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Spicing up a Standard - Harmonic Concepts as Applied to Stella By Starlight

Article from 1985 addressing harmonic concepts as applied to Stella By Starlight. Hard to imagine that I wrote this 30 years ago. The great thing about music is that I'm still working on these concepts. It never ends.

Here's the article:

https://drive.google.com/a/berklee.edu/folderview?id=0Bxbpdyow6QPOflF1W…

Four Note Groupings on Giant Steps (Take Two)

Berklee Improv Class - Applying the improvisational concept of Four Note Groupings over John Coltrane's Giant Steps. In my 39th year of teaching and it's still a pleasure to teach improv to these talented and motivated musicians. I feel fortunate to be able to pass on the information as well as learn and grow along with the students.

Thinking Out Loud by Steve Swallow

I love, love, love Steve Swallow's playing and his compositions. Thinking out Loud is a tricky one to improvise on because the keys change frequently and go all over the place. The goal is to try to improvise logical phrases that define the changes AND make sense melodically.

Analyze the changes carefully, figure out what chord scales you want to use, and practice moving from one to the next smoothly.

A PDF lead sheet is attached

Here's That Rainy Day by Tony Miceli (Etude)

Here's an Etude for Here's That Rainy Day. Print out the parts and 'get to work'!

I used lots of space in this etude. Short notes with rests. I like playing like this and I like the sound of the instrument like this. It's so easy to play too much stuff and VERY hard to just play a little.

The percussion part is a little different as you'll hear. But don't you think it's cool to play with simple percussion and ALL the music is there? The time, the rhythms and the harmony.

Vertical Improvisation - Improvisational Techniques Based on Tension Resolution -V

This is a past Percussive Notes article from 2000 that addresses a variety of Tension Resolution techniques for jazz improvisation. Tension Resolution is one of the chapters in The Complete Guide To Improvisation Volume 1.

Here's the link to view and download the article:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0TwrpqjL6dQfnZ1RGJMSC1wMVJWVzZ…