Jazz Articles Archives - Page 3 of 3 | FreeJazzLessons.com

7 Inspirational Books For Musicians

Hey fellow musicians! I hope you’re having a very musical day today! So, after I released the latest article on building more creativity as a musician I received a ton of follow up questions. Many people asked me if there were any inspirational books I could recommend that were written specifically for musicians. As you know,…

Why Do You Play Jazz?

Hello my fellow jazz fanatics! I’d like to welcome all 21,879 subscribers to the free jazz lessons subscription list. We’re growing by leaps and bounds every day and I’m thrilled to have you here! Today, we’re going to help you solve some of your musical problems. In order to do that I’d like to share…

Altered Scale – A Simple How To Guide

Are you curious how to use the altered scale? Are your dominant chords getting a bit boring? Do you wish you knew some more interesting scales to use over them? Well, in today’s jazz scale lesson I’m going to teach you a very cool sounding scale you can play over your dominant chords. This scale…

5 Recommended Recordings That Have Made Me A Better Jazz Musician

You’ve heard the common phrase, You are what you eat before right? Well, when you’re learning to play jazz you are what you listen to! If you want to learn this style of music you’ve got to listen to the right music! So, today I’m going to talk about some recommended jazz albums that helped me…

How to Play Jazz Piano – A Beginners Guide

Alright, so how do you really learn jazz piano? Since I started this site I’ve received numerous emails from readers asking me the best way to learn how to play jazz piano and how to get started learning jazz as a beginner. Let’s first start with my jazz piano journey to give you an example……

Tritone Substitution – The Ultimate Guide

Check out this cool tritone substitution tutorial: In this video I’m going to teach you how to play a tritone substitution. We all know how important the II-V-I chord progression is to jazz music. It’s used in thousands of jazz standards. Now, it a beautiful sounding chord progression but sometimes in order to not sound…

What Do You Struggle With The Most When Playing Jazz?

Hello readers! For today’s jazz post I’d like to start a very important discussion with you guys. One that should have taken place along time ago. If you are reading this article you have no doubt a love and passion for learning jazz and improvised music. Playing jazz is an unbelievably rewarding journey. Learning such…

7 Tips To Help You Play Better At Fast Tempos

Do you have trouble playing well at faster tempos? Do you feel like you just can’t execute your ideas as clearly as you’d like? Do you sound good at slower tempos but the second the tempo starts getting up there your jazz improvisation starts to suffer? If you answered yes, (which most musicians probably will) there…

Ear Training: 4 Guaranteed Ways to Turbo-Charge Your Ears

When it comes down to it, great jazz improvisation requires a great ear. Otherwise, we end up doing what Jamey Aebersold refers to as “letting our fingers do the walking.” Without a properly developed ear, instead of creating music that’s truly unique, authentic, and powerful, we tend to fall into what naturally falls under the…

An Essential Tool To Help You Learn Jazz

What if you could take a jazz piano lesson with Bill Evans? How about a trumpet lesson with Miles Davis? What if we could study advanced jazz piano improvisation techniques with Chick Corea? Or imagine what it’d be like taking a piano for beginners class, taught by Duke Ellington Unfortunately, these great masters have long since passed…

Jazz Minor Scale Formulas And How To Solo With Them

In today’s jazz lesson you’re going to learn how to quickly add jazz minor scale techniques and modes into your playing. Whether you’re playing in a jazz rock band, a bebop band, a latin jazz band, or another jazz style, this jazz minor scale tutorial will be useful. I think you’ll enjoy this particular jazz…

Jazz Fake Book – 5 Recommended Books For Learning Jazz

Want a list of the best jazz fake books out there? You need music to play right? Do you have time to transcribe all your favorite jazz recordings and slowly build a library of your own personalized jazz charts? How can you learn music more quickly without investing hours and hours trying to learn songs…

4 Tips For Switching From Classical To Jazz

In todays lesson we’re going to focus on 4 tips that will help you make the transition from playing classical music to playing jazz. I recently received a question from a new reader asking me how to make this switch more easily. I think this is a great question because most instrumentalists initially start with…

Jazz Scales – A Complete List

Do you want to learn more about jazz scales? Congratulations you’ve come to the right place. This jazz scales article and many others on this site will help you! Musicians love scales. We really do! They sit nicely on our instruments, they are easy to play over changes, and many of us have been playing them…

Grammy Nominee James Weidman Jazz Piano Interview

It is isn’t often that you’re fortunate enough to sit down with a Grammy Nominated jazz piano player and discuss how to become a better jazz musician. It must be our lucky day though because that’s what we’re going to do right now! James Weidman is a member of the Grammy Nominated Joe Lovano Band…

3 Uncommon Tips For Practicing Jazz Piano Technique

When most of us think about practicing jazz piano technique or jazz piano exercises we usually think of the same old boring exercises that piano players have been playing for countless years. Things like scale practice, arpeggios, Hanon exercises, and playing classical pieces. Now, to be fair these technique studies and piano drills can be…

10 Ways To Dominate Dominant Seventh Chords

Jazz Scales Demystified Do you want to learn more about playing jazz scales and soloing over dominant chords? Awesome. This article on jazz scales and many other articles on this website will help you. To get started quickly you can check out any of the 3 jazz scale lessons below. 3 important minor jazz scales –…

The 6 Steps To Success In Your Jazz Practice Routine

I recently was invited by the fantastic jazz guitar player Matt Warnock to write an article for his blog. You can find the article I wrote here right here 6 steps to jazz practice success. I highly recommend you check out this article if you want to really take your jazz practicing skills to the…

Jazz Standards You Should Learn

Have you ever wondered what the first jazz tunes you should learn are? If so, I’d like to help you get started. There are so many fantastic jazz tunes in the Great American Songbook that it can feel overwhelming when trying to find a place to start. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of…

What’s the first jazz solo you should transcribe?

Have you heard that you should be transcribing solos but just aren’t sure where a good place to start is? Are you having problems finding a jazz solo that is not only easy to play but has tons of great jazz licks in there? Or perhaps you’ve already tried transcribing for a bit but found…

Learn How To Make Your Jazz Melodies Swing More

I recently was invited by the great jazz saxophone player and educator David Carlos Valdez to write an article for his blog. David’s blog is one of the top jazz blogs in the whole world and I was honored and excited for the opportunity. If you don’t know David Valdez’s playing yet you need to!…

How To Practice Jazz For Long Term Growth

One of the most common questions I get from my beginning and intermediate jazz students is, “How do I practice jazz successfully?” Or, in other words, “How do I practice so I’m consistently moving in the right direction and not wasting my freakin’ time??” There are hundreds (maybe even thousands) of directions you can…

4 Tips to Get More Jazz Gigs

Ok, so you want to get more gigs huh? Here are a few tips that have helped me secure gigs over the years, keep working on the jazz art form, and even put food on the table. 1. Know lots and lots of tunes (but start with 20). You must realize that you will increase…