Blues and rhythm changes practice techniques . . .

[WillBuckingham]

My teacher, Jim Markway, showed me a great warmup that I've been using for a few months now. I just walk over a blues for 12 choruses, modulating up a fourth every chourus. Now I can blow through that excercise at a pretty good clip (always with a metronome) without having to think about the changes too much.

Now that I'm commiting some serious time every day to practice I decided to try it with rhythm changes and I'm just starting to get to where I can do it without racking my brain about the changes. Next I want to start doing this with standards.

Anyone else use this routine?

[Kam]

No, but I will now! I've used that method for learning scalar and modal patterns but I never even thought of doing it with standard progressions. Brilliant.

[relacey]

Great idea, thanks!!

[WillBuckingham]

Well thanks for the positive responses. Let me know how it goes.

[Aaron Saunders]

Sick . Sounds like something I should be doing (just dug into rhythm changes in a serious manner today.)

I've been waiting for any opportunity to plug this book -- "the Jazz Bassline Book" by Mike Downes. I bought this a couple weeks ago and started working through it recently. REALLY cool stuff -- he digs into everything a bass player will ever play except soloing. Amazing, amazing stuff.

He has sections on blues and rhythm and for each he has a 1 chorus transcribed each of recordings by 8 different bass players. For the blues, this includes Pops Foster, PC, Miroslav Vitous, and Charlie Haden. Let me tell you this right now -- that one chorus of Miroslav's blues playing is just about the damn hardest blues I've ever played. He goes outside the changes and covers a huge range all over the fingerboard. Incredibly difficult -- you have no idea how incredibly relieved I was when it came time to play Haden's chorus!

I've heard him play live and he completely blew everyone away...he's also the head of the bass dept. at Humber College's music program, too. Great player, great guy, GREAT book. Probably one of the coolest things I've seen in it yet is the whole whack of iim7-V7-I licks by Chuck Israels. That, or the ii-V-I pattern in all 12 keys (circle of fourths) major, and then a different pattern for a minor iim7-V7b9-i (once again, circle of fourths all twelve keys.) If you get nothing else out of it, it will do wonders for your reading.

EDIT: Also, one of the biggest things Mark Levine preaches (and by extensions, in jazz programs ALL over) is to play everything in 12 keys. Looks like you've got it down .

Best advice to put this into application -- and just about the whole time you'll ever hear Body and Soul called in B major or Autumn Leaves in Eb minor -- is to work with a singer.

[WillBuckingham]

That sounds like a neat book. That reminds me another thing you can do with the excercise is switch between walking and soloing. You can take two choruses in each key, one walking and one blowing, or alternate choruses blowing and walking . . . you get the idea.

[Aaron Saunders]

Originally Posted by WillBuckingham

That sounds like a neat book. That reminds me another thing you can do with the excercise is switch between walking and soloing. You can take two choruses in each key, one walking and one blowing, or alternate choruses blowing and walking . . . you get the idea.

My teacher and I alternate like that when working on tunes. For instance, last time I wanted to work on Fly Me To the Moon, so we did this for a little while:

I play head 1 chorus, spot on rhythm and phrasing (he walks.)
I paraphrase head, play more what I hear with it phrasing wise (he walks.)
I solo 1 chorus as minimalistically and melodically as possible, he walks.
I walk, he solos.
He walks, I solo.

etc. It's really great to solidify tunes. I just got an idea, though -- every time we alternate, go up a fourth! Awesome.