This week we talk about turning an unproductive part of our lives into a more rewarding experience. Would you like to support the creators of this podcast? If so, please head over to our Patreon page and show your love by donating $3 or more each month. You get incredible benefits and this keeps the podcast coming at you regularly. Thanks so much! … [Read more...]

This week is all about something I've been sharing with my students a lot lately. We traditionally teach the blues scale or the minor pentatonic to beginning students and use them ourselves when we are searching for that traditional, 'bluesy' sound. The problem with this scale, in my opinion, is that it actually contains a lot of really horrible notes. That's why I came up with my own scale that I call, 'The Minor-Major Pentatonic.' This scale fits the chord structure of the blues in a much … [Read more...]

This week is all about another lesson I took from hanging with Joe Lovano. Do you know the history of this music? WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you donate $3 or more a month you get this PDF and every other. We will also be bringing you many extras exclusively to our patrons including transcriptions and a FREE gift  of our latest Ebook, The Diatonic Method. We hope that we bring you value every week here at the 10 Minute Jazz … [Read more...]

Stanley Turrentine was truly one of the best saxophone players of our time. His ability to cross genres and even make people who weren't jazz fans perk up at the sound of his horn is nothing short of amazing. This week we are taking an 8 bar phrase from his solo on The Sunny Side Of The Street and investigating what makes it sound so good. What we find is his ability to blend very bluesy, somewhat simple, passages, straight into some burning, double time bebop material. This is something we … [Read more...]

This week we are discussing one of the best new albums to drop in the past couple of months by one of the world's master drummers, Eric Harland! Would you like to support the creators of this podcast? If so, please head over to our Patreon page and show your love by donating $3 or more each month. You get incredible benefits and this keeps the podcast coming at you regularly. Thanks so much! … [Read more...]

This week we continue talking about the diminished pattern from last week's episode. I'm making a concentrated effort to do more about putting these concepts into action for you. You guessed it, another etude! This one features the pattern we talked about over a blues. This will help you to put this into your own solos and point out exactly where and when to use this device. Of course, the knowledge from this etude can be applied to any tune and that's the beauty of it! We hope you enjoy our … [Read more...]

I know, I know, this is a weird thing to say. But let's explore this weird thing together.... Would you like to support the creators of this podcast? If so, please head over to our Patreon page and show your love by donating $3 or more each month. You get incredible benefits and this keeps the podcast coming at you regularly. Thanks so much! … [Read more...]

This week we are going to look at one of the most famous licks in history. This diminished pattern was first made famous by John Coltrane but has become ubiquitous in the jazz language. Michael Brecker was also pretty famous for taking this line and expanding upon it. In this episode we will do the same thing. First, we look at the structure of the line, then we are going to re-arrange it and make it our own. Just a word of warning that I'm going to want you to do some homework on this episode. … [Read more...]

This past weekend, the jazz world lost a true master. This week we pay homage to Roy Hargrove and his contributions to our music and scene. Would you like to support the creators of this podcast? If so, please head over to our Patreon page and show your love by donating $3 or more each month. You get incredible benefits and this keeps the podcast coming at you regularly. Thanks so much! … [Read more...]

This week is the culmination of our series on enclosures and it's a doozy! This week I have written a full etude for you to see the enclosures in action. We use the famous jazz standard, If I Should Lose You to demonstrate all of the concepts we have worked on so far. We use single crhomatic enclosures and double enclosures to make a one-chorus melody that you can study and steal from in order to benefit your own playing. This has been a fun topic to present to you all, as I'm very passionate … [Read more...]