Articles | Chris Donnelly

The Chromatic Scale and Fingering Maps

In the last few months, I’ve been writing about how jazz pianists play fast runs. This has encouraged me to revisit and update my article on ‘fingering maps’ and how they relate to idiomatic gestures, economical motion, and playing in different keys. The article below is...

When Jazz Pianists Play Fast – A Collection of Runs, Exercises, & Idiomatic Gestures

Find the full article and transcriptions on (Patreon) — One of the major premises of these articles is that pianists make improvisatory decisions based on physical relationships, not just harmonic or auditory relationships. This is especially observed when pianists play fast – finger sequences, note...

Thelonious Monk Transcriptions

80 pages of Thelonious Monk transcriptions available on (Patreon) and (Gumroad) – – This has been a long-term goal of mine. I have hundreds of pages of hand written, solo piano transcriptions that I’ve been meaning to translate into Finale, (or something more readable!)....

Two-Handed Jazz Voicings: A Practice Guide

Find the full article on (Patreon) One of the most common difficulties among jazz piano students is playing two-handed voicings. Generally, the problem is twofold: What are the “good” voicings and how do you practice them? There are lots of resources on jazz voicings. With...

Bud Powell Solo Piano Transcriptions

Five tunes by Bud Powell! Lead sheets and solo piano transcriptions available on (Patreon) and (Gumroad). – – I’m confident these are 99.9% accurate, but undoubtedly, there are typos, and corrections will need to be made. Please let me know!

Fred Hersch Solo Piano Transcriptions – Songs Without Words

Six tunes by Fred Hersch. Here’s the album on (Spotify). Lead sheets and solo piano transcriptions are available on (Patreon) and (Gumroad)

Jazz Counterpoint – Improvising Melody & Bass at the Piano

The full transcriptions and article can be found on (Patreon). When musicians think about counterpoint, most likely they think about traditional fugues and “Bach” counterpoint. In some cases, they may also think about renaissance counterpoint, species writing and the music of Palestrina. When you listen...

Piano Transcription & Deep Analysis – Sugar Ray by Phineas Newborn Jr.

Transcription PDF available on (Patreon). I thought I’d take a break from the grind of writing about hand independence and transcribe something instead. In my own practice, I revisited this tune by Phineas Newborn Jr. called Sugar Ray. I encourage students to learn it because the...

Directional Relationships at the Piano

Full 8400-word article available on (Patreon) At the end of the (previous article) on spatial relationships, I made four observations that I believe are relevant for practicing hand independence and counterpoint. These four observations were from exploring the significance of spatial relationships at the piano. In...

Spatial Relationships at the Piano

Full 2600-word article available on (Patreon) — In the previous article, I explored active and passive relationships as a starting point for understanding how improvising pianists split attention between their hands. Pianists can use larger clusters of notes in BOTH hands to create the illusion...