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I'm a week behind because I was out of town last week and didn't figure it was worthwhile to post a video of me playing on the towel. (see pic attached).

I put together a few different lessons here and then in the end, tried a little "play along" to bring some of the concepts together. It's a work in progress. haha. Meaning, this is all a little rough (understatement?) but that's what practicing is all about, right? :)

The lesson(s): A few of Behn's blues lessons. (Thanks Behn!) 3rds and 7ths, dominant lines, etc...I explain it all in the video.

I downloaded a lead sheet last night and started learning this.

This morning I've been trying to learn/practice it in different tempos; I'll upload two of those tempos here. While it was fairly quick to learn, the challenge for me is the swing, the feel. And really locking in the time. So I'll keep working on it!

This first video is of the slightly faster tempo. I'll load the slower one next...

Obviously, work to do. Onward!

I have been playing the changes of Just In Time, lately.

And I always think in terms of solo playing and holding four mallets.

When you're playing lots of notes, you don't need chords. At this tempo, I'm mostly playing 8 notes in a bar. I need most of the time, 2 notes to spell the chord. Once I have cycled through the changes and played the head, the harmony is there. I don't need. In fact if I do a good job playing through the changes on the head, I can even make mistakes and get back into the changes and the listener should be fine. So I think!

Here is how you do this.
4 bars at a time. That for the most part 2 chords at a time. At the end of the tune it's one bar per chord instead of 2 in the beginning.

So what you do is print this out.

• Do the first 4 bars in every key.
• Once you have that done, do the next 4

Take your time. Do it also on the piano if you can. Go slowly through all the keys.

Hello all!

I’m taking a little break from the “how to play vibes like” lessons and am doing a couple beginner-oriented ones on ending tunes, although I think everyone can probably get something from them. This lesson is really for anyone who has ever been on a gig or at a jam session where at the end you all just kind of fizzled out in an unsatisfying, anticlimactic way, and wants a better alternative for the future. It’s also for anyone who just wants more creative options to end tunes.

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,

A quick lesson on selective dampening. This is a subject around dampening that isn't talked about very much, but I think it has a lot of potential! Let me know what you think.