Harmony

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 5

Over the first four weeks of this series, we've focused entirely on harmony:

• Learning the form
• Internalizing common voicings
• Exploring different textures
• Developing comping rhythms and syncopation

This week, we shift gears.

👉 We're introducing line exercises.

Just like Week 5 of the blues series, we're beginning with one of the most important concepts in jazz improvisation:

👉 3rds and 7ths.

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 4

Over the first three weeks of this series, we've built a solid foundation:

• Learning the form
• Internalizing common voicings
• Introducing basic comping rhythms
• Developing a feel for the harmonic movement of rhythm changes

This week, we take another step forward.

👉 We're introducing more syncopated comping rhythms.

I have more, but for now here's the chord melody. Next I just play around for a couple of choruses. 

Get this down! 

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 3

Over the first two weeks of this series, we've focused on building a harmonic foundation:

• Learning the form
• Internalizing common voicings
• Hearing the movement of the harmony
• Developing familiarity with rhythm changes

The rhythm was intentionally simple so all of our attention could be placed on the chords.

This week, that changes.

👉 We're introducing comping rhythms.

Many of the voicings in this lesson will already be familiar from Weeks 1 and 2. That's by design.

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 2

Last week, we focused on learning the form and internalizing a set of common rhythm changes voicings. The rhythm was intentionally simple so all of our attention could be placed on the harmony.

This week, we're continuing that approach.

👉 The focus is still harmony, not rhythm.

The written rhythm remains simple because we're trying to build a larger vocabulary of voicings before we start introducing rhythmic comping concepts.

🚨 New Series Alert – Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months

Over the past few months, we worked through Play A Great Blues In 3 Months, building a complete approach to the blues through comping, guide tones, lines, vocabulary, melodies, and chord melody.

Now it's time for the next challenge:

👉 Rhythm Changes

If the blues is one of the foundational forms in jazz, rhythm changes is the next major milestone.

I will do a chord melody and either post it here, or as a separate post. 

🚨 Play a Great Blues in 3 Months – Week 14

We’ve covered a lot over the course of this series:

• Guide tones
• Blues comping
• Chromaticism
• Whole tone and diminished language
• Chord melody textures
• Harmonic movement underneath simple melodies

For our final lesson, we bring many of those ideas together using:

👉 “The Intimacy of the Blues”

This arrangement continues the idea of using a relatively simple melody as a framework for richer harmonic movement underneath.

This week introduces:

🚨 Play a Great Blues in 3 Months – Week 13

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been combining blues melodies with chord voicings and moving toward a fuller chord melody approach.

This week, we use a very simple melody:

👉 “C Jam Blues”

Because the melody is so minimal, it gives us room to focus on something else:

👉 Dense harmonic movement underneath the melody

This lesson introduces several important concepts:

My mantra is 'Does it Sound LIKE THE SONG". If you remember that you have to make it sound like the song first and foremost then all your practicing is with that in mind.