Let’s begin expanding the quick and easy jazz solo lesson from the other day— here are some alternative triplet stickings you can use with it. You’ll recall that it consisted of a “stock” pattern element and a […]
Author: Todd Bishop
Very occasional quote of the day: Lee Konitz
From my friend and collaborator saxophonist Tim Willcox on his lesson with Lee Konitz, who died yesterday: When it came down to asking Lee my very specific questions about how he practiced and learned to […]
3:2: varying the 3-side
Here we’re essentially doing straight 8th notes against a broken triplet-feel cymbal rhythm, in a triplet-feel context. For me this is mainly for playing straight 8ths in an Afro 6/8— which I already covered back […]
A quick and easy jazz solo lesson
UPDATE: Download link works now! This is an easy, non-technical method for learning jazz solos/breaks/trading, which I devised in lessons with an older Skype student. It involves a few basic patterns, and several easy practice […]
COVID SPECIAL: Practice loop archive
End of ’20 UPDATE: Get the new updated 3 gb archive, with tempos! Hey, since everyone is confined to home, with nothing to do but practice, I thought I’d share my personal archive of sampled practice […]
From the zone: Al Foster intro
Hey, it looks like everyone but me is getting a lot writing done right now. I have a couple more of these “from the zone” items to share— a series where people send in their […]
Page o’ coordination: Olé – 01
A Portland jazz educator asked me about what Elvin Jones was doing on the tune Olé, by John Coltrane, so I wrote this up. He plays a few different major patterns, and this might be […]
Annals of wrong things: UNUSED POTENTIAL
Here’s a little sub-rant of my other recent teaching rant. I wrote this in January, and wasn’t going to post it— it’s kind of silly. But people seem to enjoy these, and it’s not totally […]
Long rolls, Reed format
A supplemental Reed item— this is about the level of thing I’m capable of right now. Not written out of any pressing need, hahaha, except this is a basic thing it’s not easy for intermediate […]