The 10 Minute Jazz Lesson Podcast

This month's tune is one of my favorite Johnny Green standards that I play very often, Out Of Nowhere. We utilize the concepts we have been talking about in the entire pentatonic series and apply them to a great chord progression. Please enjoy the episode and don't forget to grab the PDF of the etude! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you donat...

Time for our lick of the month episode! This month, we utilize the concepts of pentatonic shofting to create some killer ii-V-I lines. These lines will stretch your ability to use pentatonics freely and hear some very challenging and advanced sounds. Good luck and have fun!! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you donate $3 or more a month you ge...

This week we finish up our series on pentatonics by looking at a few approaches for practicing these scales in all 12 keys. Mixing up the order of scales and rapidly changing from one key to another will be crucial in being able to play pentatonic based lines over real life chord changes. Enjoy the episode! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you...

This week, we continue our series on pentatonics by looking at our options over major seventh chords. We have two diatonic options and one option that includes a non-diatonic note. These are some of my favorite sounds and I'm excited for you to start working on this material. Enjoy the episode! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you donate $3 or...

This week we take a look at an awesome modal tune to practice what we have learned about pentatonics so far. Milestones will allow us to stretch a bit and provide a low stress chord progression to experiment with pentatonic shifting. Enjoy the episode and etude! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you donate $3 or more a month you get this PDF an...

This month we are studying one of the master pianists of all time, McCoy Tyner. This lick represents the endless possibilities of using pentatonics and how someone like Tyner uses them to create tension and release. Enjoy the episode and don't forget to grab the PDF! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you donate $3 or more a month you get this P...

This week we continue our series on pentatonics by investigating our options over a dominant 7th chord. The options are fairly limited but, the good news is, we have some very interesting and intriguing sounds we can use over this chord. Enjoy the episode! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you donate $3 or more a month you get this PDF and ever...

This month is all about pentatonics! We will be talking about how to creatively use pentatonic shapes over the 3 most common jazz chords. We start with the minor seventh chord and talk about three different major pentatonics that will give us very different sounds and feelings when used over this chord. Enjoy the episode and don't forget to grab the PDF! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPIS...

Welcome to our tune of the month episode and the conclusion of our series on triads! This week, we will use the amazing composition, I Hear A Rhapsody, as a vehicle for putting our triadic lines into context over a full form. This one includes an extensive etude which I hope will be of help to you on your journey of discovering and utilizing some brand new sounds in your playing. Enjoy and thanks...

This week, all of the work we have done on major triads comes together into some ii-V-I lines. We explore three of the patterns we have covered in the series and think about the sounds we can achieve when using them in tension and release fashion. Hope you enjoy the episode and discover something you can use on your jazz education journey! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over...

In this episode we reach the end of our triad workout by dealing with some very difficult exercises! These triads not only start places other than the root, we have also mixed up the order of the keys and are starting to deal with different sounds and harmonic directions. Hope you enjoy! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you donate $3 or more a...

This week we continue our series on triads with some challenging exercises designed to get you away from root position and develop more flexibility with your triadic playing. Enjoy the episode! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you donate $3 or more a month you get this PDF and every other. We will also be bringing you many extras exclusively t...

July has five Fridays, so I figured this month we would try something a little bit different! I asked some of the Patreon members for questions they would like answered in a Q&A format. We got two great ones from Kris and Barb and this episode will be me doing my best to answer those questions in a concise manner. These two topics may very well turn into full blown series, but for now, enjoy this...

This month, we are going to flex some of our newfound triad skills on an awesome Antoni Carlos Jobim tune, Dindi. This song has very interesting harmony and there are sections that lend themselves in particular to the use of basic triads. Enjoy and don't forget to grab the PDF! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you donate $3 or more a month you...

Welcome back to another lick of the month episode. This week, while we give you time to practice your triad patterns, we are going to look at a line from the killer saxophonist, Sam Dillon, in which he uses pentatonics along with rhythmic creativity to give us some awesome effects. Sam is a master of using techniques like this and we can learn a lot from his playing in a short period of time. Sam...

This week we continue our study of triads and how to develop a firm understanding of every key and how they lay on our respective instruments. In this episode, we talk about the 4 note triad. If you're wondering how the heck we can have a four note triad, you'll just have to listen in to find out. Enjoy and don't forget to grab the PDF at the link below! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPIS...

This month we are going to talk about some of the most valuable exercises I have studied in my younger years that, I believe, gave me the technique, skills, and understanding to really bring my playing to the next level. These rapidly moving triad exercises will stretch your mental ability to think in all 12 keys faster than ever before and result in a huge bump in your ability to do almost anythi...

Welcome to the conclusion of our series on Rhythmic Flexibility! We finish off this series with an etude over the amazing composition by Toots Thielemans, Bluesette. This tune fits perfectly into our discussion on rhythmic devices in 3/4 time. Enjoy the episode and don't forget to grab the etude and audio on our Patreon page! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreo...

This week, we take a look at one of the hippest lines I've come across in a while. Joe Pass plays an incredible phrase combining rhythmic and harmonic mastery resulting in some mind bending sounds. This is the perfect phrase for what we have been talking about the past couple of months and I think, with some real analysis, this could produce some fresh and interesting ideas in your own playing. En...

This week we finish up our series on rhythmic flexibility with a simple exercise that is deceivingly hard. We are going to practice playing 3 over 4 with a half note triplet. Then we flip the script and practice playing 4 over 3 in our final exercise. I hope you all have enjoyed this series and it pays off in the practice room allowing you more rhythmic freedom and ulmtimately, more interesting im...

This week we continue our series on playing more interesting and engaging rhythmic material. In episode one of this series, we looked at an exercise using escalating note values. This week we are thinking along the same lines but using the 3/4 time signature to learn some new sounds and challenge ourselves. Enjoy the episode and don't forget to grab the PDF! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS...

This month we take a look at the classic jazz standard, All Of Me, and use some of the concepts we have been discussing in the past couple of episodes. In the etude I have prepared for you, we are thinking rhythm first and basing the melodic and harmonic language from a different point of view. If you have worked on the exercises from episodes 260 and 261, you will be well prepared to play this ma...

This week we feature Sonny Stitt playing over the classic jazz standard, All Of Me. This 8 bar excerpt really embodies many of the topics we have been discussing so far this month. We see incredible rhythmic flexibility on display and this should be a real inspiration to continue working on these concepts and become more varied in your rhythmic playing. Enjoy the episode! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES AL...

Welcome back! This week we take a look at the same exercise from last episode but challenge ourselves to do it with a real rhythm section. At first, this may not seem like a difficult thing, but as we start to practice, we realize that without the help of the metronome, it almost becomes a different exercise. This will ultimately help you with your flexibility in real life situations. Enjoy the ep...

Welcome back! This month we are going to be taking a crack at some EXTREMELY difficult exercises aimed at getting your rhythmic comfort to the next level. For the first episode, we are taking a look at a rather simple bebop line and flipping it into a rhythmic tour de force. Be sure to take your time with this and don't rush the process. You must be comfortable and skilled at working with a metron...