Lesson

The A Train study is an in depth look at a tune. Tunes unlock secrets to harmony and improvising. In a way, a tune is a well thought out solo! A prepared one! And in a way a solo is a quickly conceived melody over a tune. That's not quite true but you get the idea.

The A train study is a way to really work through this tune and learn the nuances, see what you can take over to your improvisation and work on your chords, chord melodies and solo playing.

Here is the PDF to go along with Drop 2 Lesson 3 Part 3

Here is the melody of "Alone Together" harmonized in drop 2 voicings. I have included the .pdf of what I am playing (minus my performance mistakes <:)-

Barry asked me to talk about the tune invitation. So I whipped up a quick video, just talking about what makes that tune unique and why it's a great tune to study.

I'm going to do an etude and then I think if some of you guys are interested we can do a study of the tune, just like with A train.

"Within a Page" is one of my favorites. I wrote it while working on a page out of my sight reading book called "Shapes and Patterns of Music". The title comes after spending weeks on a single line trying to develop it into a song. When I finally came up with a "song" (that I really love), I realized that there was SO MUCH music and work that went into this small page of music. So I titled it "Within A Page". After coming up with the arrangement for solo vibes, I thought I'd offer it along with a lesson on how to play it. So, here it is in PDF download form. I hope you enjoy it.

This attachment on "Tritone Substitutions" goes along with Tony's lesson on "Pivot Chords".

Here's a 4 part lesson talking about scales and modes. Some introductory stuff with a little depth.

Watch this and imagine doing this on the vibes. It works right? This is what I talk about when I say to me the vibes are very similar to the guitar. Conceptually this style and approach is in a big way (although not the only way) how we can play solo on the vibes. I learned so much from playing classical guitar which I did for years when I was younger.

I get a bunch of email with people having questions about playing. At the University of the Arts we're supposed to have office hours. So I've decided to have office hours here for subscribers.

I'll do this on livestream.com. I'll announce the link where it will take place later.

You can set your cam up and play and I (or any other one else online) can critique you. You can bring up a topic and we can all talk about it. Anyone with a cam can take the spotlight and talk about the subject as well.

So, we're starting a trumpet site, just like this site featuring Joe Magnarelli and Matt Gallagher. That means I'm hanging out with trumpet players these days. That's cool when you hang out with trumpet or sax players, because you're talking to musicians who ONLY play lines. In other words they have to use lines to make harmony. We can hit a C chord and then play a G and the world knows what's happening! Trumpet players have to hit the G and then fill in. This is a real learning opportunity hanging with trumpet players.