Reading Music
You really have to know how to read music. Most of the lessons demonstrate at least some aspect of the music in notation.

Piano Technique
You should also have some experience playing the piano so that you have basic technique to rely on. If you know all 12 major scales and can play them with both hands without mistakes at 80bpm you are good to go.

Listening
This is the fun part. Listen to jazz as much as possible. So much of learning to play jazz is about listening to the music and assimilating the intangible aspects of it into your being. Here is a primer on starting a collection of jazz recordings and learning to listen to jazz.

Lesson Sequence
Use this guide to sequence the lessons.

1. 5 Essential 7th Chords. Everything comes from chords so you will need to know how to build and play them. This lesson will show you how to build and play the 5 Essential 7th chords that comprise >95% of any given tune in jazz.

2. The Major ii-V-I Progression and The Minor ii-V-i Progression. Once you know how to build chords, learn how they are used in music with this pair of lessons. These two progressions constitute most of the chord changes to any given standard tune.

3. Comping with Inversions. This series of lessons show you how to play chords using inversions. This skill is also known as voice-leading.

4. Rootless Voicings with Added Tension. This series of lessons show you how to drop the root and add rich sounding tensions (9, 11 and 13) to your chords to help you create a true jazz sound.

Once you can play chords with inversions or minus the root and with added tension (preferably the latter), you now have a good introduction to the basics of jazz harmony. From here you can begin your study of improvisation.

5. Improvisation: the Concept gives you an overview of the materials of improvisation.

6. 4 Components of Melodic Construction shows you the four basic structures that comprise the bebop melodic line.

7. Improvising Over . . .  This ongoing series of lessons describe how to improvise over the chord changes to common tunes in the jazz repertoire.

8. Licks. This group of lessons focuses on the construction of short melodic ideas.

Ear training- the skill of being able to recognize and reproduce pitch and rhythm- is an important part of learning to play jazz. You should always make room in your practice schedule for this activity. Start with Diatonic Intervals Ear Training then move on in this sequence: Chromatic Intervals Ear Training, Diatonic Tendency Tones and Chromatic Tendency Tones. Continue with Triad Ear Training and then 7th Chord Ear Training.

For a suggested sequence of beginning lessons click on the "Go to the Lessons" link in the navigation bar at left and sort the lessons by "getting started."

For more advanced players
For those of you with more experience playing jazz who are looking for more advanced lessons check out the series of lessons on Upper Structure Triads (UST). Start with Upper Structure Triads to review what this harmonic device is and how it is derived. Learn how to harmonize melodies with USTs part 1 and part 2. Check out a nicely reharmonized Auld Lang Syne, Silent Night or O Tannenbaum or refresh your ears by trying one of the ear training lessons. Peace is a nice miniature improvisation over the chord changes to this less common standard or add to your arsenal of licks by watching one of the Licks lessons.

Watch what you want, when you want, in any order that you want
Of course the beauty of JazzPianoOnline.com is that you can watch and learn about anything you want, anytime you want in any order that you want. Unlimited access to all of the lessons allows you to learn about things that you didn't even know existed.