The Lesson Library

A Simple Way To Hear Difficult Intervals: The 2-step method
Hearing larger intervals is difficult for most people. After a couple weeks of practicing your intervals, half-steps, whole steps, major and minor thirds, perfect fourths, perfect fifths, and major sixths fall into place, but the remaining few linger on, causing us trouble for eternity. There’s no reason why we can’t isolate these more difficult intervals ...

Dealing With Non-standard Progressions
Recently we received a question about non-standard progressions, specifically the type of progressions you see in Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson tunes… These types of tunes are notoriously difficult, as they don’t seem to use the same predictable chord progressions that other jazz tunes do. A reader asks: When we’re learning, we go through a ...

Slash Chords Made Simple
A reader recently sent in this question: “I was wondering if you could explain to me how to interpret slash chords for soloing. It seems like different sources have conflicting information. Also, what would I do if I encountered a chord like C/Db, in which the top and bottom are not related diatonically?” Slash chords ...

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 ...

Two-Five Substitutions in a Flash
Everybody wants to play “outside” the chord changes. They think there is something mysterious about getting outside the changes. In my experience, the phenomenal players that I’ve studied with along with the legendary players I’ve learned from on recordings, approach playing outside the harmony much in the same way they approach playing inside the harmony: ...

Basic Bebop Reharmonization
If you took a quick survey and asked a few people to describe the components of bebop, you might come up with some answers like: “fast tempos, lots of notes, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, b9’s, b5’s, altered dominants, diminished scales.” While all of these are true, one of the most overlooked, but surprisingly simple devices ...

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 ...

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 ...

Using Triads in Your Solos
After playing a tune for a while, it can seem like you are playing the same ideas or licks over the changes every time. For example, you see a D minor chord and think “okay D minor, I can play a D dorian scale or a D harmonic minor scale or arpeggiate from the third…” ...