Jazz Midi Files

One of the best ways to learn a new song is by studying the music. Being much more accustomed to DAWs than sight reading I like to import MIDI files and recently found a great site that features such files called Doug McKenzie's Live Played Jazz Midi Files. Doug McKenzie, no relation to Bob, is a retired college jazz music instructor from Geelong, Australia, so he really knows his subject matter, eh. Now to import these files into Reason you just need to open Reason and go to "File" (top of screen just to the left of Reason) and drag your cursor down to "Import Midi Files". The files from Doug's page sometimes include not only the piano parts, but drums and bass. You'll need to load appropriate combi patches for each sound - I really dig the "Electric Piano" bank in the Reason Factory Sound Bank for the piano parts. If you're interested in learning jazz piano you should definitely check out Doug's youtube page with videos of him playing along with piano notation! You can also buy a DVD direct from Doug's Site with over 170 jazz standards on it. These DVDs aren't copyrighted so teachers can copy songs off for their own students to learn. Cool!