Most Popular Lessons

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 10

Over the past five weeks, we've gradually expanded our rhythm changes vocabulary.

We've explored:

• Guide-tone lines
• Embellished 3rds and 7ths
• Chromatic approaches
• Diminished and bebop scale language
• Chord-tone based improvisation

This week, we begin bringing many of those ideas together.

👉 Chord outlinings, scale motion, and substitute chord changes.

Rhythm Changes Harmonic Vocabulary - Part 4

In this fourth installment of our rhythm changes harmonic vocabulary series, we continue to develop both rhythmic and harmonic fluency over the first A section. While the rhythmic pattern remains consistent with Part 3 in the first four measures, this lesson introduces new voicings and inversions that shift the color and register of the progression.

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 11

Over the past six weeks, we've steadily expanded our rhythm changes vocabulary.

We've explored:

A summary of my 9th lesson with Tony.

In a recent lesson, I worked with a student on applying modal concepts to one of my original compositions, Mindful Moments. As in our previous lesson, we focused on incorporating dominant bebop harmony within a modal framework. While understanding modes is essential, embellishing them with dominant bebop vocabulary adds depth and character to modal playing—something that can be heard in the improvisation of the jazz greats.

I got this idea from Ed Saindon, but I use the term a little differently now. "Dampening effects," to me, are different sounds you can produce while dampening. This includes deadstrokes, half-dampening, and dampening speed.

I sometimes cop Balafon patterns to work on. I love listening to Balafon players and checking out their independence. 

Check out this video: 

In the beginning somewhere he plays this pattern. I don't take them down stricktly, because they vary them. 

Check out the attached PDF!

🎵 Harmony Without Chords – Pt. 7: Scale & Chord Outlining Combinations

In Part 7, we combine two essential approaches to line construction: scale-based motion and chord outlining. These exercises move through ii–V progressions in descending whole steps, blending linear scale passages with clear chord-tone targets to create lines that sound both melodic and harmonically grounded.