GET YOUR JAZZ PLAYING TO PHASE 2 IN 3 WEEKS

THOUGHTS FROM A JAZZ AMATEUR

How to get from playing jazz in Phase 1 to playing jazz in Phase 2 in just three weeks at 20mins a day.

In Phase 1 you know all the modes of the most frequently used keys, you can play major/minor 11 v 1's in those keys without thinking.

In the Phase 2 you know the same things but for all the other lesser used keys. Yes, all of them. Without exception. Now you are cooking.

If you do it, then your confidence will improve enormously, you'll be less worried about key changes, you won't slip back into playing by ear so often. Your timing will improve (through improved confidence)

Practically every song you play will start in a popular key but the wicked swine who wrote it will slip in a few bars of a Gb, or a B, or E. That's when you may feel your world is falling apart.

These are the most popular keys, used most frequently in standard songs in concert pitch (piano/guitar etc): Major keys C F G Ab Bb Eb

For tenor and Bb instruments move each of them up a tone to find your most used keys, for alto and other Eb instruments move each of them down a minor third. (Ok this is a bit more difficult to work out. Don't say I never help you. For Eb instruments, C goes to A, F goes to D, G goes to E, Ab goes to F, Bb goes to G, Eb goes to C)

Look I have a file for this you can use in Band in A Box as a backing tape. Email me and I'll send it to you. Just change it to the key you want to practise.
Load it in, arpeggio up and scale down, do it slowly. 60 beats a minute to start, after three weeks you'll get to 180 bpm Do it in your familiar keys first then use it in the others you don't know. Slow I said, and I meant it.

Even slower than that.

20 minutes a day and you'll have it cracked in three weeks.

This arpeggio and scale exercise was given to us in the Jazz Smugglers workshop kindly by Steve Turner and copied into BIAB by Geoff Valenti. Thanks lads. Very useful.

John
leader, phase 1 and a half. (Owing to height restrictions)


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In this blog We will produce tips for jazz piano, and jazz guitar together with jazz saxophone. We will cover jazz chords, jazz guitar chords, and we will deal with jazz scales. We will cover jazz songs. This site is all about jazz improvisation.