Inspiration for improvisers
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Chords, Composition, Jazz Education, Playing Techniques
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 a solid understanding of how minor harmony works in jazz. From this understanding, you’ll memorize jazz standards faster, understand chord progressions on a deeper level, …
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Blues, Chords, Composition, Jazz Advice and Tips
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… After a certain point you actually need to learn how to play over these sounds. …and truth be told, this is something that took me …
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Composition, Jazz Language, Jazz Musicians, Playing Techniques, Rhythm
With his unique improvisational style and innovative approach, Charlie Parker not only revolutionized how to play alto saxophone, but how to play jazz as a whole. He had a concept all his own that transcended what came before him and elevated the music to new heights! It’s no wonder that nearly every jazz musician since …
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Blues, Composition, Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Standards, Tunes
You know the routine…You pick out a new tune, read through the melody, and start to work on a solo. You’ve got a few ideas, throw in a couple of your favorite licks, and follow the guide tone lines. And then it happens…you’re stuck playing the same old scales and patterns that you use in every …
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Chords, Composition, Ear Training, Jazz Standards
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 more! Today we’ll unravel the slew of questions that arise from exploring chord function. Questions like, how do you build chords within a key? Why …
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Composition, Perspectives, Playing Techniques
Ask any musician or teacher what you should practice to develop exceptional jazz improvisation skills, and you usually hear words like “Scales” and “Modes” or “Guide-tone lines.” Sometimes even “Transcribing”… This is all useful information. And it will help you understand the harmonic function and music theory behind all those jazz standards. But it’s missing …
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Chords, Composition, Ear Training, Playing Techniques
Many chords are pretty easy to understand. But dominant seventh chords with an assortment of alterations…they’re a whole different animal! What’s with all this b9, #9, b13, #11, b5 stuff! There seem to be a million ways you can alter them and so many available scales. And even when you know the theory, playing over …
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Chords, Composition, Jazz Advice and Tips, Premium Only
Major chords are the easiest type of chord, right? We learn our major scales on Day #1 and from then on, soloing over a major chord is a piece of cake…or so we thought. One day, after practicing for some days, or even some years, we stop and think, “Playing over major chords is so …
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Composition, How to Practice Jazz, Jazz Standards
You’ve got a list of tunes that you’re excited to learn. Song titles scribbled on a piece of paper, lead sheets saved on your phone, and videos of your favorite players killing the changes. However, you’ve been down this road before… After a few days, your cherished goal of learning more tunes slowly morphs into …
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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 in your near future, but one thing is for sure: it’s fun just to let loose on a minor chord vamp and solo for hours! …
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Open up any music theory book and you’ll find the term “lydian.” A funny sounding word that refers to the fourth mode of the major scale. You’ve, no doubt, played this scale. You’ve probably even practiced it in every key and studied it’s relationship to the tonic. But what if I told you that you don’t …
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Chords, Composition, Jazz Education, Scales
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 minor scales—get passed-off as the most important aspect of learning to improvise. It’s as if by magic, you learn a couple scales and their modes, and …