Blog
If you’re looking for jazz tips, advice, lessons and general information about jazz, this is the right place! We post new content in our blog 3-4 times a week, and it’s all free for you to use. Get started by checking out our latest posts or choose a category.
Jazz Advice
Using Chord Arpeggios as Jazz Blues Practice Tools
When I’m learning a new song, one of the most important things I do is repeatedly play through the harmony of a tune. Repetition...
Drums
Developing Your Hi-Hat Technique: More on The Third Voice Concept
A few months ago, I started this series of articles to develop our coordination with the left foot on the hi-hat cymbals.
In the previous lesson, Developing...
Jazz Theory
“There is No Greater Love” Workout
I’ve talked about voice leading with guide-tones and using chromatic surrounding/approach tones here on LJS before, and now I want to combine these two...
Jazz Theory
Exotic 7th Chord Workout for Advanced Jazz Musicians
7th chords have been covered here before on LJS, so in this post, I want to expand our ideas about 7th chords and offer...
Rhythm
Creating Smooth Transitions When Improvising Over Odd Time Signatures
There is nothing scarier than coming to a gig, and suddenly the band leader pulls out a chart, and the first thing you see...
Jazz Theory
Spice Up Your Jazz Solos with Asymmetrical Melodies
Once we’ve mastered some of the basic types of jazz vocabulary, we’re always striving to find new and interesting ways of breaking up and...
Jazz Advice
3 Lessons Bill Evans Taught Me On “What is this Thing Called Love”
Bill Evans’s 1959 recording of “What is this Thing Called Love” from Portrait in Jazz was one of the first solos I transcribed as...
Drums
3 Concepts to Develop Solo Ideas With Stick Control
Stick Control is a book written by the great late George Lawrence Stone. It was published in 1935 and became one of the most...
Rhythm
Improving Rhythmic Precision by Avoiding the Downbeat
In this post, I'll be expanding on a previous lesson, entitled: 5 Exercises to Expand Your Rhythmic Precision and Time Feel.
In that lesson, I...
Jazz Theory
How to Improvise Over Unrelated Chords
One of the biggest challenges of improvisation involves coming up with melodies that make sense over chord changes that are highly chromatic.
Much of the...
