Inspiration for improvisers
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By Forrest
People will tell you all sorts of things about learning jazz improvisation. But no one tells you many of the things that could actually help you the most. As we practice jazz improvisation, we develop a concept of how we think we should go about learning things. This concept primarily comes from what our teachers, …
By Eric
Ever wonder how the best players seem to improvise brilliant lines without any effort? All while you’re struggling to make even the simplest chord tones sound good. If you’re like most players you know this frustration. However, the solution doesn’t lie with a hidden secret or advanced music theory – it all goes back to …
By Eric
All practice is not created equal. There’s the practice that’s fun. You’re in a room with your instrument and maybe a few friends and you just start playing. The minutes fly by, but you’re not exactly working. Then there’s the practice that feels like homework. You’ve got a lesson or a concert coming up so …
By Eric
Ear Training, How to Practice Jazz, Inspiration, Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Standards, Premium, Rhythm, Scales, Transcribing
We often get a ton of great questions from our readers about what to practice. These inquiries range from players that are stuck in a daily musical rut to aspiring improvisers that simply don’t know the next step to take in the practice room. The truth is, every musician encounters frustrating days on their instrument …
By Eric
Chords, Ear Training, How to Practice Jazz, Jazz Advice and Tips, Playing Techniques, Premium, Scales
Can one note really change your ears and improve your creativity? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. But let me explain…A few years ago I took a lesson with the great trumpet player, improviser and composer Ingrid Jensen. As I hopped on the the N train and headed to the lesson I looked over my practice …
By Forrest
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 …
By Forrest
We’ve presented tons of exercises on how to practice ear training, but many require that you have someone to train with. So what do you do when you don’t have a partner? When you have no one to practice ear training with there’s just as many exercises you can do and better yet, you can …
By Eric
The process of learning to improvise is a journey. A long and rewarding journey and one that is punctuated by a series of milestones. This can be hard to see from that comfy seat inside of your practice room, but take a step back from your daily routine and look at the path that brought …
By Eric
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 …
By Forrest
Half-diminished chords are difficult, but they don’t have to be. In How to Not Suck At Half-diminished Chords, I presented a simple way to start to improve at these often neglected chords and if you practiced the exercise in that article, you will without a doubt have made progress. But even with some concentrated effort …
By Forrest
Many times when we’re soloing we get boxed in so to speak. We think that when we’re on a particular chord, we must play that chord and that chord only. We have tunnel vision and there exists little possibility. One technique that dramatically relieves this boxed in sound and mindset is harmonic anticipation. Anticipating a …
By Forrest
As the article last Wednesday discussed, learning to apply language to tunes is crucial because it puts the language into context, allowing your ears and fingers to gain an understanding of how to integrate the language into your overarching concept. Over time, the language you practice this way will spontaneously materialize in new form, surprising …