Jazz Piano Intros & Endings

Most jazz songs in your real book will not specify any intro or ending. As a jazz pianists you must know how to intro a song, and how to write an ending to a song.

In this article I’ll show you how to do both.

How to Intro A Jazz Song

It’s a good idea to add a 4 bar intro to every song you play. The intro section establishes the song’s tempo and key for your listeners - rather than going straight into the melody which can be confusing to your audience.

The most common intro technique is to start with the song’s turnaround. The ‘Turnaround’ is a series of 3 or 4 chords at the end of the song which are written in brackets - e.g. ‘(Em7) (A7) (Dm7) G7)’.

The turnaround chords are written in brackets because you only play them if you’re about to repeat the song. Whereas if you’re ending the song, you don’t play them.

The turnaround chords have been composed so that they lead back around to the start of the song (they’re usually a 6-2-5 that leads back to the I chord at the start of the song). This means that you can always play the turnaround as your intro and know that it’s going to sound good.

So for any song you want to play, look at the last 4 chords of the song that are written in brackets, and start your playing there.

If the song has a free tempo, I’ll usually slow down at the end of the intro and add a short pause before I begin the melody.

Here’s how I might intro the song ‘Misty’ - playing the turnaround, with a short pause before the melody begins:

IMAGE: sheet music - intro to Misty.

How to End A Jazz Song

Song endings are one of the most fun parts of playing jazz piano - they’re a time to break out of the song’s tempo, hold down the pedal, and run up through a series of colorful notes.

There are two types of song - major songs (which start and end on a major chord), and minor songs (which start and end on a minor chord).

For major song endings, I like to use notes from the lydian scale - played over a major 7 chord below (or major 6 chord).

The lydian scale is a major scale with a #4:

IMAGE: sheet music - C lydian scale

So let’s say you’re playing a song that ends on C major 7 - here you would run up the notes of C lydian scale to create your ending:

IMAGE: sheet music - C lydian scale ending for C maj 7. Show pedal

A good principle is to start with the root and 5th at the bottom of your ending sequence. These two notes establish the chord type - that it’s a C chord. Then you can add your 3rds and 7ths higher up, as well as more colorful notes like the 9th, #4, and 6th.

NOTE: You should only play from C lydian scale for the final chord (C maj 7). For any preceding chords (which will probably be D min 7 and G7) you would play from different scales - C lydian scale would not fit over these chords.

A simple ending I’ll sometimes use for major songs is to play the major 7 chord using an open chord voicing - 1 5 3 7 - and then to repeat the 3rd and 7th up an octave, and then up another octave - like this:

IMAGE: sheet music - C maj 7 ending. C G E B E B E B

Major songs include Misty, Moon River, Ladybird, Afternoon in Paris, Satin Doll, Girl From Ipanema (and most jazz songs).

Minor Song Endings

For minor songs (which end on a minor chord), you can do the same thing - hold down the pedal and run up a series of notes.

But for minor songs, I like to use the melodic minor scale to create my ending sequence.

The melodic minor scale is a natural minor scale up to the 5th (C D Eb F G), but it has a major 6th (A) and major 7th (B):

IMAGE: sheet music - C melodic minor scale

Now for this to work, you’ll have to play either a C minor 6 chord (C Eb G A), or a C minor-major 7 chord (C Eb G B). You can’t end on a C minor 7 chord (C Eb G Bb) if you want to play from C melodic minor scale - because the minor 7th in the chord (Bb) will clash with the major 7th in the scale (B).

The melodic minor scale creates a classy ‘film noir’ sound which works beautifully for most minor song endings.

Here’s how you could end a minor song in C minor:

IMAGE: sheet music - C melodic minor ENDING

Again, I’m starting with the root and 5th at the bottom to establish the chord clearly - then I’ll add 3rds and 7ths (which tell you the chord type)

A simple ending I’ll sometimes use for minor songs is to play a minor 6 chord - 1 3 5 6 - and then to repeat this upwards over several octaves - like this:

IMAGE: sheet music - C min 6 ending. C Eb G A C Eb G A etc

Or you could play a slightly more fancy repeating pattern like this:

IMAGE: sheet music - C min 6 ending. C Eb G A D C - C Eb G A D C -
C Eb G A D C.

Want more jazz piano ending ideas? I’ve notated my top jazz piano endings as sheet music which you can download for free.

Click here to download ‘5 sweet jazz piano endings’.

NOTE: You should only play from C melodic minor scale for the final chord (C min). For any preceding chords (which will probably be Dø and G7) you would play from different scales - C melodic minor scale would not fit over these chords.

Minor songs include Summertime, Blue Bossa, Song For My Father, Invitation.

Practice Tip

Compose intros and endings to every song in your repertoire.

  • For the intro, play the turnaround (the 4 chords at the end that are in brackets).

  • For major songs, end with the lydian scale played over a C major 7 chord.

  • For minor songs, end with the melodic minor scale played over a C min 6 chord.

Recommended songs: Misty, Summertime, Girl From Ipanema, Cry Me A River, Autumn Leaves, Blue Bossa, Invitation.

Jazz Piano Endings Sheet Music

I’ve notated some of my favorite jazz piano endings - both major and minor patterns - which you can download for free:

Click here to download ‘5 sweet jazz piano endings’.

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About the Author

Julian Bradley is a jazz pianist and music educator from the U.K. He has a masters degree in music from Bristol University, and has played with and composed for a variety of big bands.
Julian runs the popular Jazz Tutorial YouTube channel and writes educational jazz lessons at JazzTutorial.com