intermediate

Here's a lesson plan for Invitation.

A great way to study this tune in pieces. Each lesson in the beginning will focus on one part of the tune. Later we put it all together and focus on the tune as a whole and work on improvising on it.

What's great about Invitation to study is the A section is sort of a modal section and the B section are changes. The same changes in lots of other tunes like, Cherokee, Laura, and others that mention in the lessons.

The A Train study is an in depth look at a tune. Tunes unlock secrets to harmony and improvising. In a way, a tune is a well thought out solo! A prepared one! And in a way a solo is a quickly conceived melody over a tune. That's not quite true but you get the idea.

The A train study is a way to really work through this tune and learn the nuances, see what you can take over to your improvisation and work on your chords, chord melodies and solo playing.

"Within a Page" is one of my favorites. I wrote it while working on a page out of my sight reading book called "Shapes and Patterns of Music". The title comes after spending weeks on a single line trying to develop it into a song. When I finally came up with a "song" (that I really love), I realized that there was SO MUCH music and work that went into this small page of music. So I titled it "Within A Page". After coming up with the arrangement for solo vibes, I thought I'd offer it along with a lesson on how to play it. So, here it is in PDF download form. I hope you enjoy it.

This attachment on "Tritone Substitutions" goes along with Tony's lesson on "Pivot Chords".

Restricting your options is a great way to get freed up on the vibes.

I was practicing You and the Night and the Music, tonight and thought I'd whip something up for the site.

So here's a sort of duet. I figured out the vibe part and started messing around and adding some other parts and it turned into a sort of duet.

Also here is a practice take of me playing the vibes! I wasn't happy with the ending as you'll be able to tell by how I drop the sticks. Anyway, check out the etude and play along with the duet. It's lines and comping. You can listen to the midi part to see what it sounds like together and then play along with the 'no vibes' mp3.

Here's an interesting study. Print this etude out and learn it. At some point you should realize what tune it is.

Then realize that there are no roots in the chords except at the beginning and at one spot where I added it by mistake. Hopefully this should give you some insight into some of the things we've been talking about. That is playing chords without the roots and using the upper extensions to make the harmony.

Here's another etude over the tune 'My One and Only Love'. You put the chords in. It's a chord etude based on quarter notes.

You can see the top note of the chord and the up and down of the melody. You can see where there's a chord and maybe it doesn't have an important note in it, but then on the next beat that chords there. You'll be working on inversions and voice leading.

Here are some ideas for using voicings made from 5ths and 6ths. There is a pdf file that goes along with this that gives most possible interval combinations. Some of the last few on the pdf are very dissonant but might have their use. If you come up with some more ideas for chord/voicing relationships, please "pass them on in".