Editing is one of the toughest things you can do in life. Whether editing your writing or editing what you say in certain situations, choosing what to include and what to leave out are crucial. The same holds true for improvising. Sometimes not playing something can be just as powerful, if note more, than playing it. The heroes we look up to were masters of editing and a well placed rest could bring you almost to tears. We are going to take the same Coltrane line we used in episode 64 and … [Read more...]

Phil Woods was a true giant in jazz history. One of the preeminent saxophonists after Charlie Parker, Woods took the alto to new heights and has a legacy that will live on forever in jazz history. This week we are pulling two lines out of his solo on Blue Bossa and finding out what makes them tick. The first line demonstrates some fundamentals that will get us away from playing only 8th notes when it comes to a turnaround. Sometimes we can get in the habit of thinking that we need to fill every … [Read more...]

This weeks we give your practice plan some new life. Accomplish more by doing less!                         … [Read more...]

Rhythmic awareness and flexibility is where it's at. Rhythm is by far the most important thing for an improviser and in this episode we talk about how you can supercharge your vocabulary work and become the most flexible musician in the room. Learning vocabulary is a fine line between sounding like yourself with influences and becoming a carbon copy of someone else. The first obviously being the better outcome. If we inject our vocabulary work with some of our own rhythms or just simply … [Read more...]

This week we are talking about pentatonic scales. The tough part about pentatonics are the fact that it's a five note scale and the majority of what we play is in 2 or 4 note patterns. Our job is to turn these five note groupings into something we can use in 4/4 or 2/4. Something that we can get into our playing almost immediately and see real results. The patterns in this episode range from extremely easy to much more complicated so make sure you really digest what a pentatonic scale is first, … [Read more...]

This week wraps up our series on upper structures. We have already covered major seventh chords and minor seventh chords. This week we'll focus on the dominant chord. It's important to realize that there are so many possibilities for dominant chords when it comes to altered notes and superimposing different chords over the top. We will cover some basics here but this is one chord quality where there is a lot more work to be done down the road. Have fun and enjoy the episode!   GET THE … [Read more...]