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A simple trick on separating the hands while comping to add variety.

One of my favorite etudes to practice. Based on the changes to Flamenco Sketches.

Here's a logical practice approach to comping.

These were my teachers at USC, where I did my undergrad. I love how they play the head . Check out those lines!!! Diggin' this.

PS- the break is not F7 hahaha. Can you figure it out!?

Some tips on melodic voicing.

Here's some minor idea adjustments for our TOTM, If I Were A Bell.

I made this for a student and thought I'd share it. We did it on the fly.

Practice page one in all the keys. Also page two.

Use the closed and open positions and then go through all the open and closed voicings. Remember the rules are the same as you move to the SAME notes to other voicings. If a note moved in one voicing it WILL move to the same place in all the other voicings.

Page three just analyze.

Remember: you don't need the roots. It's not Emin7 It's Cmaj. UNLESS you see an F# then it will sound more like Emin 9 than Cmaj7.

Here is the full etude. The etude (as written) is monophonic with just lines written out. I added 4 mallet stuff to work on getting it into my vocabulary. It's always funny how long it takes for this stuff to really sink in. I think that's what is interesting about what we do compared to what classical musicians do, having been on both sides of the fence. If I were to learn this as just a classical piece, I would be done with it. I learned it and played it with minimal errors. But as a jazz musician, I am just scratching the surface of getting 4 mallet stuff into my improvising.

I was showing Marie this this morning. I dunno how familiar everyone is with the 1 o'clock, but they are worth checking out. Check out this incredible composition by their director, Scott Wiest.