3 Jazz Education Questions Revealed With A Video Response

The goal for this site has been to always provide a 21st century jazz education experience. 🙂

So, in today’s lesson I thought it would be fun to create a personalized video response to some of the questions I’ve received through comments and emails on the site. (video below)

Normally, I like to have a combination of some sort of video, audio, and written component to every lesson. So, I actually hired someone to transcribe my words from the video below. 🙂

I usually like to do all the writing myself but the last few days have been super busy for me. I’ve been preparing music for an upcoming tour I’m doing in Switzerland.

My time was at a premium this week as a result. I can’t let you guys down though as your jazz teacher online. So, I still wanted to create a thorough lesson for you guys. So, transcription is also included below.

Please let me know in the comments below if you like these type of lessons going forward? 

The first jazz questions lesson I made got some great response but of course the goal is always to create jazz education content that you guys love!

Here’s the transcription:

Please note: The transcriber did a good job but it’s not a completely perfect transcription. For those of you who prefer to read the lessons this transcription will definitely do the trick.

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Steve N:  Hello everybody Steve Nixon here with FreeJazzLessons.com thank you so much for joining me here today. Alright in today’s video I’m doing something that I’ve actually never done before.

I get a lot of email questions on this site a lot of comments from the lessons I put up. And just certain questions people have about music in general coming in. Up to this point I’ve always done sort of just a text response to it by writing back.

So today I’m going to do something a little different, I’m going to do a video response to a couple of questions I get in. I think it’s a great for a lot of people to learn all one time. And just a little bit more personal as well.

Alright, so let’s get to our first question, the first question comes from Francis B. from France.

Francis writes:

Q  Dear Steve, thanks for your lesson on Summertime. He writes, The first chord you wrote is D minor 7. To me this means and implies a D Dorian chord considering this chord is the same as the second step of the scale of D. Here it is the tonic of the song.

How would you like this chord to be changed into D minor 6th or even D minor 6th 9. So that it complies with the melodic minor scales in D?

Francis, France

 Steve N:  Francis, that’s a great question. You can really change that first chord I wrote D minor 7th. You can play D minor 6th 9, D minor 7, D minor add 9, really whatever you want. As long as the chord does not clash with the melody,

 Okay; or that you’re not clashing with other instruments you’re playing with as well. So you want to make sure you are listening, okay.

So in a jazz lead sheet, essentially you can substitute things here and there. It really doesn’t matter, as long as it is functioning within the song and providing forward motion of harmonically and there’s no clash, okay.

So if we have our like – (playing notes on the piano) so that’s the D minor 7 and that’s cool. (more notes played) that’s the D minor 6th, that’s also very cool. (playing higher in the register) that’s D minor 6th 9 that’s pretty nice sounding as well. Or here’s the minor, Major 7th. (still higher). Sort of like a James Bond sound.

So ya man, whatever you want to do there. Just make sure it’s, it sounds good; okay. So, jazz substitutions is really a big part in getting our own personal sound in jazz. Thanks again for the question Francis.

Here’s an additional lesson I taught so you can learn more about how to use minor jazz chords.

Okay, our next question comes from Brillar and Brillar’s does not say the city he’s from but writes:

Q:  Hi Steve, can you tell me what bebop scale you were inter-changing with the G Blues Scale in your Autumn Leaves Lesson? And can this apply to other tunes as well?

-Brilor

Steve N.  Thanks for the question, to answer your question. I wasn’t thinking as much of scale there. I wasn’t necessarily thinking bebop scales.

I was thinking a little bit more vertically there, okay. I was thinking about placing chord tones or arpeggiation type of ideas. With a little bit of passing scale tones and some chromaticism leading into chord tones on the down beat.

That’s sort of how I was approaching it right there. You could for example, use like the G Bebop Scale there.

Like G Bebop Scale, but like I said with a really it wasn’t like one particular scale there. Alright, thanks for the question Brillar.

 Alright our last question comes from Mike, from San Antonio. Mike writes:

Q:  Hi Steve, If you could only say one thing and you think it would make the biggest impact in my playing, what would you say it would be?

-Mike, San Antonio

Steve N:  Okay, I get variations of this question a lot. People will ask me, what is the most important thing to practice? Now Mike, I’ve never heard your playing before. So I can’t particularly say.

 “Hey, if there’s one thing that’s going to make be to the secret that’s going to bring out your whole musicianship. But if I was speaking very generally, this is sort of what I hear from all the people I taught over the years; okay?

 They need a lot of work getting their rhythm from being very good to a world class level. Okay, so with jazz and music that’s sort of in a contemporary style. The rhythmic placement, man, is super important.

Sort of like what brings something from just sounding good to something like amazing and touches us emotionally.And not enough time is spent on rhythm, alright?

So, how do we work on a rhythm? What are some things we can do? Well, from a basic level, make sure you’re playing along with a metronome. That’s a “No brainer” right there, a lot of people know that.

 A couple of other things are recommending you. Play with musicians who are better than you, okay?

Play with guys who are, who have a great swing feel, okay. Make sure you get an opportunity to play with them and their rhythmic feel with come into your playing,

Where they’re placing the beat, you have to adjust to them; alright. And eventually they will absorb your playing; okay.

Other things you can do,  You can transcribe okay. Like for example, I was a young musician. I thought I could swing pretty good. Okay, which was not true, I thought I could. So I started playing with this Miles Davis record.

So I started playing along with “Kind of Blue” and “So What” and what else is on there? “Freddie The Freeloader”, you know, “Blue and Green.” So I started to play all of Miles’s solos. And I knew all the notes and had heard it a million times. I started noticing, Whoa, he’s way further back on the beat.

 So I started playing it, but I wasn’t 100% locking-in. So I started listening a little deeper, right. Once I started to get exactly where Miles was placing his beat. I noticed that he really articulating and pulling back. Placing his rhythm way further back on the beat than I was, okay.

 I’ve learned a lot from that, okay. I sort of absorbed Miles rhythmic feel of it. As well as from that it really helped my swing feel and my rhythm over all as a whole; okay.

(By the way if you want a great solo to start with check out this lesson on this Miles Davis solo.)

So the two suggestions I have, okay, I would say. Work on your rhythm and by doing that. Play along with better musicians than you, alright.

And also, make sure you are transcribing and listening very closely to Master Musicians. To people like Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery has got an incredible rhythmic feel. Who else has got great rhythmic feel Barry Harris has got great rhythm and feel, certain Bud Powell records, he’s killin’ it. His rhythmic feel is on an incredible level, okay.

(Take a listen to this Barry Harris jazz transcription to hear how hard Barry grooves.)

Once last bonus thing okay? Make sure you record yourself as well. Listen back to your strengths as well as weaknesses as well. And then spend time working on your weaknesses as well.

I tend to hear a lot of musicians who are working on their strengths. So, okay, great. They got some really great blues licks in their playing. So they will keep learning more and more blues licks.

 You know if your goal is to sound more like a bebop player or more of a contemporary player. Well, hey man, if it’s bebop, spend time working on that bebop vocabulary.

But if it’s more of a contemporary player, figure out what Brad Mehldau is doing? Figure out what McCoy Tyner is doing? Figure out what Chick Corea is doing, okay. Spend time on things you know you can’t do and aren’t sounding that great on.

(You can also check out I made on how to learn jazz through self recording. Hopefully you find it useful)

 So thanks for the question Mike.

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