Working on Technique, Dynamics, and Pedaling.

🚨 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.

Friedman 16 Pedaling Etude (With Extra Background Noise)

Working on Pedaling, Chords and Technique.

Working on Pedaling, Technique, and Dynamics

🚨 Play a Great Blues in 3 Months – Week 8

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been building lines using real jazz vocabulary—starting with guide tones, then expanding into phrases drawn from players like Milt Jackson.

This week, we focus on one of the most important elements of that language:

👉 Chromaticism

These lines are built using phrases from Milt Jackson transcriptions and other bebop sources, but the main idea is how chromatic notes connect and shape the line.

You’ll hear:

Tony's "blues super pack" transcription transposed in C.

Here's the original in F : https://www.vibesworkshop.com/video-embed/blues-super-pack-transcriptio…

This is a new group I'm part of. I think it's very cool. A unique instrumentation and all the string players are really top notch! 

We recently played at the Wells Rapp Center For Mallet Research. (AN AMAZING PLACE THAT YOU MUST VISIT!) 

🚨 Play a Great Blues in 3 Months – Week 7

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been working with phrases drawn from Milt Jackson’s vocabulary, building full choruses from short melodic ideas.

This week, we continue that approach—but with a specific focus:

👉 Using augmented triads over dominant chords

You’ll notice that certain moments in the chorus highlight the sound of the augmented triad (1–3–#5), giving the lines a bit more tension and forward motion.

1. make it sound like the tune! Does mine sound like the tune?
2. Lots of chord tones
3. Memorize my version and follow it with yours and post it.