Lesson

🎵 Play A Great Standard In One Month – Stella – Week 2

Last week, we began our study of "Stella By Starlight" by developing a practical set of voicings through the entire form.

This week, we're taking those voicings and putting them into a more musical context:

👉 A basic chord melody.

🎵 New Series Alert – Play A Great Standard In One Month!

We've spent the last two series taking a deep dive into two of the most important forms in jazz:

• Play A Great Blues In 3 Months
• Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months

Those 14-week series gave us plenty of time to develop comping, voicings, melodic vocabulary, substitutions, and improvisational concepts over forms that show up everywhere in jazz.

Now we're ready to move a little faster.

👉 Play A Great Standard In One Month

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 14

We've made it to Week 14 and the final lesson in our Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months series!

Over the course of this series, we've worked through rhythm changes from a number of different angles:

• Common four-mallet voicings
• Comping rhythms
• Guide tones and 3rds & 7ths
• Bebop, diminished, and chromatic vocabulary
• Chord and scale outlinings
• Substitute harmony
• Longer melodic phrases
• Transposition and register considerations

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 13

Last week, we moved rhythm changes from B♭ into F, beginning our work on taking the concepts from this series into different keys.

This week, we're staying in F, but we're shifting our attention back to comping.

👉 More specifically, we're returning to the voicings from Week 1 and transposing them into our new key.

On paper, that sounds simple: take every voicing from B♭ and move it into F.

On the vibraphone, however, it doesn't always work that way.

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 12

Over the past seven weeks, we've built a strong vocabulary for rhythm changes through guide tones, chord outlinings, scale motion, substitutions, and bebop language.

This week, we introduce something equally important:

👉 Playing in a new key.

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 11

Over the past six weeks, we've steadily expanded our rhythm changes vocabulary.

We've explored:

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 10

Over the past five weeks, we've gradually expanded our rhythm changes vocabulary.

We've explored:

• Guide-tone lines
• Embellished 3rds and 7ths
• Chromatic approaches
• Diminished and bebop scale language
• Chord-tone based improvisation

This week, we begin bringing many of those ideas together.

👉 Chord outlinings, scale motion, and substitute chord changes.

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 9

Over the past four weeks, we've been steadily building a melodic vocabulary for rhythm changes.

We've explored:

• Guide tones (3rds and 7ths)
• Embellished guide-tone lines
• Chromatic and flat 9 dominant language
• Diminished and bebop scale vocabulary

This week, we shift our focus to another essential improvisational concept:

👉 Using chord tones to build melodic lines.