Noah Kellman | 🎹 Jazz Pianist & Educator

‘I Love You’ - Coming back from injury, searching for how I’ll play moving forward. Beautiful morning and I’m loving playing more than ever, with a new (old 1980s) piano and a lot of new music on the way. So here’s one of those tunes we’ve all been playing forever and will continue to play forever.

One of the biggest upgrades you can make to your groove / rhythmic playing: Stop thinking of the bassline and chords as separate parts. The real feel comes from the conversation between them. In this example, the bassline anchors the groove while the right-hand chords create syncopated momentum around it. MVG for the week (minimum viable goal): learn this, that’s it! ⭐️ If you want all 100 of these, just send me a dm with the word “thumbs” and I’ll tell you more

This may be the single most important technique for consistently interesting rhythmic comping on piano. This bite-sized exercise is for helping you practice alternating between your left hand and right hand thumbs at a quick pace. This is just one specific context, but the better you get at this, you’ll find tons and tons of uses for it across different genres. 👉I also have made more of these exercises if you want to skip the guessing and know exactly what to practice. Send me a quick dm with the word “thumbs” if you want to learn more!

So often, I see keys players comping stagnant, predictable rhythms that don’t groove when it’d actually be easy for them to build deeper pocket with some basic syncopation. This is an exercise for building high-level syncopation and hand independence in a way that pros would actually play. This one is particularly good in funk situations, and I bet you’ll find more great uses for it too for composition and beyond. 👉Comment “groove” and I’ll send you a free backing track to practice with, sheet music, and midi for this one! Hope you dig it.

Quick lesson on diatonic drop 2 voicings being used musically in context 🎹

How I practice quick, on-the-spot reharmonization - Step 1: Move the left hand bassline up in half steps, adding chords to each bass note while improvising a melody on top. This exercise helps train your ear to hear voicing possibilities, improve chord choices in real time, and build general confidence with reharmonization. Building this skill is super helpful for composition and arranging too.

This week was really special – I found myself surrounded by some of the most talented, hard-working and dedicated musicians I’ve crossed paths with, all in a place that might not immediately come to mind: Pocatello, Idaho. I went along with @lilbadsnacks and @ryanreeson for a magical week centered around an orchestral performance of Bad Snacks’ stunning upcoming album. We taught masterclasses to the endlessly curious and hard-working students at @citycreekrecords_isu , where @jarmstrongmusic has put together a truly impressive, forward thinking commercial music program that any student would be lucky to attend. The week culminated in a hybrid , fully-orchestrated big band plus @idahostatecivicsymphony performance of Bad Snacks’ music, with gorgeous string arrangements by Ryan. If you didn’t already know, Bad Snacks is a superhuman and her upcoming album is a masterpiece. I’m so proud of her for the magical music she wrote, and for how she, along with John Armstrong, @nellflanders , @jennamcleanmusic leading the vocal choir, and the rest of us, put together one of the most ambitious projects and performances I’ve ever been a part of. I’m so inspired by the dedication and hard work of everyone involved. Shoutout to @loganfromidaho for steering the ship like a boss. And I lucked out – after the well-deserved standing ovation for the whole crew, I got to play a duo encore with Bad Snacks, which meant so much. It was the first time performing together on a stage like that. It also hit me that that was the first performance period of that size that I’ve done after two years of fighting back and recovering from chronic injury. What a way to get back to it. Grateful 🧡

Had a really fun time reharmonizing Charlie Puth’s song “Beat Yourself Up” as part of a collab with @moises.ai Be sure to join their Jam Sessions Contest with Charlie, open from Feb 5th - Mar 31st! They’re giving away 100k in prizes, including cash, music gear, and an all-expenses-paid NYC trip to meet Charlie backstage at his Madison Square Garden show. To enter: 1: Create a 1+ minute cover or remix video of “Beat Yourself Up”. 2: Post it on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube with #MoisesJamSessionsContest and tag #Cover or #Remix Join the contest now and let’s see if you can put those reharmonization tips to work. #ad

Are voicings even necessary? @zsigmondgerloczy came onto the Jazz Lab Podcast and showed the incredible power of an augmented triad, and how you can use it to voice lead to so many different places. I was honored to have Zsigmond on, and I highly recommend checking out his brilliant approach to harmony and improvisation. The full episode is streaming in all the places you’d normally find a podcast 🎧🎥 Special thanks to @casiomusicgear for their wonderful support of these valuable and informative free podcast episodes! And shoutout to the beautiful Casio Privia keyboards we’re playing in this video.

I’m super into the concept of an MVG (minimum viable goal) these days. Here’s a quick one for you today: learn this tricky left hand lick. My guess is it takes you 10-20 mins, and then you know you’ve moved forward musically for the day.

Been messing around with 4th-based lines to add larger interval jumps in my improv. Here’s a fun one to try out with your right hand today 🎹

2025 has been a weird year (to put it gently). Almost everyone I know has faced some serious challenges, with the world changing at a pace that’s hard to keep up with. But looking back I can’t believe all the incredible friends I’ve made and gotten to work with, and I want to take a second here to remind everyone (or at least those of us who don’t necessarily feel like we kicked a** this year)— look back at your year, you loved, you experienced, and you probably achieved more than you realize. *Quick pro tip: This year, I’m focusing on my Minimum Viable Goals (MVGs). No more lofty New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I’m setting an MVG— saying right now, I want to release the EP I’ve already got done, and play at least one show. That’s it, my MVG. And here are a few of my own highlights that I’m taking this day to be grateful for: Shoutout to my good friend @elijahfox - we just made something really cool (hence the first photo) that I think you all are going to be VERY excited about (more on that later). Shoutout to the ridiculous artists who have come onto my podcast and shared their knowledge. You are all amazing people and incredible musicians. Shoutout to @lilbadsnacks for the fun collaboration and music we’ve worked on together, and for all that you’ve taught me about production, and more importantly, life - we’ve grown so much this year. Shoutout to @kiefdaddysupreme one of my favorite people and a soloist on my upcoming EP. Shoutout to @gnat.freeman … (see the slide where I’m in pain). To @rickmontalbano1575 my greatest mentor To my team @matttabor @super_haz @michaeljseverson @jhurlockmusic 🙏💚 Shoutout to @isaac_hunnewell . We put out a course called Musician Rewired and his methods are changing the lives of those who joined. Shoutout to my family ( @sam.kellman ) including my oldest friends in NY. We made some huge steps together this year and one of you even had a baby. Crazy. And my wonderful LA friends. Much love to any of you who follow me. Wishing you inspiration and love in the coming year. I’ve got lots of stuff planned that I’m hoping will only make your lives more fun, and musically rich. Here’s to achieving our MVGs in 2026 🥂☕️