This week completes our look at core exercises which every jazz musician worth their weight needs to know. We already studied major modes, chord tones and extensions, and this week we complete the series with a look at chromatic exercises. Chromaticism is important in every form of jazz but particularly in bebop. I like to think about bebop as the first form of "modern" jazz. Meaning that all music that came after it was very informed by the bebop style. These exercises will translate well to … [Read more...]
Episode 024: Core Chromatic Exercises
Episode 023: Chord Extensions
This week we are continuing our look at exercises I consider the building blocks of effective improvisation. Last week we studied some scale based exercises and this week we will take a look at chord based exercises. Learning all of the upper structure chord extensions is a way to break out of your regular chord tone based solos. These exercises will cover notes such as the 9th, sharp 11th, and 13th and work them seamlessly into regular chord tone exercises giving them a new flavor and giving … [Read more...]
Episode 022: Major Modes Exercise
This week we are going to start a series on core concepts and exercises that I feel every jazz player should have in their toolbox. Our first stop is going to be a great exercise dealing with the modes of the major scale. This exercise is a simple one but it carries huge benefits when it comes to developing a general base of technique and facility when improvising. There is much talk of practicing your 'jazz scales' but the way I think of it is scales are scales no matter what type of music … [Read more...]
Episode 021: Chromatic Approaches: Part 2
Welcome to part 2 in our series on chromatic approaches and diatonic chords! This week we will work on approaches as they relate to diatonic 7th chords instead of triads. This adds a new dimension to the sound, and although similar to part 1, provides some new challenges and opportunities when it comes to this important concept. One of the particular challenges is coming up with the right rhythms to use with 5 note figures. A big part of this episode will be showing you how to group the notes … [Read more...]
Episode 020: Lick Of The Month: June 2016
Our second installment of the Lick Of The Month series brings you an awesome bebop iii-vi-ii-v-I line. Also known as a turnaround, this progression is widely used in tunes, bebop tunes in particular. One place that you can immediately start to apply this material is over rhythm changes. You'll notice that this line contains a lot of chromaticism and this will be tough to figure out at first but give it some time and effort and you will be hearing and playing this in all 12 keys. This part is … [Read more...]
Episode 019: Chromatic Approaches: Part 1
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...]
Episode 018: Learning Tunes By Ear
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...]
Episode 017: Triad Pairs: Part 1
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...]
Episode 16: Lick Of The Month: May 2016
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...]
Episode 015: The Whole Tone Scale: Part 2
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...]
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