THE PROBLEM How do you learn to play jazz? How can you develop this skill? One way is to copy what the greats played. This method is terrific for acquiring vocabulary. However it has one BIG limitation. It does not help us to learn how to develop our OWN LINES and phrases.(worse still you may actually become trapped in just regurgitating these lines or licks like a parrot, like I did for 10 years!) THE SOLUTION - Learn to make our own lines! In this class we take a very simple 3 note motif that John Coltrane played and systematically (over the cycle of 5ths) develop and "Jazz "up it up ( by changing the rhythm, adding non- diatonic tones, displacing the range by an octave and by adding approach notes) This powerful approach is so useful and mind opening as one learned it can be applied to any melodic phrase. Your imagination will be the only limit. In this download: - PDF with Concert, Bb, Eb and Bass clef that contains the exercises shown in the Youtube video - MP3 demonstrations and play alongs of the exercises in the PDF - This is a resource for intermediate players - mp4 instruction video "If we cannot develop the ability to embellish and transform melodies and phrases we will be doomed to improvisational failure, never being free to improvise, resigning ourselves to a form of musical regurgitation." Nick Homes
