Articles
Free, well-structured music articles and method books.
Books
All About Piano
A Fun and Simple Guide to Playing Piano
Mark Harrison's friendly, no-drudgery guide to playing piano — reading music, playing by ear, improvising, and exploring styles, with real songs to play along to.
Keyboard Chords in Color
A complete chord resource for keyboard and piano players
A complete, full-colour chord dictionary for keyboard and piano players — every common chord shown as the exact keys to press, a photo under real hands, and standard notation.
The Ultimate Scale Book
A Crash Course on Fingerings, Applications, and Theory for Guitar
Troy Stetina's complete guitar-scale reference: pentatonic, blues, major, natural minor, the modes, harmonic and jazz minor, plus symmetrical and exotic scales — each shown in
Materials
All materials →Guitar Chord Progressions: the Patterns Behind Most Songs
Chord progressions are numbers, not names — learn I–V–vi–IV once and you can play it in any key. The seven chords of the five guitar keys, the eight progressions worth memorizing, the songs that use them, and how to move any of them with a capo.
Barre Chords: the 8 Movable Shapes and How to Make Them Ring
A barre chord turns your index finger into a movable nut, so one shape gives you twelve chords. Here are the eight shapes that cover 96 chords, a fret-by-fret root chart for both root strings, and the fixes for every kind of buzz.
Guitar Chords: A Beginner's Guide
What a guitar chord is, how to read a chord diagram, and the eight essential open chords to learn first — each linked to an interactive finder where you can see the fingering and hear it.
Wynton Kelly
Wynton Kelly (1931–1971), ranked #33 in Gene Rizzo's greatest-jazz-pianists list: the buoyant, swinging accompanist behind Miles Davis and Wes Montgomery — with essential recordings and scores to play.
Willie "The Lion" Smith
Willie "The Lion" Smith (1893–1973), ranked #48 in Gene Rizzo's greatest-jazz-pianists list: the flamboyant Harlem stride master and most harmonically daring of the superstriders — his life, style, essential recordings, and scores to play.
Tommy Flanagan
Tommy Flanagan (1930–2001), ranked #8 in Gene Rizzo's greatest-jazz-pianists list — jazz's most tasteful accompanist, from Coltrane's 'Giant Steps' to a celebrated trio career.
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Tools
All tools →Look up
Reference tools — pick a root, a key or a fret and see the answer in notation, with sound.
Train
Ear and sight-reading drills that quiz you, keep score and get harder as you improve.
Play & practice
Instruments and practice aids to play along with — keyboard, metronome, tuner, drone, progressions.