124: Shell + triad
By playing a G7 Shell (1,3,b7) and adding a triad over that basic structure, you can create a lot of harmonic voicings and melodic material.
Free Jazz Education and Music
By playing a G7 Shell (1,3,b7) and adding a triad over that basic structure, you can create a lot of harmonic voicings and melodic material.
Covid19 has ended my gigging life for now and so I have more time to teach. Skype/Zoom/Hangouts are great ways to both teach and learn from the comfort of your own home. I charge 30$ for a 30 minute lesson
A warm up that activates both your ear and your sound. Trying to discover smarter ways to warm up and do ear training is often on my mind when teaching. Many students spend time doing long tones but still have
I’ve been practicing a simple Major melody that uses both a diatonic enclosure of the 3rd and a descending diatonic 6th. The melody outlines the 3rd to the 5th of each of the 7 chords in the major scale. The
This is an original composition of mine using a common writing tool. all the chords and melody to this piece come from one major scale.
Harmonic Major modes over 2-5-1 in Minor. I’ve been working on using the 7 modes of Harmonic Major over various chords as alternate scale choices. The example below uses two scales over a minor 2 – 5 – 1 –
Steve Cardenas, one of my favorite guitar players, taught me how to create a 7 note diminished scale. These scales work over Dominant b9 (half/whole) type diminished as well, but we’ll look at regular Diminished 7th in this example. There
This a short tune I wrote at the piano for my father Bruce’s birthday. The melody with the bass note creates triad inversions. That was the starting point, just trying to come up with some nice inversions where there are
Here’s a blues etude that uses some different 4 note cells (tetrads) and various scales. By writing an etude you can learn to hear melody that specifically reflects an underlying concept and later improvise using the concept alone. The original
I always enjoy writing contra-facts over chord progressions I like to improvise on. This is an easy one that is based on the Gigi Gryce’s song Minority. Gigi writes great tunes; always melodic and fun to blow on harmonically. I
The CD is pressed – here are all the tracks on one post. You can also listen to the whole album for free or buy it on Bandcamp here. Matt Otto: tenor sax.Andy Ehling: alto sax.Leonard Thompson: piano.Brad Williams: drums.Ben
This piece is based on a re-harmonization of the chord progression to Dave Brubeck’s song, “In Your Own Sweet Way”. I added an interlude of descending Sus Chords as an alternative solo section as well as simplifying the chord changes