From a recent, real-live student:
"As a conservatory trained classical pianist and teacher I am grateful that I have spent my life delving deep into the amazing music of the classics. I always admired great jazz composers and performers yet never took the time to delve in. At Eastman, the jazz majors had a huge amount of confusing work to do on their art so I thought that learning jazz would be something I would not have time to do. As a result there were many times I wanted to sit and play by myself, for friends or at parties and had classics to play yet yearned for something more - jazz and improvisation. What Doc Watkins has created is something truly remarkable - great teaching that works from the first lesson and gives you a lifetime of material. It is fun, inspiring, exciting, instructive and it WORKS! He brings down so many barriers for the classical trained as well as those new to piano. He goes into the history and ethos of the music which helps you play it and also enjoy listening to jazz even more. It is a great course in every way and I HIGHLY recommend it."
- Kenneth Thompson, San Antonio, TX
CEO, Musical Arts Center of San Antonio
I'll walk you through the very same steps that I took to learn jazz from the ground up
(no metronome or sheet music required)
During this course, I'll retrace the steps I took to learn this music (believe it or not, it took me twenty years to take the plunge—the fear is real), and created this online course to help you get the results you want.
When I first tried learning jazz, I looked everywhere for guidance. Textbooks were of little help; memorizing scales and patterns was useless without context, which is rarely given. Jazz sheet music (yes, it's actually a thing) was the dead end of all dead ends. Listening to jazz recordings was helpful—to a point. What are you supposed to do with an Oscar Peterson solo when he's playing sixteenth notes at 80 miles per hour?
It wasn’t until I hit the restaurants, bars, and local street corners that I started to discover the best way for me to learn, which became the same method I'll use to teach you.
Over the years, I've used these principles to teach others and have seen them achieve remarkable success learning the genre. They start out thinking they’ll need years of formal training, but within a matter of weeks, they're riffing and creating their own renditions of their favorite tunes.
And now it's your turn. Let's play some jazz.
ABOUT THE COURSE
CURRICULUM
Conversational Jazz is an eight week course that gives you a solid foundation of the most fundamental principles in jazz, the way I learned it. The goal is to teach you how to think for yourself within this music, build chords, improvise your own solos, and learn new tunes for years to come.
New material released each week, plus a weekly live Q&A with me will provide you with fresh and stimulating content to keep you moving throughout the course.
Course Objectives
- Overcome the most common obstacles to learning jazz
- Learn fundamental building blocks of jazz
- Gain confidence improvising your own melodies and solos
- Learn to build jazz chords intuitively
- Understand basic song structure and form
- Explore the blues (my favorite)
LIFETIME ACCESS AND MONEY BACK GUARANTEE
You keep lifetime access to your course, including video lessons, Q&A calls, and all downloadable resources to support your learning.
And if you're not satisfied with the course, read my unbeatable guarantee in the FAQ section below.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
(Click the question to read the answer)
Is this course for me? How can I know?
Do you offer a guarantee?
What all is included in the course? How long is it?
How much time will I need to spend practicing?
What's the end goal? How far can I really get in 8 weeks?
I've never done an online course before. How "techy" do I need to be?
Is the course only for pianists, or does it apply to other instruments?
Is this course suitable for kids?
About Doc Watkins
Doc Watkins is a pianist, vocalist, bandleader, and the owner of Jazz, TX. He co-hosts the weekly radio show, “Live at Jazz, TX” which airs Saturday nights on Texas Public Radio. He's the creator and host of "The Doc Watkins Show," an online live-stream program created during the Great Quarantine of 2020. He's also the host of the new podcast, "The Place to Be." A typical year for Watkins involves over two hundred live shows with multiple groups under his name, and so far he has released nine albums, covering multiple genres including Classical, Jazz, Blues, and Texas Swing.
Watkins received his Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Music Performance from the University of Texas at Austin, and moved to San Antonio, TX in 2006. He has toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, Russia, and Europe, and has performed twice at Carnegie Hall.
In 2016, Watkins opened his own music venue, Jazz, TX, and performs there regularly with his groups. Deeply committed to the heritage and tradition of Texas music, he includes a wide variety of styles at Jazz, TX including Jazz, Blues, Texas Swing, Salsa, and Folk music.
Watkins currently resides in San Antonio with his wife, Jessica and their four children. He is a self-declared enthusiast of Texas BBQ.
WHAT WE PLAY
IS LIFE.
- Louis Armstrong
