Tag: jazz
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Geronimo! …and Thoughts from New Chief Sitting Bull’s Head
Let’s hope that the Evening Standard gossip column rumours about conversion of the Bull’s Head in Barnes into a ghastro pub aren’t true. It’s a great venue in a beautiful part of London, with one of the best maintained pianos in town. This just in from www.thebullshead.com : “Geronimo Inns & The Bulls Head Geronimo…
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My First Jazz Teachers
A trip down memory lane. I grew up in ‘70s London (well, to reference the old gag, I grew up as much as a musician ever can). I learned the piano from the age of about five, and it was classical tuition, which was the way it was for kids in those days. No problem,…
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Rootless Voicings from Scratch
You simply can’t play modern jazz without knowing these voicings in all the keys. It’s a bit like getting the hang of the clutch when you’re learning to drive. While they’re not the only voicings used, they are the backbone of jazz piano and you need them so instinctively programmed into your hands that you can play…
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Four-Note Scales from Melodic Minor
Well, can we call a four-note scale a scale at all? Possibly not, particularly the ones we’ll be looking at, since the even spread of four notes is more reminiscent of an arpeggio than a scale. But conceptualising them as scales can be very useful as a device for soloing. What’s more, there are ways of expanding these…
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You’ve Been Taught the Wrong Chord Tones
Hold it right there – if you’ve learned jazz within the past twenty years or so, it’s likely you’ve been taught the wrong chord tones on tonic chords. People tend to teach from the perspective of chord-scales. Which is fine. Pretty much the first thing we’re taught is to stack our chord tones in thirds.…
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Some Thoughts from the Piano Chair of a Jam Session
Jam sessions are a fantastic tradition, and I don’t think I know any decent jazz player that hasn’t frequented them, or even run one. These sessions fulfil so many different functions and needs. They are social events. If you’re new to town, jams are where you go to check out the scene and make contacts.…
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Coltrane’s Substitution Tunes
On two groundbreaking albums, Blue Train (1957) and Giant Steps (1960), John Coltrane presented a group of original tunes that stretched to breaking point the possibilities of functional harmony. Shortly after these albums he began increasingly to turn his back on the traditional use of chord changes. Of the 11 tunes on these two albums…
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Using Upper Structures in Solos
The key to using “upper structures” is to observe that simple major and minor triads exist in the upper reaches of altered dominant chords. These structures are often used by pianists and guitarists in chord voicings, but they are also very effective in solo lines. Had you considered that you can play, for instance, an…
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Bebop Part I – Perpetual Motion Exercises
Bebop is much more than just one particular style, it is pretty much the “grammar” of modern jazz, and bebop “licks” are not so much cliches as essential elements of speech within the jazz language. Here are some bebop exercises to practise that repeat themselves over and over and make musical sense, so they work…
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Flim Flam Sauce – Lies, Damn Lies & Marketing
Music has what investors would call very low “barriers to entry” – in plain English, anyone can do it. Although it takes talent and many years of perseverence to do it well, and a heavy dose of luck to get to the point where you can do it exclusively for a living. The marketing side…
Jason Lyon Music 