Donald Fagen Concepts for Jazz/Rock Piano

In this vintage video from Homespun, you'll get rare insight into the musical thinking of one of the most influential songwriters and arrangers in modern American popular music.

Videos
Chapter 1 (05:57) - After a dual piano intro jam, Donald and Warren introduce what they will be covering in this tutorial and Donald goes over how, as a songwriter, he comes up with different parts using the blues structure and expanding from there.
Chapter 2 (08:03) - Here, a basic 12 bar blues structure is played with interesting harmonies added to help form the overall sound.
Chapter 3 (14:06) - Donald uses the song “Peg” to showcase how to play the blues using a major sound
Chapter 4 (14:24) - The guys go over using bass lines to enhance different blues chords and then perform and analyse “Josie.”
Chapter 5 (11:42) - The song “On the Dunes” is played as an example of a type of blues with lots of movement.
Chapter 6 (16:50) - In this last video, Donald plays and breaks down a song that ventures away from the traditional blues structure.