One of the toughest things to do in jazz is incorporate chromaticism. It's so easy to just stay inside of the diatonic scale, after all we have been working on scales since we first picked up our instruments, right? Starting to incorporate chromaticism sometimes feels like jumping off a cliff with no safety rope. It sounds and feels foreign to us. In this episode I  give you some exercises that utilize chromatic approaches in relation to diatonic triads. Diatonic triads are built off of each … [Read more...]

I got a questions from one of our listeners, Andrew about how he could improve his skills of learning tunes by ear. I thought that this was a great topic to do an episode on as it concerns one of the most important parts of playing jazz: ear training. This is a particularly hard part of ear training because it requires us to figure out harmony as well as melody and rhythm. This skill can also come in very handy when we want to play a tune or piece that has not been charted out anywhere. This … [Read more...]

This weeks episode is all about triad pairs. This is going to be the first in a series of shows on this topic but fair warning, they won't be in order week after week. I'm going to pepper them in every few weeks to give you a chance to work on them. The first episode in the series will be about major triads a whole step apart. The first thing you need to do is get familiar with the pattern of these triads played back to back. You're also going to want to get used to the sound so that when you … [Read more...]

We are starting a new monthly thing here at the 10 Minute Jazz Lesson Podcast. Every month, on the third episode of the month, we will learn a new piece of vocabulary over a commonly used chord progression. This is meant for us to learn great material over chord changes that we will see everyday as an improvising jazz musician. If you aren't dedicating at least a part of your practice routine to learning new vocabulary, you should be! This week we take a look at what is perhaps the most … [Read more...]

Are you ready for part 2 of our whole tone series? If you haven't checked out part one, make sure that you go back and check that out. It's required listening if you want to get the most out of this week's episode. Part 1 was geared towards getting the whole tone scale into your brain and under your fingers. This week we get to the fun stuff! We are going to start plugging the whole tone scale into chord progressions that we will see on a regular basis. We start with augmented ii-V7-I … [Read more...]

This week we are going to take a look at an important scale in jazz: The Whole Tone Scale. there are many different uses for this scale in all kinds of situations and we will get to that in part 2. This week we are going to cover the basics and get this scale under our fingers. I'm presenting you with some select exercises to get the whole tone scale into your ears and under your fingers. We are going to start developing some flexibility with the scale so next week we have the technique down … [Read more...]

Figuring out what your favorite musicians are thinking when they play is an essential part of getting better. It allows us to get deeper into their playing and incorporate our favorite material into our own solos. It's like having a jazz legend giving us a private lesson in our own home! It is also an important ear and rhythmic training activity. We are figuring out hundreds of notes just using our ears and our instrument. You'll be amazed by how your ears open up and you can start doing so … [Read more...]

This week we are going to learn how to do one of my favorite things. Learning vocabulary has paid off in a huge way for anyone who has ever practiced this important part of improvising. Just like when we speak a language, we have to have a good base vocabulary to be able to converse and make sense. When it comes to jazz, this means taking some of our favorite players' material and putting it into our own playing. In this episode, I will take you through an overview of the way I take a phrase, … [Read more...]

This week's episode brings you a lesson on the bebop scale. This device is a great way to quickly incorporate some chromaticism into your playing and get those snaky lines you always wanted. I have to warn you though, this might be the biggest amount of work I have given you in any episode so far. We start by learning the dominant and major bebop scales and then learn them starting on every chord tone available to us. This seems like a lot of work but isn't anything worth practicing a ton … [Read more...]

In jazz, timing is everything. In this week's episode we will take a look at structuring our solos in such a way that the important notes fall in the right place. We want to make sure that we are putting chord tones on the strong beats of each measure. This gives our improvisation some direction and is the number one way to make you sound like you know what you're doing quickly! We come up with the skeleton of our solo and then build a complete melodic statement around that skeleton. With a … [Read more...]