— 2015 — Jul 21
Pronouncing “Repertoire”
A simple post about a common word in music that seems to trip up a lot of people: REPERTOIRE. [read more]
Jazz Blog
— 2015 — Jul 14
Dynamic and Static Chords
Consider these two statements: “When you see a G7 chord you can use the G blues scale.” “When you see a G7 chord you can play a G altered lick.” Are they true? The simple answer to each is an unsatisfying “sometimes.” For a more satisfying answer, we need to understand an important distinction… [read more]
— 2014 — Nov 6
Celebrating Adolphe Sax
A few amazing things you might not know about the man who gave us the saxophone, on his 200th birthday. [read more]
— 2014 — Jun 20
Back-to-Front Learning
A host of compelling reasons why it’s more efficient and effective to practice sequences of new material in reverse order. [read more]
— 2013 — Jul 25
How we make money from music
Did you know that a recording artist gets paid when his/her performance is played on satellite radio, but not when it’s played on FM radio? Take a quiz to test your knowledge of how money flows in the music world… or just read it as a wonderful tutorial. [read more]
— 2013 — Jun 23
Random Roots
It is vital to practice in every key. But, for many purposes, the convenient ways of going through the twelve keys—chromatically or in the circle of fifths—have significant disadvantages. Here is an alternate method. [read more]
— 2013 — Jun 3
Joe Henderson at age 26
Fifty years ago today, a 26-year-old Joe Henderson recorded his debut album, Page One, for Blue Note Records. In addition to its stellar lineup and the fact that it debuts two songs that went on to become jazz mega-classics, Page One is notable in that it displays gorgeous facets of Joe’s playing that one doesn’t hear in his later years… [read more]
— 2013 — Mar 18
The Girl From Ipanema (at 50)
In praise of the song we all love to hate. [read more]
— 2013 — Mar 11
Studio Confessions
Like most jazz recordings, my CDs have stayed pretty true to the live-concert experience. But here’s a couple tricks we’ve played in the studio over the years that we couldn’t have pulled off live. Audio included [read more]
— 2013 — Mar 10
Understanding Sus Chords
I encounter a lot of musicians who know the definition of a sus chord but who struggle to understand sus chords as clearly as, say, minor or dominant chords. Perhaps this post will shed some helpful light. [read more]
— 2013 — Jan 11
A nameless ii-V cadence
A look at a cadence where a ii-V progression resolves not down a perfect fifth to the I chord, but up a half step. [read more]
— 2012 — Nov 30
An iTunes Tip for Musicians
An invaluable little tip if you’re a musician and you use iTunes on a Mac or PC. [read more]
— 2012 — Nov 27
Reverse Engineering Our Dominant Scales
Have you ever noticed that you can get a bunch of important jazz scales by assembling smaller half-scale “modules” in different combinations? Here’s a fresh way of visualizing some common dominant scales and how they’re “built.” [read more]
— 2012 — Nov 25
Harmonic Brightness & Darkness
Minor chords are often described as “dark,” major chords as “bright.” In this post I propose a technical definition of musical darkness and brightness that I’ve found very useful for thinking about musical harmony. [read more]
— 2012 — Jul 26
Transcribing Jazz Solos
Most jazz musicians recognize the enormous value of transcribing solos, but relatively few go about it in a way that lets them milk that value. This post contains many pointers, as well as a step by step example. [read more]
— 2012 — Jul 11
Loft Concerts in Oakland & Seattle
For years I’ve put on concerts at my loft space in Oakland, California, collaborating with great Bay Area players and touring players passing through town. The concerts are intimate performances with a party vibe before & after. Recently I’ve started them up in Seattle, Washington as well. [read more]
— 2012 — Jul 10
How to Think about Scale Modes
How often have we heard this? Teacher: Do you know what the C lydian scale is? Student: That’s the same as the G major scale, right? It’s useful to know that a C lydian scale has the same notes as a G major scale. But I find it much more useful to know that a […] [read more]
— 2012 — Apr 16
Harmonic Intervals from Polyrhythms
Here’s a beautiful audio/video demonstration of a simple acoustic principle which relates the perfect fifth harmonic interval to a 3:2 polyrhythm. [read more]
— 2012 — Feb 27
Blues in Disguise?
My “Radiant Blue” CD is a collection of ten songs that, in different and sometimes unusual ways, follow the blues form. But you probably wouldn’t notice that, listening to it. “Radiant Blue is a CD of blueses, but it is not a blues CD any more than The Who’s rock opera, Tommy, is an opera CD.” [read more]
— 2012 — Jan 31
The Backdoor ii-V Progression
We all know how a standard ii-V-I progression works: a Dm7 chord followed by a G7 chord resolves to the key of C. We also hear a lot about the Tritone Substitution ii-V, in which the Dm7 and G7 resolve, instead, to the key of F#. Well, there is another very common resolution of the ii-V progression… much more common among standards than the tritone sub version… which gets surprisingly little discussion relative to the others. [read more]
