Modal Interchange starts to dive head first into the theory rabbit hole for sure. But in this episode, I'll cover the basics of what it is, where you'll see it and how you can start to use it in your playing!
I announce the contents winners for our podcast review and giveaway more prizes to everyone who entered. Meanwhile we explore rhythmic comping for harmonic movements.
Not to take anything away from Keith on this one, but we reached PODCAST 100! Kind of crazy if you ask me? When I think about to all the hurdles, and problems we had to get through, I can't believe we've come this far. In order to celebrate we 're giving away 2 amazing gifts. #1 A LIFETIME membership to jazz piano. Yes you read that correctly. And #2 - A free reserved membership to our new "Lab" this is coming by the end of the year. Now in order to enter all you have to do is give the podcast a...
Herbie has always been a god in the jazz piano world. In this iconic track, Seven Steps To Heaven, we take a look at how Herbie is burnin' it up all over the place. He's got some beginner movements mixed with some advanced concepts. Anyone can learn from taking a look at this one. Enjoy!
Bill Evans was one of the greats for a reason...well...multiple reasons. In this episode we take a look at the phrasing, subtleties, rhythmic motifs, and note selection of Bill Evans in this solo off one his famous albums, "Explorations".
It's the small nuances and attention to detail that will take your playing to the next level. What sound are you trying to create? How do you get it? After you've learned the building blocks of jazz improvisation, these transcription analysis will help put you on top.
Most of the time I hear beginner and intermediate players stop at using quarter notes and eighth notes. This greatly hurts the sound of your improvisation. Remember, jazz was and is a dance music! Rhythm is like the oxygen to jazz. Without it, your solo is going to die. Here's how to start adding rhythmic variety to your improv.
A lot of the time when trying to get better at jazz piano, you simply have no idea what the future looks like...or even what the heck advanced players are doing! It sounds too far out of reach. Well I'm here to tell you it's not. In this episode I show you what is going to happen as you advance through the levels. This way you'll be able to see exactly what takes place.
I still get asked all the time, "How do I use modes to improvise and why are they important?" I'm confident this episode will remove this questions and finally allow you to understand how and why modes are important to your jazz improvisation. Enjoy!
We continue our series on minor 2-5-1’s as I explain rootless voicing options and different ways to improvise along with the notes and scales that you can choose from. With a little practice you’ll feel confident about playing minor 2-5-1’s in standards in no time!
Playing minor 2-5-1 is usually a mysterious process for most. There is a lot of harmony that surrounds this subject and how to approach it. Rest assured these Minor 2-5-1 basics will allow you to feel confident when playing this type of harmony.
We continue our Benny Green Transcription Series with a minor 2-5-1 into some very nice rhythmic motifs and harmonic development lines. This is the 2nd part of his solo on "Celia".
I absolutely love Benny Green's playing. His lines are very clear, solid, and connect with the harmonies perfectly. In this podcast series I'm going to walk you through a Benny Green solo and point out the building blocks for you to practice in order to build freedom within your improv.
If you're new to adding extensions into your voicings learning these upper structure triads is a great way to get you started. With these you'll start to create some amazing sounding jazz voicings with ease! Enjoy!
As we continue our voicing series we are adding extensions into our voicing fundamentals. This is progressing us a little further and teaching us how to create freedom to build any voicings we want. With these methods you are becoming the creator instead of simply copying voicings and not understanding how they're used. Enjoy!
During my career I was always copying voicings. I spent so many years just mimicking voicings instead of learning a solid foundation that will allow me freedom to build voicings myself. This fundamental voicing building system will give you the opportunity to build voicings for yourself for the rest of your life!
There are just some tools that every pianist has to know...this is one of them. These "McCoy Tyner" 4th voicing structures are a must know tool to have in your tool box. This is a simple episode that teaches you exactly what they are. Easy to add in your repertoire. Enjoy!
We're at the last episode of our reharm series. We're using our previous tools to reharm the bridge to rhythm changes. Let me tell you...this is a doozy. Because we have two bars each of our 3-6-2-5 our options expand by A LOT! This episode is for the brave. :)
We're continuing our reharm series of progressions this week with a 3-6-2-5. We get a little crazy with the reharms, but all beautiful and effective none the less. We build off concepts from episode 83 so you if you haven't watched that I highly recommend it. Enjoy!
Once you learn a couple of reharm tools it will completely open up your playing. Not only will you be able to comp differently but you will have more options for improvisation, arranging and solo piano freedom. Check out these reharms for a 2-5-1. I will cover different progressions in the upcoming podcasts.
Connecting harmonies during improvisation is very simple when executed properly. Watch as I breakdown some ways to work on connecting harmonies and show you how to put everything together.
This is part 2 of I Should Care Improvisation Analysis. We got a lot of great feedback on this type of podcast so we're going to release a couple more as well. Watch as I break down my thought process while creating a solo from scratch.
Watch as I build a solo from scratch talking about the importance of specific and harmonic changes you should add. I also add my thought process at approaching your connections through the harmonies.
Soloing over diminished chords can be tricky, but very pretty if you have some tools in your toolbox. Check out these two scales to help your improv over the diminished passing chord and dominant chords.
It's hard to know exactly what to do to improve our improvisation right? Most of the time we just spend time learning licks and transcribing but this doesn't really create the freedom we want. Learn how to systematically approach improvement at bebop!
There are always those tiny details that instantly improve the sound of someones playing. This episode is about the little secret movements players put into their playing to add flavor and spice!
Space doesn’t always have to be in your right hand, and it doesn’t always have to mean not playing. Check out these different ways to conceptualize space and add it into your playing for some tasty improvements.
Improvisation is like trying to fill the gaps in a resolution. We're trying to land on chord tones but there are so many ways to resolve, mixed with rhythms...we need to figure out what fits the gap! In this video I debunk improvisation so you don't have to copy and paste licks into your solo's.
Filling empty space in tunes can be challenging. There are a lot of different ways to do it. In this episode I go off on a small journey talking about reharms, but also give you 6 great ways to fill space in tunes. Enjoy!
Latin and Bossa tunes can be a great style to add to your repertoire. A lot of people think they are difficult to play but as I'll demonstrate in this episode there is not much difference in the way you'll approach these tunes.
