99% of the musicians play it wrong Blue Monk is one of the must-know standards. A blues that gets called at every jam session, it’s also one of the first to be taught because it’s fairly simple… except 99% of the musicians play the wrong rhythm on bar 4. As always, listen to the recording, the answers […]

As improvisers, we compose a melody in the moment. That means we make the same choices a composer make, but instantly, in the moment. In order to do that we must master some foundational elements that create music and develop our ability to anticipate. One of those foundational element is connecting the changes and we […]

One of the greatest of contemporary composers has here set down in delightfully personal fashion his general ideas about music and some accounts of his own experience as a composer. Every concert-goer and lover of music will take keen pleasure in his notes about the essential features of music, the process of musical composition, inspiration, musical types, and musical execution. Throughout the volume are to be found trenchant comments on such subjects as Wagnerism, the operas of Verdi, musical taste, musical snobbery, the influence of political ideas on Russian music under the Soviets, musical improvisation as opposed to musical construction, the nature of melody, and the function of the critic of music. Musical people of every sort will welcome this first presentation in English of an unusually interesting book.

This article shows how a fantastic exercise to practice your scales over the changes of a jazz standard!