Inspiration for improvisers
Acquiring jazz language for every chord and progression in jazz is the missing link between your fingers and your ear. Use these lessons to ramp up your jazz language and if you’re serious about getting language quickly, our course Melodic Power is for you.
By Eric
Every so often you’ll make a musical discovery that will drastically change the way you approach improvisation. One day you’re struggling over the same tunes, growing more and more frustrated with your own predictable patterns and then it hits you – you discover a secret that was hidden right before your eyes. A subtle mental, …
By Forrest
Recently we received a question about non-standard progressions, specifically the type of progressions you see in Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson tunes… These types of tunes are notoriously difficult, as they don’t seem to use the same predictable chord progressions that other jazz tunes do. A reader asks: When we’re learning, we go through a …
By Forrest
The idea that jazz is a language can be quite confusing and ambiguous. We often make this statement, as do many teachers and professionals, but it takes time to understand what this phrase actually means and what it doesn’t mean… We’re used to a language being something like English; a body of words, phrases, grammar …
By Forrest
We get questions all the time on how to go about transcribing. Often, the people that write in say that they tried transcribing, but it just didn’t work for them, or it was just too hard. Yes, transcribing is not easy, but the problem does not lie in the inherent difficulty of this activity, but …
By Forrest
So you’ve transcribed some lines and you’re learning them in all keys. You’ve even started to apply them to tunes you’re working on, but after several weeks, the line you transcribed which started out as sounding magical to you, now sounds boring. And on top of that, you’re playing that same line everywhere. Don’t fret. …
By Forrest
The ii V progression makes up the vast majority of chord changes within the jazz standard repertoire. Much of our success or failure as improvisors comes from being able to navigate this deceptively simple progression. Learning how to play over ii Vs is actually much easier than you think. The mistake most people make is …
By Eric
On this site we’ve talked about transcribing numerous times. From the reasons you should be transcribing solos to the best method of transcription…even to the different definitions of transcription for jazz musicians. Knowing why you’re transcribing and how to do it are vital to improving as an improviser. The most important aspect of the transcription …
By Forrest
Jazz musicians and educators constantly discuss the topic of jazz licks. It’s always up for debate…Should you learn them? Is it okay to play them over and over in your jazz solos? Does it matter where you get these licks from? If you’re discussing licks, you’ve already missed the boat. You don’t want to know …