How Jazzadvice Works
Lessons
Lessons explore specific ideas designed to stand on their own, but they become even more powerful when they start connecting.
Courses
Courses organize major topics like language and ear training into a clear progression, helping you build a deep understanding and knowledge, step by step.
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PRO is how members support Jazzadvice and gain access to our most in-depth lessons & courses, helping us continue to create the best work we can.
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Chord Function: Music Theory Fundamentals You Need To Know
Chord function is a confusing topic that is intricately tied to other just as confusing topics like voice leading, harmonic tension and resolution, intervallic content, chord voicings, chord families and…
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Are You Trying To Learn Jazz Improvisation in Reverse??
You learn scales. You faithfully practice triads and arpeggios in every key. You memorize chord progressions & learn tunes. And then you improvise… Sound familiar? This is the standard approach…
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The Confusion Around Minor Chords FINALLY Explained
Remember the first time you played a modal tune like Impressions and how fun it was to wail over a minor chord? Maybe you’ve had this experience, or maybe it’s…
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Mastering IV to I Movement: 8 Secrets from Sonny Clark
When you’re starting out, it can seem like the secret to improvising boils down to what you play on each chord. It’s all about the notes, the scale options, and…
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Mastering Essential Chord Progressions: The I to IV Relationship
When it comes to improving as an improviser, there are only so many tunes you can memorize. Only so many chord symbols and progressions you can force into your brain……
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Mastering Essential Chord Progressions: Major to Parallel Minor
When it comes to learning tunes, expanding your repertoire, and improving the way you improvise over jazz standards, most players are taking the wrong approach… You see, the secret to…
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A Pentatonic Approach to Playing Outside on the Blues
As an improviser, the blues is central to everything that you do…at once a sound, a form, an expressiveness, and a medium through which you can tell your musical story. …
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How to Think About Chords & Tunes Like a PRO…
Have you ever noticed how there’s a special group of improvisers that seem to know EXACTLY what to play over any tune at any time – no matter what it…
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Modal Jazz 101 – Tricks, Tips, & Approaches From Miles Davis
Always searching for a new sound to explore and share with the world, jazz musicians are constantly trying to evolve and push the music forward, reaching for something different and…
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How The Chord-Scale System Has Failed You: 6 Steps to Freedom With Scales and Modes
The Chord-scale system has become the most established and widespread method for teaching jazz improvisation…And it’s no mystery why. So often, scales—more specifically the modes of the major and melodic…
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Jazz Harmony: Why You’re Overlooking This Crucial Skill
When I started learning how to improvise, the one thing I really wanted to figure out was how to create improvised lines like my musical heroes… Listening to players like…
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Jazz Chords – The Definitive Guide to Mastery
Jazz chords are at the very heart of why jazz sounds the way it does and as a player, these sounds are essential to have in your ear on a…
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Jazz Scales: The Complete Guide for Improvisation
Jazz scales are one of the most talked-about topics in jazz improvisation, but also one of the most misunderstood. If you’ve studied jazz before, you’ve probably been told you need…
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How to Memorize Even the Most Difficult Tunes Right Now
Some tunes seem to make absolutely no sense, like the chords changes are some random crazy collection of complex sounds…But with a little know-how, using the same tactics we showed…
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10 Tritone Substitution Tactics from Kenny Dorham
Tritone Substitution is one of those terms you often hear tossed around in music theory classes. A definition to memorize, but not something that actually makes it into your playing……
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Music Theory Basics: The Circle of Fifths
Music theory is packed with quite a few dense explanations of esoteric concepts that plague the performer, and while music theory can be incredibly helpful to performing musicians, it has…
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Everything You Don’t Know About Minor Harmony in Jazz
Minor harmony is everywhere in jazz. Whether you’re playing a tune in a minor key or a jazz standard that shifts to the relative minor for a section, you need…
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10 Must-Know Jazz Chord Progressions
Getting to the next level as an improviser means moving beyond the basics of chords and scales. Specifically, it’s all about focusing on the harmonic relationships in the jazz repertoire…
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While lessons generally explore individual ideas, our expansive courses provide a structured way to go deeper, organizing major concepts into a connected approach that develops understanding over time.
Jazz Theory Unlocked
Jazz Theory Unlocked
A clear approach to understanding harmony and how tunes actually work — focused on the “why” behind jazz theory, and how everything connects into one clear framework.
The Ear Training Method
The Ear Training Method
A structured ear training system designed to help you hear chord movement, learn tunes by ear, and connect sound directly to theory.
Melodic Power
Melodic Power
A super detailed exploration of jazz language, helping you move beyond scales and understand how strong melodies are really built.
Visualization for Jazz Improvisation
Visualization for Jazz Improvisation
A practical way to organize chords and progressions mentally, making it easier to memorize tunes and think clearly through chord changes.
Reprogramming the Musical Mind
Reprogramming the Musical Mind
A focused course on the performance aspect of playing, addressing confidence, creativity, and the mindset needed to perform and practice with ease.
Who is Jazzadvice?
We’re Forrest & Eric. We’ve spent years learning directly from some of the greatest jazz musicians of our time — including Mulgrew Miller, Rich Perry, and Harold Mabern — and many others who shaped how this music is actually played and passed down.
Jazzadvice exists to take the insights that are usually shared informally at the professional level and make them clear, practical, and usable — without watering them down or stripping away their depth.
Forrest Wernick
Saxophone
Forrest has spent years studying and performing across the country, learning directly from master musicians, with close study under Rich Perry and Harold Mabern.
Eric O’Donnell
Trumpet
Eric has spent years studying and performing throughout the East Coast, training with master musicians including Bill Mobley, Mulgrew Miller, and Jack Schantz.
Jazzadvice PRo
Joining Jazzadvice PRO is how members support everything we create and gain access to our most in-depth lessons and courses — where ideas have the space to connect, build, and compound over time.
Inside PRO, everything follows the same approach you see throughout Jazzadvice: going deep, focusing on how and why things work, and building an understanding that actually holds up when you play.
What PRO Unlocks
- Unlimited access to the full Jazzadvice lesson library — deep dives into harmony, improvisation, ear training, rhythm, and more, designed to be revisited as your playing evolves.
- In-depth jazz courses built as complete learning paths — structured programs that organize major topics into a connected progression and continue to reveal new insights over time.
- Everything new we create, included automatically — new lessons, courses, and tools added as Jazzadvice continues to grow and expand.
What PRO Supports
Jazzadvice PRO members are the reason Jazzadvice continues to grow. Your support allows us to push further, creating better resources designed to help you reach the next level in your playing.
We’re deeply grateful to every member who supports the site. It’s what keeps us motivated, inspired, and excited about where Jazzadvice is headed.
Start Where You Are
Wherever you are in your playing, Jazzadvice is built to help you move forward
Lessons
Explore the Lesson Library
Browse individual lessons that focus on specific ideas you can apply right away — and return to as your understanding grows.
Courses
Go Deeper with Courses
Work through structured courses that organize major topics into a clear progression, helping you build long-term understanding step by step.
PRO
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PRO supports everything we create and gives you access to our most in-depth lessons, complete courses, and everything new we release.
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The ideas in this book grew out of years of lessons with great musicians of the tradition, thousands of hours studying recordings, wrong turns in the practice room, and deep conversations that slowly reshaped how we understood the music.
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