Have the metronome playing one beat per bar and feel it on each beat of the bar. You can do this with an exercise or even improvise on a form. 

Here I practice playing the root and third of the chords on Countdown:

https://vimeo.com/1242885083?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

Let me know what you think about this!

Why practice Giant Steps as a ballad?

1. You have time to hear the harmony At a slow tempo, you don't have to rely on muscle memory or fast patterns. You have to actually hear where each chord is going and anticipate the next tonal center.

2. It turns a harmonic exercise into music One of the biggest problems with Giant Steps is that players approach it as an intellectual puzzle. Ballad tempo forces you to think about melody, phrasing, space, dynamics and expression.

3. You can develop longer melodic ideas At fast tempos, players often default to short eighth-note patterns. At a ballad tempo, you can sustain notes, use rests, repeat motifs, and develop an idea across several bars.

4. You expose whether you really know the changes At 300 BPM, you can hide behind techniques and patterns. At 60–80 BPM, there is nowhere to hide. You must have a beautiful sound and beautiful ideas!

5. You can hear voice leading more clearly The major-third relationships become much easier to hear. You can focus on how individual notes move from one chord to the next rather than thinking of each chord as an isolated event.

6. It gives you a different relationship with the tune Instead of thinking: "How can I survive Giant Steps?" you start thinking: "How can I make Giant Steps sound beautiful?" And that's a much more musical question.

Learn this tune with us: https://jazzvideolessons.net/standards-studies/giant-steps/

I wrote a short article about it here.

I'd love to hear your story. What was a performance that taught you something important? Looking back, what did you learn?

Giant Steps is one of those tunes that many jazz musicians admire... and avoid. 😄

In September I will post a course about that tune and I'm considering running a small online intensive workshop (10 participants) over four Saturdays in September. The idea would be to work through a series of progressive exercises together so that, by the end, the harmony feels much more natural and improvising becomes far less intimidating.

Before I organize everything, I'd love to hear from you.

• Have you always wanted to learn Giant Steps?
• What's your biggest challenge with the tune?
• Would you be interested in joining a live intensive workshop?

If you haven't read the article yet, I encourage you to start there:
"The Enduring Legacy of Johnny Hodges and His Timeless Elegance." Read the article

Johnny Hodges had one of the most recognizable sounds ever produced on the saxophone. His beautiful tone, expressive vibrato, elegant phrasing, and incredible sense of dynamics influenced generations of musicians—from Charlie Parker to Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane.

I'd love to hear from you!

A few questions to get the discussion started:

• When did you first discover Johnny Hodges?
• Which recording of his would you recommend to every jazz musician?
• What aspect of his playing has influenced you the most—tone, vibrato, phrasing, dynamics, blues feeling, or something else?
• Have you ever transcribed one of his solos? If so, what surprised you?
• What do you think modern jazz musicians can still learn from Johnny Hodges?

If you're a saxophonist, I'd also be curious to know:

What is the hardest part of capturing the "Johnny Hodges sound"?

Feel free to share recordings, videos, transcriptions, or practice tips. Let's celebrate one of the true masters of jazz and learn from each other's experiences.