Approaching Rhythm Changes Part I

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Instructor: Martin Miller Level: Advanced Topic: Improvising Style: Jazz

Excerpt: Hello and welcome to my first IG tutorial! I'm really excited to share some of my knowledge and experience with you guys. So let's dig right in, shall we? So this tutorial is about Rhythm Changes. No, that has nothing to do with odd meters :). Here’s a little bit of history for you:  The term “Rhythm Changes” refers to a set of chord...

Media Length: 0:39

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Instructor: Martin Miller Level: Advanced Topic: Chords Style: Jazz

Excerpt: Now it’s time to get into some actual playing! The repeating form for head and solos is AABA and here’s the original progression (the triangle stands for Major7):   Here is the progression in roman numerals, which is very useful for analysis and transposition:   Now that might seem huge and confusing for now, but if you take a close...

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Instructor: Martin Miller Level: Advanced Topic: Improvising Style: Jazz

Excerpt: Alright, now the fun begins. It’s time to solo! Just like in the previous lesson the amount of chord changes might be a bit overwhelming at first. So what we’re going to do is increase our licks vocabulary by playing through this etude I composed. It uses fairly common concepts utilized in bebop. My actual improvisational approach to rhythm chang...

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Instructor: Martin Miller Level: Intermediate Topic: Improvising Style: Jazz

Excerpt: Here’s the same thing played slow. Note how different the time feel in this type of soloing is. This tempo will help you understand the fundamentals of swing in jazz soloing. Now it’s your time to incorporate these licks into your own playing and start utilizing some of these concepts to come up with your own ideas. Remember to digest things slo...

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Instructor: Martin Miller Level: Advanced Topic: Improvising Style: Jazz

Excerpt: Rhythm Changes backing track at 220bpm.

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Instructor: Martin Miller Level: Intermediate Topic: Improvising Style: Jazz

Excerpt: Backing Track for Rhythm Changes at 134 bpm.

Media Length: 3:58