🎵 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.
🎵 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.