Exercising on the Blues Using Common Jazz Shapes Pt. 1 by Behn Gillece -V
Check out the attached PDF!
Check out the attached PDF!
Interesting Open Voicings Pt. 1 by Behn Gillece
🚨 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.
Just some stuff to think about with double sticking as well as a way to practice double sticking.
i do feel that we want to do as much alternate sticking as we can. I know some disagree including David Friedman. So take it for what it's worth to you. But I give you some ways to work on double sticking.
Workshop Recap - 3rds and 7ths Pt. 1 by Behn Gillece
🚨 Tune Deep Dive: “Wave” – Pt. 2: Guide Tone Movement in the Intro 🚨
In Part 2, we dig into the intro vamp of Wave (Dm7–G7) and explore guide tone movement. This exercise builds from a single voice to two, three, and finally four voices, showing how harmonic richness can grow naturally out of simple lines. By working through these patterns, you’ll train your ear and hands to connect chords smoothly while keeping the groove intact.
In this lesson we’ll:
🚨 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:
🚨 Play a Great Blues in 3 Months – Week 11
Last week, we started working with a real tune—“Bag’s Groove”—combining the melody with chord voicings in the spaces.
This week, we take that idea a step further.
👉 We move toward a more chord melody approach.
In this version, you’ll notice:
• Some melody notes are now harmonized with chords
• Additional voicings fill out the texture
• Certain harmonies are slightly modified for a fuller sound
• The line and harmony are more integrated
I talk about There Will Never Be Another You and include an 'Epic Etude'. 5 Choruses of chord study with some easy soloing.
Please note that I've made a reference to "flat 4" in the pentatonic scale for this video. I'm not sure why, haha! But here is a basic summary of the scale tones for Fmin pentatonic over an F7 chord.
If you think of the main scale tones of F7 being mixolydian, you would have F-G-A-B-C-D-Eb. Fmin Pentatonic would be F,Ab,Bb,C and Eb. So basically leave out scale tone 2 from the mixolydian, flat the 3rd, leave 4 alone unlike what I said in the video, haha! Then just leave out scale tone 6 and you have Fmin pentatonic.
Hope that makes sense :)