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I recommend taking a marker and crossing out the tab after you’ve examined it to make sure you are using the proper fingering, that is only if needed. This way when you learn it you will force yourself to think in the given intervals. The next step is to play it in different keys. I recommend learning and playing all the etudes in C (Pattern 1 in 8th position).
It is okay to memorize the etude. This is unavoidable if you have to repeat it several times.This is actually good as it will program new vocabulary in your subconscious. However, this is only practical if you understand what is going on in terms of the location of all the intervals and awareness of where and what approaches are taking place. This will enable you down the road to apply the concepts in different contexts when improvising. Remember, this will not happen overnight, but only after properly programming different variations of each concept through the calisthenics and etudes. How to achieve this is the final goal of this course.
Initially, I had the PDFs under the individual videos. I am in the process of eliminating that and just having the PDFs in each Module’s download section. Once I do that, their shouldn’t be any overlapping. I will leave up some pdfs under videos that are not included in the books.
Each Module and its videos are representative of each chapter in the books (eg. Module 1 corresponds to Lesson 1 in the Lesson Book).
If you wish to have all the PDFs from the books at once, send me an email with your request and I will send you a link. I just ask that students please focus and do the work for 1 module at a time in the order given, to avoid unnecessary confusion and overwhelm.
Thanks for the feedback!
Actually, they are not the same. The 1st one contains just the mixolydian mode. The 2nd one contains the same mixolydian mode and is followed by all the other relevant modes that we will use in the future with this same set of calisthenics. Either way I am going to eliminate those links to avoid confusion, as you should be viewing these same exercises in the workbook portion for module 2.
I recommend keeping the foot down for “1 and” / up for “a”. I will have an addendum at the end of the Rhythm Lab1 video uploaded no later than Monday, where you can watch me play swing 8ths and see how my pick mimics my foot on the downbeats and upbeats.
I will try to add an addendum of me playing them to the Rhythm Lab 1 video, in the near future. I honestly don’t know how much this will help, because you need to hear it to get the feel of it. All 8th notes in medium mainstream jazz have this feel, so if you listen to a lot of players you shouldn’t have a problem assimilating it. I will still make the video mainly to show my right hand and how to count it out as you pick.
Yes, you are supposed to play them as “swing” 8th notes. The video on Rhythm Lab 1 demonstrates how the whole exercise should sound and has a visual depiction of the downbeats and upbeats. In addition there is an MP3 that you can download to listen and play along with the exercise if needed. Downloads
Thanks Marc! In all honesty several of the solos you hear, I played on CDs in which I was a sideman. Most of the stuff is pretty old…between 1995 and 2005 and some not even representative of how I play these days. The CDs I did under my name were not mainstream jazz, but instead Latin Jazz and fusion, and I played a solid body on them. Three of the tracks you hear that I wrote are Cherokee Samba, Blue Whale Street and Tel Aviv Blue. The 1st 2 are based on Coltrane changes. They are all from an album I did in 1998 called Metal Caribe with David Leibman, Dave Samuels and others. You can find them on I Tunes or here at CD Baby:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/zellon7
I also recommend “Latitudes” , “Cumbiacao” and “Scrapple from the Apple” from my album “Cafe Con Leche” with Jerry Bergonzi, Paquito D’ Rivera, Danilo Perez and others. Also found on I Tunes or here at CD Baby:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/zellon2There is also the “Nazca Lines” with a Latin post-bop tribute to Jimi Hendrix (I recommend “Fire” and also the version of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love”):
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/zellon5
Finally, if you like the Beatles, I did an Afro-Peruvian tribute (very interesting rhythms) a few years back:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/richiezellonAll these you can download for $0.99 per track, so it’s not bad.
Hopefully I’ll have something more current soon. I’ve been teaching almost full time for the last 10 years and have had very little time for recording and the road…which by the way can be more of a drain than what it’s worth these days…Yes, this is on purpose, for those who optionally wish to develop all 7 fingering patterns on their own in order to gain a better understanding of the Heptatonic System.
Thanks Ken. You must have downloaded an earlier copy, probably right after you joined. I corrected this and uploaded a new copy almost a week ago. Try downloading it again. If you still get the copy with the error, try emptying your cache on your browser. Let me know if this doesn’t help…
Hi Miguel,
You don’t need to memorize them.
Just make sure you can play p10 and 12 (no notation or tab), just by looking at the intervallic script in any key using the prescribed fingering model.The goal is to immediately recognize the exact location of all the arpeggio notes within the 3 patterns because everything we are going to play is going to lead to one of these notes (especially the 3’s and 7’s). This will constitute the framework of our solos.
This practice is known as Modal Super-Imposition and I introduce it in Module 6 (or p.81 of the Lesson book) when introducing the Super Locrian Mode.
This practice is usually ineffective in jazz, unless you are very advanced and have years playing and understanding the individual modes from their original perspectives. Pat Martino comes to mind…he is one of the few masters at this.
This is the reason why many players that come from a Rock background and try to play jazz using this practice, sound like they are just running a bunch of scales. If you strip away the changes and leave them soloing without the accompaniment, you have no idea what progression they are soloing over. On the other hand, a player who is aligning his target resolution notes to the given harmony will outline the harmonic progression through the melody alone. See Guide Tones and Voice Leading (Module 1) and Anatomy of a Bebop Line (Module 2).When you are using super-imposition, you have no idea where your guide tones, upper extensions or “avoid notes” are. Therefore you are not using the 7th chord arpeggio of the moment as the framework to construct your line. As a result, you can’t use approach notes properly and you will often end a line on an “avoid note'(ouch!).
If super-imposition truly worked for the beginning jazz improviser, everyone would be playing jazz in no time and sound great. The advanced player can use super-imposition because from years of experience he’s come to understand the true underlying relationship of the notes he is playing to the chord of the moment. This of course, still does not lead to great bebop lines. It is more conducive for modal progressions of the post bop era, and even then it is mixed with the traditional bebop approach.
Our goal in this series is to learn bebop. I was fortunate to have Red Rodney (trumpet player with Charlie Parker) as one of my mentors. I learned that Bird, Diz and all the bebop greats did not think in modes. Remember, the arpeggio is the foundation and the scale/mode only dictates where the guide tones, extensions and avoid notes lie when aligned to the chord they are soloing over. Without this understanding you are flying without a radar. In other words, you rely exclusively on your ear but have no understanding of how to consistently construct a grammatically correct jazz phrase. It’s hit and miss, capish?
