Inspiration for improvisers
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Language, Jazz Standards, Transcribing
So you’ve transcribed some ii-V lines. You’ve even learned a few solos note for note directly from the record, but, despite your efforts, you’re not seeing the results you expected. Transcribing those lines from your favorite player didn’t transform you into the great improviser that everyone had promised. At the end of the day, improvisation …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Playing Techniques
Think of a jazz standard that you often play. One that you’ve been working on in the practice room. Picture the chord progression in your mind and imagine yourself getting ready to play the first note of your solo. Now stop! This time I want you to take a different approach to the tune… Rather …
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Blues, Jazz Advice and Tips, Premium Only
As an improviser, the blues is central to everything that you do…at once a sound, a form, an expressiveness, and a medium through which you can tell your musical story. And it’s something that you’ll be dealing with as long as you play an instrument. You see, the best players not only understand this song …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Premium Only
Have you ever felt like you’re missing a piece of the puzzle when it comes to improvisation? As if you’re following all the rules, yet still not playing the music you want to… Every musician has felt the sting of this frustration, especially when listening to all those important records and amazing players. It seems …
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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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Composition, Jazz Advice and Tips, Playing Techniques
I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones – John Cage. At some point as an improviser, whether you welcome it with open arms or avoid it like the plague, you’re going to be faced with the chance to compose. That’s right – you, alone in a …
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Inspiration, Jazz Advice and Tips, Perspectives
Daily practice is the key to growing into the player you wish to become. Everyday, building upon the knowledge you learned the previous day, moving forward, getting closer and closer…that’s the goal. But what if with each day, you’re just more and more frustrated? What if you’re simply bored with your sound and most everything …
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Chords, Ear Training, Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Education, Jazz Language, Perspectives, Playing Techniques
From the moment we are born, the world tends to have a container already built for us to fit inside: A social security number, a gender, a race, a profession, an I.Q. I ponder if we are more defined by the container we are in, than what we are inside. Would we recognize ourselves if …
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Blues, Jazz Standards, Playing Techniques
Have you ever tried to play over a so-called easy tune, only to find that it’s not actually that easy? All Blues, one of the most incredible tracks from the legendary Miles Davis album Kind of Blue, is commonly referred to as an easy tune throughout jazz education, yet this seemingly simple composition contains more …
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Learning the hard way? You thought you came here to find an easier way to learn improvisation, right? Well to be honest, the easier way is not always the best way and if you’re in something for the long run, getting things right from the start can save you a lot of time and years …
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Keep your eyes on the stars but keep your feet on the ground – Theodore Roosevelt. The fundamentals of ear training are largely glossed over. Developing one’s ear is seen as a linear track: learn your intervals, then your triads…and so on… But developing your ear is not a linear pursuit. Like improvisation, it’s a …
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Chords, Jazz Musicians, Playing Techniques
Perhaps the most impressive thing about the musical masters that we look up to isn’t their ability to create incredibly fast and complex lines or even their vast library of harmonic knowledge… It lies in something much more simple – their uncanny ability to take the most fundamental elements of music and create meaningful ideas …