I started taking piano lessons as a kid in the Canadian "Royal Conservatory" system, which is classically oriented and gave me a great deal of value. I never became the greatest player in the world, but have been able to play well enough to accompany singing students I've taught privately and at the college level. In addition to classical, I've loved jazz and pop my whole life, (I have a major Steely Dan fetish!) But, can really only play that stuff with sheet music in front of me. I've always been jealous of the improvisers. Throughout the pandemic I started listening to Adam and Peter's podcast as a way to see if I might pick up some jazz piano tips. I'm also a bit of a theory nerd, so I enjoy all the jazz theory talk. That led me to buying the chords practic pack. But, after 1 lesson I decided I needed to back up one more step to really get the whole "root, shell, pretty" of voicings thing into my fingers. So, I got Jazz Chords For Beginners. I've only been at it for a week, but I love it! I love Adam's enthusiasm, and easy-going approach, and the exercises are great. I've been going slowly through the I, ii, and V chords in 5 note voicings, playing them chromatically and through the circle of fourths. I've slowed way down, and spent a lot of time really looking at where my fingers are and feeling the shapes. For the first time I'm developing a physical sense of what my hands do in all 12 keys. I've always had a horrible habit of leaving out flats and sharps in different keys, even though I know intellectually that I'm supposed to play them. I'm already feeling even more confident when I'm reading music, and starting to feel more comfortable with my ii-V-Is through the circle of fourths. I'm enjoying going slowly, playing 3 notes in my left hand/2 notes in my right, then reversing it with 2 notes in the left and 3 in the right. I'm also playing in different rhythms to keep it fun, and really listening to the chord qualities as another failsafe against doing dumb things like mistakenly playing major 7ths in dominant and minor chords, etc. I'm not going to rush to the next step until I've got these ones under my fingers. Then, on to the diminished, half-diminished, and minor 6ths! I'm imagining that the 4 note rootless and left handed-rootless chords will come a bit faster after getting the 5 note voicings more securely. But, I'm not in a rush. I'm just having fun. I do look forward being able to put some of this stuff to use on standards that I love in the future. What's fun is that I can actually see that it will be possible! For variety, I'm playing through my collection of Steely Dan transcriptions, and find that even as I read the sheet music, many of the juicy altered chords they use make that much more sense to me on a physical, kinesthetic level. My 60th birthday is at the end of June, and as a special gift, I'm going to go in on a Casio Privia PX-S7000 with my Mom and Sister, who want to spoil me, but not quite enough to pay the whole shot themselves! Assuming I like how much it sounds as I love how it looks, I'm looking forward to going into the store and having some things I can play off the top of my head to take it through its paces. So, this is a lovely new learning phase for me that I'm feeling very jazzed about. (See what I did there?) :-) Thanks for the great instruction and for helping me wire some new synapses in my musical brain! Rigzin P.S. Thanks for putting me on to SoundSlice, too! I now use it as an amazing teaching tool for a choir I conduct. My students love it, and so do I! You guys put me on to that one too.