Cocktail Piano Lessons For Beginners

Cocktail Piano Lesson #1: Use What You Know

Home hobbyists to well-trained classical pianists have shown an interest in cocktail piano lessons. It’s no wonder why a pianist of any skill level and background would want to acquire cocktail piano skills.

You never know when the opportunity may arise. A local restaurant may have the need for such a performer. Hosts of private parties are becoming more and more in touch with how a cocktail pianist can enhance the ambience by setting just the right mood. Home enthusiasts often enjoy entertaining their guests and are usually open to sharpening their skills. In short, enhancing your cocktail piano skills offers rewards to anyone who appreciates this art form and can open you up to more possibilities.

That said, learning how to play cocktail piano style, even to the experienced concert performer, can make it necessary to look at those keys from a different angle. In some ways, it might be  involve going back to basics.

One of the first cocktail piano lessons for beginners might include looking at your chords in a new light. This doesn’t mean you need to put yourself through an advanced jazz piano chord voicing “boot camp” in order to get your playing to sound more professional. Not even close. Sure, it’s nice to be open to learning more chord voicing textures as time goes on. That said, you can make more of just a little with very little effort on your part.

For example, take those basic chords you know. I’m referring to your triads (three-note chords). For example, here is an Fmaj chord in its basic root position:

Easy Cocktail Piano Technique

Simply opening this triad by moving the A to a position that is one octave higher does a few good things for us:

• It provides a nice “open” sound texture
• Because of the wider interval created by removing the A from the middle of the chord, we can play the chord lower on the piano keyboard without sounding rather “muddy”
• It allows us to harmonize a melody in “pro”-like manner that actually sounds good

Let’s look at an example of how we can use this strategy:

 (a video session from “TV” Tips – get your FREE membership here)

Mini Cocktail Piano Lessons For Beginners

Our “TV “Tips area of this site actually provides lot of cocktail piano tips for beginners and other levels. It consists of a growing series of short video tutorials that are short enough to grasp easily so that you can begin implementing the cocktail piano techniques demonstrated right away.

You see, it’s not about adding to your piano playing toolbox as much as it is using what you know to your potential. Sure, learning more chord voicings, piano fills, and other “tricks of the trade” is lots of fun and can enhance our playing but what is truly behind making it all work is the performer. How you perform always means more than what you use to perform with.

So, take some of your practice time and devote it to using what you know to greater degrees. Take those triads and their inversions and start opening them up. The same can be true of your 7th chords, of course. The point is use what you know right where you are and have fun making music with it.