The Relative Minor Formula in Every Standard
One of the keys to developing a more musical approach to navigating chord progressions is not only learning the definitions of chords – but understanding how they relate to each other. It’s all about discovering those hidden connections and musical pathways that aren’t obvious in the scales you learn or emphasized in the lead sheets ...
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Jazz Chords – The Definitive Guide to Mastery
Jazz chords are at the very heart of why jazz sounds the way it does and as a player, these sounds are essential to have in your ear on a deep level. But what makes this so difficult? What are jazz chords and why do they sound different than regular chords? And what makes them ...
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6 Roy Hargrove Minor Exercises on What Is This Thing Called Love
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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The Two Minor Tactic: More Tools for Rhythm Changes
After building your fundamentals on Rhythm Changes, you’ll open up a ton of new ways to think about these chords, but the truth is you never stop acquiring tools for this common progression because everything you practice over them translates to all other aspects of your playing. So in this video lesson, we’ll give you ...
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12 Dexter Gordon Lines on Blue Bossa You’d Never Think Of
The jazz standard Blue Bossa is often referred to as a beginner jazz tune, but as you quickly find out as you start your journey into jazz, even these so-called “beginner” tunes are not easy to sound great on. Playing beautiful lines through the changes that connect and flow from one chord to the next ...
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The Sonny Stitt Playbook – His 2 Exercises to Master Minor
What if you had Sonny Stitt’s practice journal in your hands right now? All his genius lines and exercises written out. Everything, literally everything, complete with diagrams and descriptions of what he practiced…wouldn’t that be nice? Well, unfortunately, unless he’s your relative, chances are this will never be the case. You’ll never have those practice ...
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Master The Minor Blues: A Deep Dive into John Coltrane’s Mr. P.C.
The Blues is an essential form to master for every jazz musician, but just like most things in jazz, there are dozens of variations to explore. One of the most exciting variations and one that’s exceptionally fun to play over for improvisers of all levels, centralizes the harmony around minor chords rather than dominant chords. ...
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How to Beat the “I Don’t Know What to Play” Syndrome in Your Solos
You’re staring at a chord progression on a lead sheet. Thinking through the first few bars of a jazz standard. You’re getting ready to start your solo and carefully choosing the first phrase you’ll play… It’s finally time to show off the stuff you’ve been working on. Time to create music on the spot instead ...
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8 Easy Ways to Play Minor Chords Like Clifford Brown
Minor chords are found in every style of music, especially in the jazz repertoire. From popular jazz standards and the minor blues, to the ii-V-I progression and the minor vamps that pop up in numerous tunes… The truth of the matter is if you want to sound good in any sort of musical situation, you ...
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Mastering Essential Chord Progressions: Major to Parallel Minor
When it comes to learning tunes, expanding your repertoire, and improving the way you improvise over jazz standards, most players are taking the wrong approach… You see, the secret to improving with standards doesn’t lie in making long lists, spending hours memorizing chord progressions, and then trying your best to conjure up melodic lines. …because ...
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Everything You Don’t Know About Minor Harmony in Jazz
Minor harmony is everywhere in jazz. Whether you’re playing a tune in a minor key or a jazz standard that shifts to the relative minor for a section, you need a solid understanding of how minor harmony works in jazz. From this understanding, you’ll memorize jazz standards faster, understand chord progressions on a deeper level, ...
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Chord Function: Music Theory Fundamentals You Need To Know
Chord function is a confusing topic that is intricately tied to other just as confusing topics like voice leading, harmonic tension and resolution, intervallic content, chord voicings, chord families and more! Today we’ll unravel the slew of questions that arise from exploring chord function. Questions like, how do you build chords within a key? Why ...
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