8-Week Program · Ukrainian Village, Chicago
Voicings, comping, the blues, the first vocabulary of improvisation, and a jazz standard you can play from memory by the end. Taught by a working Chicago jazz pianist and competition winner. For students with some piano background who want to start actually playing jazz.
8 lessons · 50 min each · weekly cadence · credits valid 1 year from purchase
The Bootcamp is built for students who can already play piano in some form — classical training, pop chord chart, self-taught noodling — and want to learn how the music they hear at Andy’s or on a Bill Evans record actually works. Eight weeks of focused work to get you from the outside looking in to playing real jazz vocabulary.
The exact path bends to your level — a classical player will spend more time on improvisation, an intermediate jazz player more on voicings. But the shape of the program is consistent.
Rootless left-hand voicings. Tritone substitutions. Extensions (9ths, 11ths, 13ths) used the way actual jazz pianists use them. By the end of week 2 you’ll voice chords on the page like a record, not like a textbook.
Comping rhythms behind a soloist (or just yourself). The 12-bar blues form, the jazz blues, minor blues. Comping is where most jazz actually happens — this is where you learn to sound like you belong on a bandstand.
Scale-chord relationships, target notes, the “blues licks” everyone borrows, the basic shapes of bebop language. Not memorizing solos — learning to actually generate lines yourself.
Pick a tune — an Autumn Leaves, a Misty, an All The Things You Are. The final two weeks polish one standard into a piece you can play from memory: head, comping, a chorus of improvisation, the works.
Jazz teaching that comes from someone who’s actively inside the music — not someone who learned it once and stopped playing. Nick gigs jazz every week at venues across Chicago. The vocabulary in your lessons is the vocabulary he’s using on the bandstand.
That changes what teaching feels like. The theory isn’t abstract. The standards aren’t hypothetical — they’re tunes called on gigs the night before. Improvisation isn’t a topic in a book; it’s the thing happening in the lesson, demonstrated and broken down in real time.
In-person students play on a real acoustic piano, with a Fender Rhodes and Hammond B3 in the room. More about the studio →
“He’s done an amazing job at building my skills and understanding from the ground up. He paces what I am learning very well so that it can feel challenging but doable.”
“He always provides repertoire that matches your current level while still challenging you to grow technically and musically. Excellent at guiding students through improvisation in a way that feels approachable and rewarding.”
If you can read a basic chord chart or read music at any level — classical, pop, anything — you’re ready. The Bootcamp builds the jazz layer on top of existing piano skills. Complete beginners are better served by the Pop Piano Jumpstart first.
Your pick, within reason. Common first-bootcamp tunes are Autumn Leaves, Misty, Blue Bossa, All The Things You Are, and Body and Soul — classics that teach the essentials and that you’ll actually use. If you have a specific tune in mind we work toward it.
Yes — in a starting form. Improvisation is a lifelong skill; eight weeks won’t make you Brad Mehldau. But you’ll leave with the building blocks: target notes, basic vocabulary, the confidence to play something that wasn’t written down. That’s the whole point.
Both work for jazz. In-person means the Rhodes and B3 in the room and the chance to play together at a real piano. Online means you’re working on the instrument you actually practice on, with the convenience of no commute. Same rate, same lesson.
Reschedule with 24 hours notice and your lesson moves. Pack credits are valid 1 year from purchase — the buffer’s built in.
Most Bootcamp students continue into a Semester Pack — same teacher, same time slot, going deeper on standards and improvisation. You can also take what you learned and run with it on your own.