Someone who has spent that amount of time chart reading on the piano has developed a very good set of "chops" in another sense.

While they may not have the ear-training, chord-analysis and such available to them, they do have quite the arsenal of proper fingerings, scales and chords, etc. under their command.

Most people whom I've taught to improvise who come from that kind of background soon start to realize that they DO know quite a bit about the thing, what they really don't know is more a matter of nomenclature than anything else. For example, they have never equated the "Eb7" fake chord as being an old familiar pattern from Chopin's Pathetique, etc.

Once those students "bite the bullet" and start working on the rather simple fundamentals behind chord naming conventions, once they "get it" that the whole thing is based upon the numbered steps of the Major Scale, they typically grab the ball and RUN with it.

They've alread developed plenty of hand coordination and strength from all that chart reading.

What most don't realize is that they've also done a pretty good job of ear training along the way as well.

Every one of them has become a better jazz pianist than the self-taught ones, with a few exceptions, of course.


--Mac

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