Is this the best warm-up in the world? I don’t know.. but it is a darn good one. I really don’t even think about stepping on stage without a quick run-through.Continue reading →
Chris Potter- The Eternal Triangle
Here is the first Chorus of Chris Potter’s solo on The Eternal Triangle
Chris Potter- The Eternal Triangle- Transcription
A chorus on "Four" by Miles Davis
Here is a written out solo exercise on the changes to “Four” by Miles Davis
Download: Solo Exercise on “Four” Bb Instruments
Alone Together Chorus – 6-28-11
This one is more of a transcription of myself then a written out solo exercise. There are definitely some challenging parts of the solo. But it is a cool one to check out.
Arpeggiating basic Piano Voicings – ii-V-I
The concept here is a simple one. Instead of simply arpeggiating 1 -3 -5 -7 , we can getting into the upper structures of the chords. Utilizing 9ths, 11ths, 13ths. A way to do this is to take some simple piano voicings are arpeggiate them. Below is an example of 5 basic right hand piano voicings for each of the ii , V, and i chords.
A Chorus on Stella By Starlight (6-20-11)
Here is a written out solo chorus on the changes to the tune Stella by Starlight.
Playing over Minor ii-V-i chord changes – The Minor ii – V – i Matrix
What is the minor ii V i matrix?
Utilizing certain harmonic minor scales, we can construct a matrix of possible chord substitutions that may be used over the minor ii – V, or minor ii – V – i chord progressions. This approach is actually awesome for times when it is just ii – V’s that don’t resolve to i. The example I will use for this post is the last eight bars of “Stella by Starlight”. Most beginning players who study this tune have a hard time with the last eight bars because of the fact that the first three ii-V’s don’t resolve to i. Just playing in each of the minor keys doesn’t really get the job done.