Lines

🎵 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.

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 8

Over the past three weeks, we've gradually expanded our melodic vocabulary.

We started with:

• 3rds and 7ths
• Embellished guide-tone lines
• Chromatic and flat 9 dominant vocabulary

This week, we continue that progression by introducing two of the most recognizable sounds in bebop improvisation:

👉 The diminished scale
👉 The bebop scale

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 7

Over the past two weeks, we've been developing melodic lines from the inside out.

We started by connecting the 3rds and 7ths, then expanded those guide-tone lines with more melodic movement and common harmonic variations.

This week, we take another major step toward authentic bebop language.

👉 Flat 9 dominant vocabulary.

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 6

Last week, we introduced one of the most important concepts in jazz improvisation:

👉 Connecting the harmony through the 3rds and 7ths.

Those guide tones gave us a clear picture of the rhythm changes progression while keeping the melodic language relatively simple.

This week, we take the next step.

👉 We're keeping the same guide-tone foundation, but embellishing the lines.

🎵 Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months – Week 5

Over the first four weeks of this series, we've focused entirely on harmony:

• Learning the form
• Internalizing common voicings
• Exploring different textures
• Developing comping rhythms and syncopation

This week, we shift gears.

👉 We're introducing line exercises.

Just like Week 5 of the blues series, we're beginning with one of the most important concepts in jazz improvisation:

👉 3rds and 7ths.

🚨 Play a Great Blues in 3 Months – Week 14

We’ve covered a lot over the course of this series:

• Guide tones
• Blues comping
• Chromaticism
• Whole tone and diminished language
• Chord melody textures
• Harmonic movement underneath simple melodies

For our final lesson, we bring many of those ideas together using:

👉 “The Intimacy of the Blues”

This arrangement continues the idea of using a relatively simple melody as a framework for richer harmonic movement underneath.

This week introduces:

🚨 Play a Great Blues in 3 Months – Week 13

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been combining blues melodies with chord voicings and moving toward a fuller chord melody approach.

This week, we use a very simple melody:

👉 “C Jam Blues”

Because the melody is so minimal, it gives us room to focus on something else:

👉 Dense harmonic movement underneath the melody

This lesson introduces several important concepts:

this is my stuff. Those of you who have been on the site for a long time, have heard some of this before. 

It has to sound like the song when you solo. That means you know the changes or have AMAZING ears. 

My mantra is 'Does it Sound LIKE THE SONG". If you remember that you have to make it sound like the song first and foremost then all your practicing is with that in mind.