How to Simplify the Process of Learning Tunes
As an improviser, you can transcribe solos. You can improve your technique. You can listen to your favorite recordings for hours each day. You can practically live in your practice room. But, no matter what you do or how much time you spend, at the end of the day you still have to deal with ...
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How to Completely Learn a Melody in 30 Minutes
Everybody talks about learning tunes. I mean everybody. It’s the one common thread that pops up at jam sessions, on gigs, in music schools and in conversations with great players. Hey, what tune do you want to play next? Do you know this tune? What tunes are you working on? I really need to learn ...
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Hey, Do You Know That Tune?
It’s a question that we get asked all the time on gigs, at jam sessions, and even in our weekly lessons. As you probably know, it’s not a lot of fun when you are put on the spot and don’t know a tune. In fact, it seems like a lot of the motivation for our ...
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How to Apply the Jazz Language that You’ve Transcribed
So you’ve transcribed some ii-V lines. You’ve even learned a few solos note for note directly from the record, but, despite your efforts, you’re not seeing the results you expected. Transcribing those lines from your favorite player didn’t transform you into the great improviser that everyone had promised. At the end of the day, improvisation ...
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Why You’re Bored With Standards and What to Do About it
Why is it so difficult to learn jazz standards even when we have access to so much information about each and every one? We can bring up recordings with a few clicks of mouse via Youtube, we can find plenty of fakebooks with the chords and melody written out for us if we’re too lazy ...
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Thoughts On Learning Tunes
We practice long tones. We work on two-five progressions until our fingers bleed. We work on new ideas and concepts. The work is mostly enjoyable, sometimes frustrating, and hopefully productive… But what is all this diligent dedication for? Tunes. What else is there? Everything we do is to play tunes in the way we so ...
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Finding a Fresh Approach to Playing the Same Old Tunes
Repetition. It’s one part of learning to improvise that’s par for the course. We practice scales over and over again until the technique is securely in our fingers, we spend hours repeatedly working out ii-V7 lines that we’ve transcribed, and we memorize the melodies and chord changes to numerous tunes until we can play them ...
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Learn New Material by Total Immersion
One thing you always want to be doing is learning new material. New lines, new tunes, new concepts…there’s always something new to learn. We preach the mantra “Quality Over Quantity” in practically everything we write. So, while it’s true you always want to learn new things, the idea is to judiciously select what you want ...
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Building Your Repertoire Part II: 10 Key Tunes
In a recent post: A Blueprint for Building Your Repertoire, I outlined some ideas to ponder while creating a repertoire of tunes. Concepts like how to learn, listen to, and how to approach the Great American songbook as you prepare to build your own repertoire. However, the real work begins when you get into the ...
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A Blueprint for Building Your Repertoire
Learning tunes. Memorizing standards. Building a solid repertoire that continues to grow. These ideas are always hovering at the back of an improviser’s mind. We make lists of tunes, print out lead sheets to study, set deadlines to learn a ton of tunes by and so on and so forth. For years, I did all ...
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Piano Basics: Necessary Skills for the Non-Pianist
At some point in your musical journey, regardless of what instrument you play, you’ll find yourself in front of that 88-keyed beast we call a piano. This can be a daunting task for many musicians. Often times, one of the biggest fears or stumbling blocks for non-pianists is that of comping chord changes. This simply ...
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Never Forget a Tune Again
Ever spend a lot of time learning a tune, only to realize that you’ve completely forgotten it a few weeks later? When you’re not achieving your desired results in pretty much anything, check your methods. What’s your process? What’s your approach? After detailing your current methods, you can then easily modify them to realign yourself ...
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