Chord progressions

[Anonymous]

Some people have asked why I made these two ‘complex’ tables. The answer is because I previously didn’t understand comments like this one below.

“The licks are arranged in groups of chords (Maj7, min7, dom7), separate various maj & min progressions (ii-V-I, ii-V-i, ii-V-I-VI, ii-V-I-VI, I-VI-ii-V, i-V-ii-V), modes (dorian, lydian, phrygian, aeolian), styles (swing, bebop, hard bop, post bop, fusion/funk) and licks over some standard jazz tunes. The licks are in a single key. A serious player will definitely practice each in the 11 other keys of course! Experimentation with different phrasings and articulations is left for the imagination of the player (who wants to be retarded by a spoon-feeding exhaustive book anyway?).”

Now where did I leave my spoon?

[Anonymous]

@Jeff – So much to learn, i’ll have to get a larger spoon.

The latest thing i’m trying to incorporate is singing any scale in terms of numbers from 1 to 7, and singing any random number in the correct pitch. Theres two options, either sing the pitch and call out the number, or call out the number and sing the pitch. In terms of scales, each number is relative to the first number (root note of scale). so you have to sing the 1st number of the relevant scale.

So a 2 in c major will sound different to a 2 in f major etc…

It gets harder, i then try and imagine i’m on a staircase and each number 1 to 7 represents which step on the staircase i am on. what ever step i am standing on, i try to visualize it and see where i am in relation to seing all 7 steps of the staircase at the same time. So for instance if i am on step 2, i can visualize step 5 and also visualize steps 3 & 4 between step 5.

I gets even harder, i then pick any scale, and then overlay that scale over the steps. So now i can jump around the sax (ie stair case in terms of numbers) – which helps in improvising when it comes to playing various patterns ie 1-3-5 , 1-4-1-5-4-1 etc…

Then i can move to a different scale, overlay that over my staircase and play the same stuff again.

The staircase method requires a lot of patience, as you have to start on step 1 and get used to visualising step 2 in relation to step 1 and step 1 in relation to step 2. Once you can do that, then bring in step 3, and learn to visualise all 3 steps in relation to each other. While visualising the steps, you have to practice playing the step number on the sax.

By the time you can this for all 7 steps in a scale, the amazing thing is you can then randomly jump to any number on the sax instantly – you can then play an infinite number of random step numbers in that scale on the sax.

If you want to move to a different scale, then just spend a few minutes reseting the scale in your mind on the same staircase.

beats spoon wittling.

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