Most Popular Lessons

Hello everyone,

Here's another lesson about voicings. The common theme of all these recent lessons is trying to extrapolate as many different possible voicings as we can out of a sing idea. You take any four notes, and you can do all these things we've talked about so far:

-add extensions
-alter notes
-invert the chord
-use drop 2s, drop 3s, drop 2+3s, etc.

And now we'll add planing to the list! This is when you move a chord through a scale, or just move it chromatically.

Here is David Friedman's Etude 2 from "Friedman-Vibraphone Technique: Dampening and Pedaling".

Line Building Blocks Exercise

Here is David Friedman's Etude 3 from "Friedman-Vibraphone Technique: Dampening and Pedaling".

Hey everyone,

Another lesson on comping on ballads! We're looking at rhythmic density and ways to create an overall sense of arc with your comping, or while you're playing solo. Let me know if you have any thoughts!

Hey everyone,

The next couple comping lessons will be focused on ballads. In this one, I share how I think of the range of the instrument -- like an orchestra, with a low range for bass movement, a middle range for melody and/or chords, and an upper register useful for subtle effects, upper structure triads subtle, and counter-lines. I think this is especially important when playing ballads!

Hey everyone!

I’ve got some exciting lessons for the next few months, starting with this series on diminished voicings. These three lessons will really go in depth with how you can creatively voice diminished chords, and how you can use the same shapes on non-diminished chords. Do you know the diminished major substitution? The dominant diminished substitution? The four main alterations of a diminished chord? How to use diminished shapes to play “out?” These lessons will go through all of this with a practical mindset, giving you tangible things to work on.

The Art and Science of Musical Practice

Hello everyone,

In the last lesson, I explained how to methodically go through all possible extensions for a chord, and, in this one, we will look at the different options for rearranging those notes. You can use inversions, and spread techniques, including drop-2, drop-3, and drop-2+3.

Hey everyone,

Part 3 in the series on how to solo over diminished chords melodically. The diminished IV chord (Bbo7 in the key of F) comes up a decent bit in standards -- like "The Nearness of You" and "I Remember You," among others -- and it's important to be able to meaningfully solo over! Full disclosure, I'll often treat it as an A7b9 chord, or a C7b9 chord! But watch the video if you'd like to know why.

Also, make sure to watch parts 1 and 2 if you haven't already, as there might be some some things in this video that won't make sense if not.