Inspiration for improvisers
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How to Practice Jazz, Jazz Advice and Tips, Jazz Musicians, Perspectives, Transcribing
Have you ever seen a movie where a certain character stuck with you long after the film was over? Or what about a piece of artwork that kept popping up in your mind’s eye? Maybe you’ve witnessed a speech that had the same lasting effect or attended a concert where the performer played their instrument …
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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, Jazz Musicians, Jazz Standards, Transcribing
When you start to transcribe and discover what your musical heroes are doing, you begin to open up a whole new understanding about how to improvise and approach chord changes. But then the problem soon becomes, how do you take this understanding and put it into your musical practice? In other words, transcribing is great …
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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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Composition, Jazz Language, Playing Techniques, Scales, Transcribing
Every so often you’ll make a musical discovery that will drastically change the way you approach improvisation. One day you’re struggling over the same tunes, growing more and more frustrated with your own predictable patterns and then it hits you – you discover a secret that was hidden right before your eyes. A subtle mental, …
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There is a secret that all great musicians have in common. You won’t hear it on their recordings or even in their live performances. And some may even deny it that it ever happened at all. But look back even further and you’ll find it… The truth is that every great musician started out as …
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Time in the practice room doesn’t equal improvement. Hey, wait a second…That’s right, you read that correctly. It’s time spent practicing the right things that leads to improvement. And this isn’t always the case with most players’ routines, especially when it comes to jazz improvisation… There’s a well-loved myth out there that if you practice, …
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How to Practice Jazz, Inspiration, Jazz Advice and Tips
It’s a new year. I guess that means we should be making some resolutions right about now. New beginnings, a fresh start and all that other good stuff. For most people making “resolutions” translates into sitting down and writing out a list of goals. It’s not a bad exercise to do every now and then …
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There exists a hidden trap on the path of learning improvisation. One that you can fall into without even realizing it. In music school practice rooms, jam sessions, and even in the performance hall, the art of improvisation can frequently devolve into a petty competition. Rather than sharing information and focusing on musicality, some musicians …
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Ear Training, Jazz Education, Myths, Perspectives, Playing Techniques
Things are not always what they appear to be. Sometimes the standard advice does not get you where you want to go. Here’s an idea: approach what you’re trying to achieve by doing the opposite. Now, this won’t work for everything, but it very well may solve the nagging problems you just can’t seem to …
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Jazz Advice and Tips, Perspectives
Let’s be completely honest…My amazing teachers did tell me many of the things that I’m about to tell you…I just didn’t listen! Why didn’t I listen? I don’t know. Immaturity. Stubbornness. The belief that there had to be something else. Something more important. Something more complex. Something better, that mattered more… But these 8 pieces …