Most Popular Lessons

prepare 3 tunes and then turn on your recorder and do a concert. record the 3 tunes.

this is much better even than doing one tune. i'm doing it all the time now.

i think we should have a little online concert series. maybe some of you prepare a mini concert and we pick a weekend and post them!

i can't believe i didn't think of it before. think of all the things you work on!! going from tune to tune. the concentration.

ok for beginners you just do this. you play 3 heads in and record that. or one of the tunes you prepare a solo.

I was trying to dust off the chops today and came up with this little exercise. Try it out for 10 minutes in some different keys and see if it helps.

Lesson talking about learning bebop melodies in different keys, thinking about the harmony, how the lines work, and developing vocabulary.

Play this down in whole steps. It should make sense, what to do.

Then try and vary it a bit, change the rhythms, add a note. Try to build on this.

This is essential to play standards and more complex original tunes.

This needs to be second nature!

The first dominant chord, in this example G13b9 uses the dominant diminished scale. The second chord in this example the A7b13b9 uses the Altered scale.

Dom Dim - G Ab Bb B Db D E F G
A Altered is - A Bb C Db Eb F G

Put this through all the keys.

Is this helpful???

Here's the Mancini Challenge.

I have to learn these tunes for an online concert Sunday March 19 at 1pm. We're doing Mancini tunes. He writes a lot of slow and beautiful tunes. Here is a PDF of the tunes we are playing. You should check them out and listen to the originals online.

I have a fellow young musician who thought a couple were very corny. I like corny and Mancini's tunes are so beautiful to me.

Did I post something like this recently.

I'm so busy I can't remember! But here's another one!