Lesson

🚨 Play a Great Blues in 3 Months – Week 10

Up to this point, we’ve been building a blues vocabulary through:

• Guide tones
• Chromaticism
• Augmented, diminished, and whole tone sounds
• Full chorus line studies

This week, we shift into something more practical:

👉 Applying these ideas to a real tune

We’re using the melody to “Bag’s Groove” as our starting point, and combining it with chord voicings in the spaces.

This is an important step.

Instead of thinking separately about:

Transcribing, Hearing Form, and Ear Training.

Working on Pemutations, Technique, and Pedaling.

Working on Technique, Dynamics, and Pedaling.

🚨 Play a Great Blues in 3 Months – Week 9

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been expanding our line vocabulary using real jazz language:

• Guide tones
• Chromaticism
• Augmented sounds

This week, we take another important step by focusing on two essential dominant sounds:

👉 Whole tone
👉 Diminished

These sounds show up constantly in jazz improvisation, especially over dominant chords, and they create a strong sense of tension and forward motion.

🚨 Play a Great Blues in 3 Months – Week 8

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been building lines using real jazz vocabulary—starting with guide tones, then expanding into phrases drawn from players like Milt Jackson.

This week, we focus on one of the most important elements of that language:

👉 Chromaticism

These lines are built using phrases from Milt Jackson transcriptions and other bebop sources, but the main idea is how chromatic notes connect and shape the line.

You’ll hear:

🚨 Play a Great Blues in 3 Months – Week 7

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been working with phrases drawn from Milt Jackson’s vocabulary, building full choruses from short melodic ideas.

This week, we continue that approach—but with a specific focus:

👉 Using augmented triads over dominant chords

You’ll notice that certain moments in the chorus highlight the sound of the augmented triad (1–3–#5), giving the lines a bit more tension and forward motion.

1. make it sound like the tune! Does mine sound like the tune?
2. Lots of chord tones
3. Memorize my version and follow it with yours and post it.

Friedman Pedaling Exercise