies a lift with Slip Notes, and bring energy to your lines with Turns. You’ll finish with the One Chord Wonder, a single 3-note right-hand shape that makes entire chord progressions sound more interesting.
Along the way, you’ll learn common pop chord progressions and left-hand accompaniment patterns, so you always have a solid foundation to improvise over. By the end of the track, you’ll have a versatile set of techniques you can use over your favorite pop songs, and you’ll be ready for the Intermediate/Advanced track.
Related Learning Tracks
Take your pop soloing to a professional level with five advanced techniques that add harmony, depth and texture to your right hand. This track takes the core ideas from the Beginner/Intermediate track and expands them, mostly by harmonizing single notes into chord shapes. The result is the full, polished sound you hear from pop pianists like Billy Joel, Elton John and Bruce Hornsby.
Follow this Learning Track to master the pop style.
Follow this Learning Track to get started with the contemporary style.
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