Use the Power of Imitation to Unlock Jazz Improvisation
As players today, we have a ton of resources to draw from in the practice room. But when it comes to the more musical areas of improvisation, something is missing. And for many of us, that x-factor is imitation… You see, relying solely on a theory approach can make the process of improvising and playing ...
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10 Must-Know Jazz Chord Progressions
Getting to the next level as an improviser means moving beyond the basics of chords and scales. Specifically, it’s all about focusing on the harmonic relationships in the jazz repertoire – what we call jazz chord progressions. You see, there are a finite set of harmonic relationships that pop up in the majority of popular ...
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Unlock Any Jazz Line With These 5 Simple Steps
In your daily search for musical information you’ve probably come across a “lick of the day,” various short musical excerpts from world famous jazz solos that are neatly written out… These brief phrases from the likes of Charlie Parker to Roy Hargrove seem to hold the musical secrets you’ve been seeking out for years – ...
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Jazz Chords – The Definitive Guide to Mastery
Jazz chords are at the very heart of why jazz sounds the way it does and as a player, these sounds are essential to have in your ear on a deep level. But what makes this so difficult? What are jazz chords and why do they sound different than regular chords? And what makes them ...
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Jazz Scales: The Complete Guide for Improvisation
Jazz scales are one of the most talked-about topics in jazz improvisation, but also one of the most misunderstood. If you’ve studied jazz before, you’ve probably been told you need to learn dozens of scales to solo effectively. In reality, you only need a small number of essential jazz scales and a clear understanding of ...
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How to Learn a New Jazz Tune Every Day
Learning tunes goes hand in hand with being a jazz musician. But if you’ve ever tried to learn a tune by ear or attempted to memorize a list of jazz standards, you know it’s not the easiest task in the world… In fact it can be downright frustrating. Like many musicians, I struggled for years ...
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The Art of Playing One Chord: A Lesson with Miles & Trane
There are a lot of skills you need in jazz improvisation…Developing great ears, a knowledge of tunes, instrumental technique, and a mastery of jazz language… But there’s one question that gets to the heart of the matter for any soloist… Can you come up with interesting musical ideas over a single chord? Without the aid ...
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How to Build Your Jazz Vocabulary Fast
When you’re first starting out on your journey learning how to play jazz, you’ll typically come across two different camps of how to go about things… One camp believes that you need a lot of music theory, particularly scales and modes, along with an understanding of how modes are applied to chords. Many refer to ...
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Jazz Harmony: Why You’re Overlooking This Crucial Skill
When I started learning how to improvise, the one thing I really wanted to figure out was how to create improvised lines like my musical heroes… Listening to players like Miles, Bird, Coltrane, and countless others, I wanted to learn exactly which notes to choose on a chord and how to turn these notes into ...
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Music Theory Basics: The Circle of Fifths
Music theory is packed with quite a few dense explanations of esoteric concepts that plague the performer, and while music theory can be incredibly helpful to performing musicians, it has unfortunately steered so many players in the wrong direction. Recently we’ve had a handful of people write in asking about The Circle of Fifths and ...
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How Master Improvisers Actually Think About Tunes
As a musician, you often find yourself listening to the best improvisers you can. Searching for inspiration, guidance, and answers to the challenges you’re facing. Especially when it comes to those records that include the same jazz standards you’re trying to learn… You want to figure out exactly what your favorite players are doing over ...
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15 Jazz Improvisation Projects You Can Do at Home
As musicians, we often dream big and set lofty goals for where we want our playing to go. And the one place where we go to turn these dreams into reality is the practice room… This is your precious time to focus on the areas of your playing that have been ignored, that need improvement, ...
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