Inspiration for improvisers
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As improvisers we are always looking to create new harmonic concepts or to find new ways of soloing over traditional changes that are innovative and creative. Actually, for the past sixty years jazz musicians have been playing the same basic set of standard tunes, each generation making their stylistic mark on the history of the …
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Every chord tone has its own unique sound, its own unique color. Learning to hear these colors brings these sounds to life. This crucial ear training is often overlooked or even talked about. Take your time and study it carefully… Match piano pitches accurately The first step toward hearing these colors is to hear a …
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Blues, Jazz Musicians, Jazz Standards, Premium Only
If you’ve ever listened to Mark Turner you’ve probably wondered the same thing as me…What the hell is he playing? Rather than coming from the mind of an improviser, his solos sound like the work of an ambitious architect. Complex structures reaching into the stratosphere, lines with impossibly wide leaps, columns of arpeggios, and winding …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Language, Jazz Musicians, Playing Techniques
All The Things You Are is a timeless jazz standard…Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Ella Fitzgerald, Sinatra…these are just some of the legends that recorded it. But with its traveling tonal centers and unfamiliar keys, this tune is sure to give every improviser quite a challenge! When it comes to figuring out the secrets to a …
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Ear Training, Jazz Advice and Tips, Perspectives
Hey, did you just hear that? Look, did you just see that? Wait, can you feel that? What’s that smell? Wait…what?! On a daily basis our senses are bombarded with information. Sights, sounds, smells, and tactile sensations come at us from every angle, vying for a precious scrap of our cognitive awareness. Despite our best …
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Learning improvisation can be a curious process. Every now and then as we endeavor to educate ourselves musically, we hear bits of advice and pick up words of wisdom from master classes, videos, books, and conversations. Yet, we don’t really listen to these directions or take them to heart. The truth is that we can’t …
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Jazz Language, Jazz Musicians, Jazz Standards, Playing Techniques, Transcribing
What if there were a jazz musician that didn’t rely on scales, licks, or patterns, but instead sought only to play what they’d sing? What would this musician sound like? What kind of playing techniques would they use and how would they approach taking a solo? This kind of musician is what I hear when …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Language, Premium Only, Transcribing
Learning jazz language is vital to your success as an improvisor. Without it you’re truly lost. You may know a scale, a chord, a concept…but without the fundamental ideas of what to do with these tools, you’ll aimlessly wander through the harmony. These fundamental ideas are gleaned from learning and studying language. A reader recently …
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Let’s face it. As improvising musicians, we’ve become obsessed with notes. Obsessed with harmony, chords, and scales. Which scales to use over which chord progressions, which diminished scales to play over dominant chords, how to play “outside,” how to play “inside,” which chords can be substituted for others…We even reduce entire sounds, full of infinite …
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Playing Techniques, Transcribing
A magical thing happens when you listen to a recording of your favorite player and begin to play along with the record. It’s almost as if an unconscious transformation takes place, an instant instruction through aural osmosis. Simply by sitting by the speakers with your instrument and taking in those sound waves, you can instantly …
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The old maxim “A is for effort” does not apply when it comes to jazz improvisation or playing any style of music. Effort is the last thing you want. In fact, we seek effortlessness. When it comes to playing our instruments, the ultimate goal is to be as efficient as possible. No movement or mind-share …
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Composition, Jazz Musicians, Tunes
Maiden Voyage is a classic jazz standard that all improvisers will encounter at some point in their musical journey. With only four chords, beginners tend to gravitate toward this Herbie Hancock masterpiece because it seems like it would be an “easy” jazz tune… While it’s true that there are only four chords and that the …