Jamie’s “These Are The Days” is one of those perfect pop/jazz-piano-mix tunes that holds a TON of valuable skills, licks & techniques to re-use in the rest of your playing. A true treasure trove.

I could write a ton about Jamie as a pianist. How awesome, talented and crazy skilled he is on the keys and how he’s been one of my early inspirations, sparking my initial interest in jazz and blues piano. But as I’ve already devoted a post to my *love* for him not too long ago (find the post here), I’ll save that for another day again.

This article will simply teach you -the first part- of his awesome track “These Are The Days,” giving tons of insight into the mighty skills of a madly talented Pop(/jazz)-Piano player.

In this weeks tutorial, I’ll show you:

• How to swing like a king, playing a piano-intro that will knock the socks off of all of your listeners
• How important dynamics are, and how lame something so cool can sound if you neglect it
• -Yet again- That Timing is Everything and how a solid groove can make the difference between golden and meh..
• This weeks’ -and the very first!- Lick Of The Week, that we’ll steal from Jamie’s stellar piano intro (WHAT A LICK!)
• Some NICE ways that Jamie voices his juicy extension (and non-extended) chords
• How the blues is the foundation to many cool sounding jazz piano riffs, licks and grooves

Below is part 1 of this tutorial, showing how to play the intro and chorus (the actual “These are the days…” parts that the song starts with).

Part 2 is available for Premium Couturians as part the Deluxe Tutorial including the full Chord Sheet and MIDI and showing the rest of the song in it’s whole.
Access it here in the Couturians’ Lounge or buy the tutorial pack here.

[Update] November 9, 2021 – Added part 2 – Both parts (full tutorial) now available here FREE.

Chord sheet (all chords used in both tutorials) available below the videos.

Have fun with learning this awesome tune!

Cheers,

Coen.

Ps. I’m saving the whole story for a different post that I’ll publish next week, but I’ve had a seriously exciting trip this week.
Check my Instagram for a little teaser:
(But seriously, if you click it to start following me, please DON’T get lost in the Insta-lerium and forget to come back to check out this tutorial. It’s just too cool for that. Seriously.)

A photo posted by Coen Modder (@pianocouture) on Sep 3, 2016 at 7:23am PDT

JAMIE CULLUM | THESE ARE THE DAYS

Tutorial – Part 1 (Intro & Chorus)

 

JAMIE CULLUM | THESE ARE THE DAYS

Tutorial – Part 2 (Verse & Outro)