Author: Jason
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What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
How do jazz musicians learn, hear and think of tunes? They do it the way we all understand, read and speak. In chunks and in links between chunks, not word by word. Even when you put a new chart in front of them for the first time, they don’t read a chord at a time,…
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How’s Your Sightreading? Release the Penguins!
Couldn’t resist this one. There’s a long tradition of in-jokes in music. UK readers might be familiar with Mozart’s Ein musikalischer Spaß, a pastiche of bad composition designed to make a good ensemble sound like amateurs, from its use as the theme for the Horse of the Year Show. Satie was famous for directions such…
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Anita Wardell and Vocalese
We had the pleasure of singer Anita Wardell performing with our house trio last week. I’ve always had bags of time for this lady and it was a really enjoyable gig – thanks Neets, it was a blast. Any time you’re free, our arms are open wide. There’s a jazz vocal practice that Anita is…
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Super Locrian Meets the Dastardly Half Diminishedo
What do you play on a minor II in, say, C minor? D half-diminished, some kind of Ab7 or some kind of D7? Do you know the difference? Or, perhaps more importantly, do you know the similarity? This week I’ll look at some ideas from Bill Evans (jazz’s very own Clark Kent, and okay I’ll…
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!!!The Secret of Jazz!!!
The world of jazz education has been blown wide open and rendered irrelevant by this revolutionary new invention. Forget the courses, the books, the practising, paying dues. Introducing… Improxatin™ ContrixoLydalot-251! Here’s the science bit… Formulated in a secret Swiss laboratory by our world-class team of neurochemists, necrogeneticists given unique access to the DNA of deceased…
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Playing Giant Steps with One Scale
This tune gives most learning players an attack of the vapours. The chordal motion is weird, the tempo is whip fast and it involves playing over progressions in the key of B, which most players haven’t spent very much time with. Before we begin, I’ll admit that the approach we’re going to look at here…
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Being Green
Congratulations to the Irish rugby team and Brian O’Driscoll for a passionate bone cruncher in Paris. As an England fan with some Irish roots I can have it both ways on the tournament result… Here’s one little thought for you. There was a famous Irish popular musician back in the day here in the UK called…
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Rooting for You
Piano students experience a great leap forward in the authenticity of their sound when they discover the classic rootless voicings. For a breakdown of what they are (and why they are what they are) see Rootless Voicings from Scratch. They happily get on with the business of: Using them in the RH over a LH…
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The Daftest Job I’ve Ever Done
Well, what’s yours? Mine was hand doubling. And no, not that kind of film, behave yourself. A piano hand double. Although the other kind would probably pay better… A gig as a “stunt pianist” is quite interesting, really. Some actors put a lot of work into pretending they can play, most don’t and just focus…
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Branford Shoots From the Hip
Someone recently flagged me this 2012 Jazz Times interview with Branford Marsalis. I’ve always loved Steepee’s stuff, and certainly no pianist can afford to ignore the contributions of the late Kenny K and the current Joey C. Didn’t come as that much of a surprise, but it was certainly a pleasure to see that he takes no prisoners when…
Jason Lyon Music 