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Just thought I'd post this.

Earl Scruggs died today. He was the Charlie Parker of the banjo. He was one heavy guy. I got to see him play once when I was a little kid. Way before I even played music. RIP, Earl

Hey,
This is a lesson of how you can use classical improvisation to practise technique (mainly scales).Oh, When I say "I think you will love this lesson" I mean "I hope you find this lesson helpfull".

Thanks
Dimitris

Hey everyone,
I was just thinking/talking about phrasing and how many notes one can fit into a phrase.
I always remember teachers and mentors telling me to play fewer notes when I was in school, however I would listen to them play and there would be 4 million notes in a single measure. What i've learned since that time is that they should have told me to concentrate on phrasing. To Me, phrasing is the difference between an enjoyable and engaging solo/composition and an un-enjoyable one.

This is a clip of Billy and I playing a nice ballad, Hoagy Carmichael's Skylark.

Guys, here's another version of Basin Street Blues for comparison. There are some different left hand comping techniques in this clip versus take one.

Some of the techniques include single note guide tone lines. For example, on the second last bar of the tune (Bb Bb7 Eb Eb-), I'm bringing out the line of Bb, Ab, G, Gb to F going into the last bar of Bb. Using the guide tone lines, we can play fairly sparse while still sounding the changes.

Guys, here's the videoclip of Basin Street Blues from our Sunday session at the house. The audioclip of this track was previously posted. More clips of the session are up on my YouTube channel. If anyone has any questions about what I'm doing on these clips in terms of techniques, what I'm thinking about, improv techniques, etc., feel free to ask. Ed

Hi guys, here's the videoclip of Jobim's Triste. I had previously posted the audioclip of Triste from our session. There are some more clips of the session on my YouTube channel including two takes each of Autumn Leaves, Basin Street Blues and Irving Berlin's Isn't This A Lovely Day. Ed