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The Bossa Nova

One way to learn to comp on Bossa's is to listen to others do it. As a matter of fact that's the best way!

Check out the Getz/Gilberto cd I mention above, that's a classic. I talk in that article on ways to use the cd to help you learn to comp. Most of the tunes on the CD are in the real book.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. If you get these cds let me know what you find out and learn from them. Post your comments below!

Comping Short Etudes

Here's a pdf and accompanying audio with some short 'etudes' on comping.

I have a ton of stuff stored up over the years from teaching online. These are some short examples of comping I made for somebody somewhere!

I have audio with and without the vibes. So you can work them up and play them alone.

Get the essence of them, and see if you can play them with no accompaniment but still here the band! In order to practice comping you need to be able to do that. Hear the music inside of you.

Double Stop Accompaniment

Here are some exercises from my old practice book. I was thinking about accompaniment with lines. I realized that you have to get the left hand sort of automatic and plopping down double stops and that will give the accompaniment feeling. I do it a lot when I'm playing faster tempos.

The pdf is attached below. Also I have an mp3 which is from a midi file where you can hear each exercise.

As Fast As You CAN!

An incredibly unmusical but important exercise. Start at the bottom of your instrument and play 1 bar of 16th notes on each note. Go all the way up and then all the way down! See how far you can go. When you can do the whole instrument your hands are in good shape.

I'll attach a pdf, but this should be pretty self explanatory.

Here is the Dilemma!

At one time i knew every MONK tune by heart. I played in a Monk band and over 2 years I had every tune down. 6 months after the band stopped playing, I knew about 1/3 and now, not really any except the ones everybody knows.

This is something we all have to face and as far as I'm concerned there's only one true answer here. Anyone know of any others?

Midi File to Joy Spring

I kept looking at the Joy Spring solo and thinking ok, I'll work this up again and post it so you guys can hear what it sounds like. But there's something about pulling out stuff that's old and spending the time to learn it again. I want to do new stuff. So I wussed out, however here's a midi, that will help you here some of the stuff! It's attached to the lesson, the lesson is above, so you can get to it right from here.

Keep in Touch!

So I've added the feature that members can now blog. This might be a great way to keep in touch. Here's my challenge, that we all blog once a week if only a few sentences and talk about what we're working on and the challenges if any. Even questions about things.
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Here's mine:
For me as a player with 30 years now of playing experience, I'm always dealing with those 'long' term problems. I've transcribed so many solos, worked on so much stuff, that sometimes I can get depressed about it, especially when I think of what to work on.

Beautiful Love by Tjaco Oostdijk

Hey Tony,

I tested something out. I recorded this directly to my laptop using Pinnacle studio. It's still the camera mic. Somehow I couldn't figure out how to get an external audiosource. But the sound is a little better because you don't hear the tape rolling anymore.

But Anyway, I think you can also do this so you can upload videos quickly.

Let me know what you think. I'll try to get the audio from my zoom in there and upload some more stuff.

CU

TJ