Inspiration for improvisers
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Chords, Composition, Jazz Language, Jazz Standards, Playing Techniques
How do I connect chords when I’m soloing? You’re asking yourself this question in the practice room and you’re frustrated when there doesn’t seem to be an easy answer. But you’re not alone. This is a question that every improviser struggles with as they create solos over tunes. Improvising over one chord is simple enough, …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Language, Premium Only, Transcribing
Learning jazz language is vital to your success as an improvisor. Without it you’re truly lost. You may know a scale, a chord, a concept…but without the fundamental ideas of what to do with these tools, you’ll aimlessly wander through the harmony. These fundamental ideas are gleaned from learning and studying language. A reader recently …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Language, Jazz Musicians, Playing Techniques, Transcribing
Recently I’ve been studying and transcribing a lot of Miles from around 1956-1957. Albums like Cookin’, Relaxin’, and Workin’. More than the notes or the harmonic devices in his solos, the one thing that sticks out about Miles is his sense of phrasing. This is what sets him apart and why so many listeners connect …
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Chords, How to Practice Jazz, Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Language, Transcribing
Play it slow. Feel every beat. Subdvide. Hear every note. Concentrate on every single detail. There are dozens of different ways to describe the process of slow practice, yet it seems that the majority of successful musicians in any genre are saying “practice slowly!” Every teacher that I’ve ever had, from classical players to lead …
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Ear Training, How to Practice Jazz, Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Education, Jazz Language
Jazz is smart people music! I first heard these words from the great pianist Harold Mabern. Walking through the practice rooms at school one day, as was usually the case, a group of eager students was huddled around him as he told a story. An impromptu musical lesson that didn’t involve scales or chords, but …
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Chords, How to Practice Jazz, Jazz Language, Transcribing
So you want to learn how to improvise jazz and that’s great, but where on Earth do you start jazz improvisation?!?! There’s so much information out there that figuring out where to begin playing jazz is a complete nightmare. But I’ll tell you this right now…If I could start jazz improvisation again today, I’d do …
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Chords, How to Practice Jazz, Jazz Language
Just learn a few ii V licks in all keys, learn how to use them, and that’s jazz, right? Unfortunately not. ii Vs make up the bulk of chord progressions found in all western music from classical to pop music, hence, ii Vs are necessary to master. However, a common result from working on ii …
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Jazz Language, Perspectives, Playing Techniques
When we practice jazz improvisation, we zoom in on one area of study so much that we often lose sight of the whole. How do we practice in this truly focused way, while simultaneously train ourselves to perform in a way that expresses all of what we know? In other words, how can we shift …
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Ear Training, Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Language, Perspectives, Visualization
You’ve heard it time and time again…PLAY WHAT YOU HEAR!! But when it comes to improvising jazz, how do you actually go about playing what you’re hearing? And how do you mentally hear the beautiful jazz lines that you want to play? Playing what you hear sounds so easy in theory, but it’s much more …
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Jazz Language, Perspectives, Playing Techniques
We spend a lot of time thinking about what we want to play, but how often do we think about what we don’t want to play? I’m sure if you spent some time recording yourself or simply observing what you play, you’d find you’re playing some things that you actually do not want to play. …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Language, Transcribing
The extreme ranges of any instrument express extreme emotion, but they’re not easy to tackle. The high register is notoriously difficult on most instruments and the low register is often under-developed and under-utilized. The standard approach towards these registers is to extend your scales and arpeggio exercises as high and as low as you can. …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Language, Perspectives
Learning language is arguably the most important aspect of learning to improvise. When you start to use the language you’ve worked on in your solos, you start to realize how powerful it truly is. You feel like a whole new perspective has been opened up to you – that you finally understand. But then, over …