I wanted to talk today about a very practical tip that can improve your improvisations on the bandstand. Everything we do in jazz improvisation is about creating music in the moment. Today’s tip is simple, yet one that is often overlooked with younger or intermediate level players. That is the importance of starting out strong…
Analyzing Lines – Donald Byrd on Nica’s Dream Analyzing Nica’s Dream. In 2012, I started a series on Analyzing Lines. We took a look at a few lines of some of the giants of jazz and broke them down to see why and how they worked. If we can uncover those questions we can learn…
Thanks again for stopping by and checking out the site! If this is your first visit here, I would like to welcome and invite you to browse around and take a look at some of our past posts as well as my book (Targeting: Improvisation With Purpose and Breaking the Monotony) which are both available at my…
This week I wanted to talk about the benefits of creating your own Etudes. When we improvise, we’re creating something in the moment. We have an idea in our mind’s eye about what we’d like to do and the options we can go from a certain point. I also advise that we have targets we…
Welcome everyone to Week #49 AND Day 1 of JKM’s Fundraiser to eradicate Malaria! Did you know that Malaria is 100% preventable? Yet, Malaria kills over one million people each year; 85% of those are children under the age of 5. Today, tomorrow and Wednesday 100% of all Targeting: Improvisation With Purpose book sales, booked Skype Lessons…
Welcome to week #48! We’re only a few more weeks before hitting the one year mark! I’ve got some exciting things to announce in the next coming days and weeks ahead so be sure to continue checking in. In this week’s tip, we’re going to continue in our series on Outside-In. We’ve been talking about…
Welcome back to part 2 or our outside-in series! We’re going to continue in week #47 talking about some ways you can play “outside” of the chord changes while keeping your lines structured. Last week we started talking about the 3-tonic system. This week I want to expand on that concept and introduce the 4-tonic…
Welcome to week #46! This week I wanted to talk about some ways you can play “outside” of the chord changes while still keeping your lines structured. A lot of younger students want to play out, but don’t know how to do it. I always tell them you need a good understanding of how to…
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