Beginner

? Lesson 2: Building Time Through 3rds and 7ths – Intro to the Blues
Goal: Develop internal time and harmonic awareness by isolating key movements within the blues progression.

In this lesson, we’ll begin working with small sections of a blues form using dominant chords. The focus is on identifying and connecting 3rds and 7ths—especially how they voice-lead smoothly when chords move by fourths.

? Lesson 1: Building a Solid Time Foundation With a Metronome

? Goals:

I am always working with students on their hands. Quite a few have problems and bad habits. Well for that matter we all at some level usually have a problem or two and a bad habit or two! 

You HAVE to get your hands together and working well if you're going to play more interesting and complex music. 

i.e. Donna Lee is much more complex technically then Blue Boss or One Note Samba. 

Just some stuff to think about with double sticking as well as a way to practice double sticking. 

i do feel that we want to do as much alternate sticking as we can. I know some disagree including David Friedman. So take it for what it's worth to you. But I give you some ways to work on double sticking.

Building on the previous etude, this new version expands the lines and incorporates additional chord adjustments to deepen the harmonic exploration in 3/4. By introducing extra melodic lines and refining the chord changes, this etude offers a richer harmonic texture while staying within a straightforward 3/4 groove. It challenges the player to navigate slightly more complex progressions, encouraging a deeper understanding of how to shape melodic ideas within the time signature.

One of my students has been working on "Footprints" and wanted to explore playing in 3/4 time. To help, I put together a simple etude focused on adapting familiar patterns to fit 3/4. What I like about this approach is that it lets you apply a straightforward line throughout the tune, and it flows well in 3/4. There are a few places where I adjusted the line slightly to better match the chords. Also, keep in mind that these changes are a bit simpler than the original ones, but they’re still widely used by many players—dating back to an old real book version!

Here's what you do. Don't look at the files that say 'dont-look' download the other ones first. Take the sheet music and add your voicings to stella. Learn and and play and hopefully post it here. 

After that and ONLY after that, download the don't look files and see what voicings I used. Check out what's similar and what's different. Let me know how you do and what you think. 

Bebop heads can really help with your technique. Play them very very slow and speed them up.

Great lesson to break into playing tunes solo. 

Here are links to all the other vids: 

Misty Intro

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Great lesson to break into playing tunes solo. 

Here are links to all the other vids: 

Misty Intro

Lesson 1

Lesson 2