Inspiration for improvisers
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Jazz Musicians, Jazz Standards, Premium Only
Here’s a question for you…Are you making the process of learning to play jazz standards harder than it has to be? …searching for answers in theory books, obsessing over scales, and turning your daily practice session into a soul-searching quest for your personal sound when you just want to be playing music? The thing is, learning …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Standards
Some tunes seem to make absolutely no sense, like the chords changes are some random crazy collection of complex sounds…But with a little know-how, using the same tactics we showed you in our recent lesson on learning tunes quickly, even the most difficult tunes can be deciphered in just a few minutes. Today’s lesson comes …
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Open up any music theory book and you’ll find the term “lydian.” A funny sounding word that refers to the fourth mode of the major scale. You’ve, no doubt, played this scale. You’ve probably even practiced it in every key and studied it’s relationship to the tonic. But what if I told you that you don’t …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Standards, Premium Only
What if I told you there’s a simple little trick to learn chord changes to a tune in a just a few minutes? That the countless hours you’ve spent reading tunes out of the Real Book can finally come to a close and you can begin to have chord changes live in your head, where …
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Inspiration, Jazz Advice and Tips
You’re a musician. Or at least you used to be one…You played an instrument in high school, faithfully took private lessons, and performed at dozens of recitals and concerts. Maybe you even went on to study in college. There’s a guitar sitting in your closet, a piano in the spare room gathering dust, and a …
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Chords, Composition, Jazz Education, Scales
The Chord-scale system has become the most established and widespread method for teaching jazz improvisation…And it’s no mystery why. So often, scales—more specifically the modes of the major and melodic minor scales—get passed-off as the most important aspect of learning to improvise. It’s as if by magic, you learn a couple scales and their modes, and …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Musicians, Jazz Standards, Premium Only
Have you ever wondered how the best players can play incredibly fast, regardless of the key, the chords, or the tune? I’m not just talking about running memorized licks and technical patterns…I mean soloing at breakneck speed with actual melodic lines over the progression. Trying to improvise on uptempo tunes can be frustrating and the truth …
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Inspiration, Jazz Advice and Tips
Let’s be real. New Year’s Resolutions don’t work. Every year, January 1st comes and people act as if they’re going to entirely reinvent themselves, that this is the year. The year that’s different than all other years. The year of making things happen and achieving goals. But just after a few weeks, the smoke from …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Language
Your mother probably taught you not to steal…That taking something that wasn’t yours was wrong or that pocketing an item from the shelves of a store could land you into a world of trouble. But what you or your dear mum might not realize is that some of your favorite improvisers are cold-blooded thieves. And …
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Believe me. I know how frustrating jazz improvisation can be. There have been many periods where I’ve wanted to quit for good. Never play again. Times when I’ve seriously considered putting my horn on Ebay, no reserve, shipping it off to an international buyer, somewhere far far away, and hanging it up for good… But …
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Composition, Jazz Musicians, Playing Techniques
Every musician wants to sound hip and modern…To play complex lines that move outside of the harmony and above the time. Solos that’ll make your fellow musicians shake their heads in disbelief and leave the audience speechless. The only problem is that few players actually get to this point, and even less sound authentic, unique, …
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Making progress as an improviser is tricky business. I’m not talking about the baby steps along the way like learning a new tune, transcribing a solo, or even practicing a few scales. I’m talking about finding musical breakthroughs. Arriving at creative revelations and actually playing the ideas you’re hearing in your head. But I’m guessing …