This John Coltrane‘s composition (Moment’s Notice) is an advanced must-know jazz standard. Although Coltrane recorded this composition only on his 1958 Blue Train album, it has appeared on many albums since then.
Moment’s Notice has an atypical ABAC 38-bar form and its main harmonic features are the use of contiguous II Vs and a dominant pedal in the C section.
In this lesson, we clarify the harmonic progression, practice the 7-3 voice-leading, study the contiguous II V and how to voice-lead these to create musical melodies and we compare different versions.
Video lessons:
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14 comments on “Moment’s Notice”
I was practicing this song with a private student today and I want to remind you how useful it is to practice the bass line. Jerome is a teacher in a conservatory so he already knows a thing or two about music! We know that developing our awareness of the harmonic progression by improvising the bass line is a great and already challenging exercise. Then you can take the exact same notes and be creative rhythmically. Check it out:
Hi James! great job implementing some ideas from the course Major Scales Applied To Harmony 🙂
Very nice to read through this. Always tricky to play it ‘live’!
I was at this concert it was great
I recently played this standard at a duo concert with pianist Franck Amsallem:
This sounds great! I like your big fat alto sound a lot. Really nice playing.
Practicing a phrase on the contiguous II V in the 12 keys 🙂
I would love to hear you, then, move forward from the voice leading exercises below
into using that voice leading to create jazz lines and vocabulary. That would be an interesting thing for me to see you do!
Hi James! Your wish has been granted 😉 Check out the video lesson “Etude 7-3 voice leading”. The PDFs have been updated as well. Let me know what you think!
Keep swinging!
This etude sounds great- thanks so much!
I really enjoy these voice-leading exercises, I hope you enjoy them too!
Here’s a warm-up exercise with Moment’s Notice to help connect the intellect part (memorizing the harmonic progression) with your ear and your instrument:
Very nice to hear & so pleased to practice! Smart! I like it.
glad you enjoyed it, you can practice it on any standards!