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Hello all,

Here is my last lesson on chord scales for now. This one focuses on minor and half-diminished chords, and where to play certain scales. I will also soon upload an etude to go along with these lessons, making use of the scales over a tune like "All of Me." Maybe I'll also do "Just in Time."

Let me know if there are any questions!

Hello everyone,

As with the previous lesson on dominant chord scales, I want to stress that just playing scales correctly won't necessarily produce the best improvisational content, and I think learning scales has a limited value. But there is value, and it's essentially figuring out what extensions happen on what chords.

A scale, at the end of the day, is just a 13th chord, with a 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 all put within one octave, and knowing this makes scales much more useful to me. So as you practice scales, remember this and figure out what chords they relate to.

Here is what I decided to call a tool box.

There is a solo, a chord study and a bass line for you to use as accompaniment.

Work hard on this there is a lot here!

Here is one chorus of Just In Time, unaccompanied.

It's best if you transcribe it, then use my pdf to check it.

Regardless of how you learn the solo, you should memorize it. Then play it for a few days and then start moving it around the keys.

This is really the stuff where you can learn.
Start working on your ears and transcribe. Spend time with the solo and think about the chords in each key. You have to see the notes in the context they are in. 9s, b5s, 13s, etc. And then build up vocabulary through your ears.

Did this for a student. I have gotten really good at going from start to finish with these solos in about 10 minutes or less. That is recording them and turning them into sheet music! It's a good skill!

You should be able to play this and hear the harmony.

If you are going to use the sheet music, mark it up. What's happening in this solo? What are the upper extensions.

Hey everyone,

Here's part two in this mini-series. In this one, I focus on dominant 13 (#11) chords, explain where to play them, why they exist, and how to solo over them. And, most importantly, why you have to treat every dominant chord you encounter differently, depending on context.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Hello all,

This is a topic I've been wanting to cover for awhile, and I finally made a video on. I think this is something that jazz education (at least in my experience) hasn't covered enough. It's how, in the key of C, you need to play differently on an E7, compared to a Bb7, compared to a G7, compared to an F7. They all have different scales and extensions that accompany them.

It's not all hard science, but a lot of it is! I heard someone say once that 99% of music is teachable, mathematical facts, and 1% is magic. So learn the 99%!