Renowned jazz pianist Jim Mulac is now teaching at our Marion and Coralville locations. Jim has been a professional jazz pianist in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area for more than 30 years and has been teaching piano for more than 20 years. Jim studied jazz theory with Alan Swain in Chicago and was a classical piano student at the University of Iowa.  While his emphasis is in jazz performance and theory, he enjoys teaching all styles of music to all levels of piano players.

Jim's teaching repertoire includes:

• Chord identification in all keys, beginning with the basics.

• Piano arranging of songs from the jazz repertoire using chord symbols.

• Learning to use color tones and modern voicing techniques.

• Creative improvising, beginning with the basics.

• Understanding scales and modes.

• Song form analysis; understanding keys and modulation.

• Transposing songs to other keys.

• Harmonic substituting.

• Pentatonic logic, quartal harmony, modal theory.

• Jazz piano stylistics: from stride to bop, ballad playing, Latin & boogey.

• Composing, beginning with the basics.

• Improvising on classical music.