Listen, I've watched students in their 60s and 70s (people who’d been secretly wanting to learn jazz for decades) discover they could improvise. Really improvise, not just fumble around.

Take Chrissie. She spent over 10 years beating her head against the wall with local teachers, online courses, and even dropped three grand on a program at a well-known music school in her area. Nothing clicked. But on the same day that she joined The Jazz Piano Launchpad? She was actually playing and loving the progress she was seeing. She had finally found a method who met her where she was and was helping her actually play jazz, instead of study it from afar. 

Age isn't your enemy here. What you need is a path that actually makes sense, with someone cheering you on instead of drowning you in theory.

This one really gets to me because it's based on a huge myth that holds so many people back. Research from experts like Anders Ericsson (who studied top performers for decades) and Carol Dweck (Stanford researcher) shows that what we call being "naturally gifted" is really just focused practice over time. When someone seems naturally gifted at jazz, what you're seeing is someone who put in hard work — often when you weren't watching.

I get why this feels so real. We all know someone who seems effortlessly musical. But here's what really happens: someone gets excited about jazz, practices regularly, and builds skills. Then everyone says "wow, you're so naturally gifted!" instead of seeing all the work they put in.

There's no such thing as a "jazz gene." Studies of musical "prodigies" show they simply started practicing earlier and worked harder than other kids. Jazz feels mysterious when you don't know how it works, but it's built on patterns, chord relationships, and ideas that anyone can learn.

What really matters isn't some special gift. It's having the right method and learning step by step. You already have a musical foundation. We just need to show you how to build on it.

Just like any other subject, there are simple ways to get started, and then there's always more you can learn. Jazz piano works the same way. The problem isn't that jazz is inherently too complicated. It's that most methods stick you straight into the hard stuff without giving you a foundation in the simple stuff first. No wonder people feel overwhelmed!

When you learn jazz the right way, starting with the essentials, it's surprisingly approachable. You can learn to play the chords to a favorite jazz standard in your first week. With consistent effort, you can start playing with musicians and backing tracks after a month. The complexity comes later, if and when you want it.

You absolutely can learn jazz on your own, but the challenge is that most resources aren't designed to meet you where you actually are.

YouTube videos often jump around from beginner to advanced without a clear path. Jazz books might assume you know things you haven't learned yet or they focus only on theory. Even great teachers sometimes skip the basics because they've forgotten what it's like to not know them.

The problem isn't that you can't learn independently—it's that you end up spending months or years working on the wrong things. When you work on the right skills in the right order for where you're at, you make progress fast, and will have fun doing it.

Obviously you're going to need to practice to learn jazz piano. But here's the thing: if you're practicing the wrong stuff, you could practice 10 hours a day and still not be ready for a jam session.

I see it all the time—people spending hours on exercises or songs that don't actually prepare them to actually play. Then they wonder why their motivation disappears. But when you focus on the right skills in the right order? You'll make more progress in 20 focused minutes than in an hour of wandering around the keyboard hoping something clicks.

Christine put it perfectly: "In a couple of months I have understood more about jazz chords and theory than I ever did before. It's a revelation!" That's the power of working on the right things in the right order.