a great music book for improvising

[Anonymous]

Here’s a great music/cd book, that one of the members on this site kindly sent to me

http://www.sax.co.uk/detail.jsp?pName=bob-mintzer-15-easy-jazz-blues-funk-etudes

and here’s someone playing one of the tunes in the book.

It’s a great book, because as well as just playing the sheet music, you can also play the backing tracks and inprovise along just using the chords either blues chords, or major chords.

Thanks Jeff!!

[Anonymous]

@Jeff
next time i have a lesson, i’ll take Mintzer’s book along with me, and try out the first tune! see what tips i can pick up!

[Anonymous]

I have a few of Bob’s books now, but this one is the one that gets played the most. When I bought my book only the Bb version was available. I play them on the Alto as is, and they still sound good to me. Bob includes a CD with all his books with example and backtrack for each tune, so one can listen to exactly how it must sound. Great fun!

[Anonymous]

While studying and practicing the bare bones of jazz improvisation, which gives a solid back ground into blues, rock & roll and practically every other type of improvisation.

I’ve found it hard to find music/cd books with backing tracks that are suitable at the learning level, apart from the tracks supplied by my teacher which are the best.

Mintzer’s book is excellent, as it has tracks that aren’t wildly distracting or dull, and i can feel the chord changes while i’m playing so i know if i’m behind, ahead or playing the wrong keys for the chord – which is important at learning level.

The one thing i’ve noticed, is i wished i’d learn’t the II-V-I progression before the I-IV-V progression. Once you know the II-V-I progression going up and down the sax it Makes the I-IV-V progression ever so easy in terms of transposing between different major scales

[Anonymous]

I suppose that’s where knowing the circle of 5ths (4ths) well will be handy, knowing that it runs 4,1,5,2 (IV,I,V,II)

Circle of 5ths —> Fb, Cb, Gb, Db, Ab, Eb, Bb, F, C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, B#, F##, C##, G##

For example for A major/minor 4,1,5,2 = D, A, E, B.

[Anonymous]

True, before learning the II-V-I progression, it pays to memorise the circle of fifths in terms of playing the 4ths above ie starting on high B play high E (above high B), then play high A (below the previous high B) followed by high D (above high A) and work your way down the sax in that pattern.
Then you need to play the 5ths below ie starting on high B play the E (below high B), then play the high A (below high B) followed by the D (below high A) and work your way down the sax.

So the pattern emerging is B-E A-D G-C F-Bb D#-G# C#-F# B-E etc if you start on B
if you start on C, the pattern emerging would be
C-F Bb-Eb G#-C# F#-B E-A D-G C-F etc

… whether you play the 4ths above or the 5ths below using the circle of 5ths.
Also when you play this over and over, you start to recognise what a 4th above sounds like, and what 5th below sounds like. So if you are improvising from the music you are hearing in your head you can automatically jump to these key positions without having to fumble around by trial and error to locate which key belongs to the sound in your head.

Also from that pattern, you can now easily pick out the I-IV-V patterns in all the major scales a lot easier. So if you are improvising in G major you know the 1st & the 4th will be G-C, and if you want to transpose to C major then you will know its C-F, or whatever other major you want to jump into.

So if you know your II-V-I off by heart, you automatically know the I & IV in the I-IV-V progression, and if you’ve learnt all your arpeggios, you should know the V.

Once you’ve learnt the theory, thats it, you can then spend all your time practing on the sax without having to go over and over and over the theory.

It may sound strange but there are a lot of people out there that love the theory side and have a lot fun out of it. Its no different to people who drive cars and dont want to know whats going on under the bonnet, and then theres people who drive cars and have a great interest of whats going on under the bonnet. Horses for courses.

the main thing, whatever you find is fun, stick with it, its your life.
yolo

[Anonymous]

@Jeff, in the Bob Mintzer book, i had a lot of fun playing along to the ‘Blues 1’, ‘Waltz’ and ‘Swing-o-rams’ tracks. Lot of work in those tracks to cover, but they look the easiest for me to start on. I’ll go through one with PH, to follow up ‘Blue Moon’ which is just starting to shape up (couple more weeks with PH and i should be able to record it and e-mail it to you to listen and comment on).

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