Most Popular Lessons

Friedman Etude! Insult my playing!

There's been talk about the Mallet Kat here. Which to me means electronic music.

I know there are varying opinions on electronic music especially pertaining to the vibes.

Well check this out. It's not a midi vibes but this should show you the worlds and places you can go to.

This is one of the most incredible videos I've seen on youtube. And the thing is this is 10 years old maybe? I think. And look what Michael Brecker does.

Wow!

Here's another etude over the tune 'My One and Only Love'. You put the chords in. It's a chord etude based on quarter notes.

You can see the top note of the chord and the up and down of the melody. You can see where there's a chord and maybe it doesn't have an important note in it, but then on the next beat that chords there. You'll be working on inversions and voice leading.

Understanding Tritone Substitutions
by John Mark Piper

To understand the basics of tritone substitutions and how they typically function is an important aspect of music. Having good command of them can help a musician's reading, hearing, performing and memorizing music.

A quick and dirty video lesson. I shot this while in Ireland. The sound is not great and it's EARLY in the morning, I'm tired as you can see!

I was just thinking. (That's where my dad would say 'How did it feel?'.

I spent last night jamming with a bass player. We took some tunes got together and put them through a bunch of keys. I said to him I liked doing this with 'just the 2 of us' because if there were other players they'd be off to the side playing the new keys while I was soloing.

And then bam!!! Why not do this live, and you guys play along. You won't bother me, because I can't here you. We'd pick the songs and you guys would play along. Play the root of the chords, play the chords, play whatever you want.

Joe Locke showed me a cool scale that Olivier Messiaen used to write with. I found out later that it's a MOLT (Modes of Limited Transposition), which is pretty interesting. A major scale transposes into 7 variations and a diminished scale 2 (if I understand this correctly).

Deconstruct Summer Time Harmony