Inspiration for improvisers
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Chords, How to Practice Jazz, Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Language, Transcribing
Play it slow. Feel every beat. Subdvide. Hear every note. Concentrate on every single detail. There are dozens of different ways to describe the process of slow practice, yet it seems that the majority of successful musicians in any genre are saying “practice slowly!” Every teacher that I’ve ever had, from classical players to lead …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Transcribing
It’s just past one in the morning. I’m standing on the sidewalk in lower Manhattan as garbage trucks rumble by and panhandlers hustle for loose change. I’ve just stepped outside of Smalls, the last note of the show still ringing in my ears… After a few minutes, a well known trumpet player steps out and …
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Lately I’ve realized that to get to specific parts of a solo that I’ve transcribed to memory, I’m quite dependent on the material that comes before them. In other words, I’ve learned the solo from start to finish, the way it was originally played, and therefore, have difficulty jumping around to different sections at will… …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Playing Techniques, Rhythm
As melodic improvisers, we are naturally focused on the harmonic aspect of what we are playing. After all, there’s nothing worse than playing wrong notes, right? Our minds are so concerned with what key a tune is in, what note choices work well over a specific chord, and how to navigate a difficult progression, that …
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Composition, How to Practice Jazz, Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Education, Transcribing
Since the time of Art Tatum and Charlie Parker, the practice tools of the jazz musician have consisted of three basic things: a room, your instrument, and a record player. If you wanted to get some work done in the shed, that’s all you needed… Nearly 70 years later, things are still the same for …
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Inspiration, Jazz Advice and Tips, Perspectives
So you want to change the way you play? To improve your sound and your solos. To become more effortless in your technique. To finally get rid of those bad habits and creative roadblocks in your playing… Every aspiring musician can relate to these feelings and frustrations. But what does the process of getting better …
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Chords, Composition, Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Musicians, Tunes
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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Ear Training, Jazz Advice and Tips, Perspectives, Playing Techniques, Transcribing
I’m always trying to learn new bits of language.” – Michael Brecker. There are a lot of things to practice. What is truly vital to practice if you want to get better at improvising? Plain and simple: Language. Spending time with the actual language of jazz, the recordings of the greats, should be your number …
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Chords, Composition, Ear Training, Jazz Standards
Learning a tune straight from a recording is THE way to learn it. But the most difficult part is always deciphering the chord changes. And it’s certainly not an easy task compared to the alternative of simply grabbing a fake book and looking up the chord changes. But there are huge benefits to learning the …
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How to Practice Jazz, Jazz Language, Rhythm, Tunes
Every single musician to ever embark on learning to improvise jazz runs into countless musical problems. That’s just the way it is. One problem after another, figuring out different ways to approach a progression in hopes of clarifying their musical ideas and better communicating them to the listener. So if you want to play jazz, …
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We talk about jazz language a lot: what it is, what it isn’t, how to get it, and what to do with it. We constantly strive to better communicate these aspects of learning language because of the vital role that language plays in successful improvisation. It’s essentially all the raw melodic material you draw from …
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Chords, Composition, How to Practice Jazz, Music Theory, Playing Techniques, Scales
You want to play exciting solos. Ones that will make the audience sit on the edge of their seats, that’ll make you stand out from every other musician in the room. But when you improvise everything ends up sounding exactly the same.. Many musicians share this frustration and for many it goes right back to …