Gary Burton's Jazz Improvisation Course

Over the past five weeks, I've been enrolled in Gary Burton's online jazz improvisation course at https://www.coursera.org/. Coursera is a website that offers free online courses in a variety of subjects. I really enjoyed the course and was able to relate a lot of the assignments to lessons here on VWS, so I asked Tony if I could put up a review. Enjoy!

Format

This tune, titled "The Summer Knows" was written by Michele LeGrande and featured in the movie "Summer of '42" way back in the 1970s. It's a lovely ballad with a beautiful melody and a great lyric.

A pdf of the arrangement is attached.

Did I post this already?

I'm editing Christos' lesson getting them ready to go online. I hate editing video, btw. It's not fun for me, I'm not a video guy and am not dying to make money at shooting video and editing it and making it into a work of art! It's funny because everything I do is a means to an end. The end is playing my instrument. That's the most important thing in my life. Absolutely the most important thing.

Here's a great lesson on learning a tune via sheet music. The music is attached.

Do you learn melodies like this? Notice how much fun he has playing the melody!

Here's a simple etude on independence. It works out half note bass notes and guide tones against the melody. It has a few tricky spots, but overall, it's a good start for working out independence.

This can be played with 2 mallets.

Today was the 50th anniversary of the death of JFK. I wrote this piece as a tribute to a great man and a great president.

If you are the type of player that likes to tinker with stuff, I might now have a job for you.

In this job you'd be learning to tune bars, quality control instruments and work on the overall production of instruments.

PLEASE don't contact me about this unless you are VERY serious about this opportunity.

They are looking for a recent college grad. U.S. position.