The Lesson Library

Welcome to The Jazzadvice Lesson Library – featuring insider knowledge, actionable exercises, and powerful practice tips.
never forget a tune again

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 ...

altered dominant techniques

Navigating Altered Dominants: Strategies for the V7#9 Chord

A reader recently asked: “I was wondering about how to play over altered dominant chords. What are some strategies for playing over Dominant 7 #9 chords, specifically.” This question comes up frequently for many improvisers. It seems like everyone has a “fail safe” scale or lick that they use exclusively every time they see an ...

how to play the blues in all keys

How to Play the Blues In All Keys

A recent question from a reader inquired about the blues in all keys: “I’m a sax player and have been working through the blues in all keys for the past few months, and was wondering if you guys had any tips, tricks, or any advice?” We’ve all heard it time and time again: Learn the ...

acquire useful jazz language

How to Acquire Useful Language: The Building Blocks of Your Solo

Learning how to improvise can be overwhelming. There’s an enormous gap in knowledge to overcome as soon as you decide that you want to play jazz. Before you even improvise a single note, you have to contend with over 100 years of musical history, from Louis Armstrong all the way up to the innovators of ...

play alongs are wasting your practice time

How Jazz Standard Play Alongs Waste Your Practice Time And What To Do About It

It’s Saturday. You’ve got plenty of time. You’re excited  to spend some quality time practicing. You meander into your practice room, peruse your jazz standard play alongs and grab the first volume that sparks your interest, pop it in, and off you go. Sound familiar? As fun as it is to “just play” over a ...

50 Jazz Musician Interviews

50 Jazz Interviews to Get You Inspired

Interviews are a great way to hear and see how jazz musicians think, feel, and articulate their ideas. You can learn a lot just by watching them… Today we’re sharing with you 50 jazz interviews to get you inspired! Herbie Hancock & Wayne Shorter John Coltrane An Interview in Japan from 1965 Coltrane interview with ...

mastering sus chords

Mastering Sus Chords: Adding Options to Your Arsenal

Sus chords on tunes like Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage can be pretty confusing for the developing improviser. Is it a normal dominant chord? What’s special about it? Do you need a new scale? Are you allowed to play the third of the chord? After studying and transcribing solos of some of my favorite players over ...

using ii Vs in progressions

How to Use ii Vs to Activate Static Progressions

The infamous ii V is everywhere in jazz chord progressions. In fact, the ii V defines a sense of tension and release that prevails throughout all western music… An essential key to understanding how to give your lines a sense of harmonic motion, lies in knowing where to insert a ii V into a static ...

thelonious monk tunes

The Music of Thelonious Monk: 10 Tunes You Need To Know

There are certain composers in the jazz tradition…ones that have such a uniquely personal style that their compositions seem to take on a life of their own, becoming part of the jazz pantheon long after the lifetime of the writer. Composers like Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, and especially Thelonious Monk come immediately to ...

10 more jazz visualization chord progression exercises

10 Visualization Exercises To Boost Your Chord Progression Recall

If I asked you to name a iii VI ii V in the key of F#, how quickly could you conjure up the answer? If the time it takes you to think through that progression in your mind takes more than a millisecond, chances are you’re going to have a hell of a time playing ...

singing for the jazz musician

3 Reasons Why You Should Sing Everyday

Have you ever wondered why great pianists, guitarists, bassists, and drummers often sing along as they improvise? Ever noticed how many of the best horn players also happen to be great singers? Great musicians all over, seem to have developed the ability to sing somewhere along the way, whether they’ve had formal training or not. ...

fast tempos in music

Fast Tempos Made Easy

Here’s a recent question from a reader struggling with fast tempos: “Hi, I’m a saxophone player in Toronto. What might you recommend in terms of practice techniques to play on blistering fast tempos?” When it comes to fast tempos, we could all be better. Want to play fast? Start slow. Slow over fast tempos No ...