Author Archives: jazzpanflute

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About jazzpanflute

jazz panpipe pioneer and designer

Reading Between the Dots

Posted on June 22, 2014 by jazzpanflute

One of the commonest exercises in  jazz improvisation methods is the transposition exercise. You are given a lick or an arpeggio, usually in the key of C, and you are required to practice it in all twelve keys. The assumption … Continue reading →

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Six Seconds Make a Seventh

Posted on June 21, 2014 by jazzpanflute

Six seconds make a seventh? Is time expanding? How do they do that? Simple! The same way as two thirds make a fifth! Two fifths make a ninth, but three of them make a thirteenth, which is also twelve seconds. … Continue reading →

Posted in Mappings, Music Theory | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

What about harmony?

Posted on June 20, 2014 by jazzpanflute

That’s right. What indeed? MOVES notation is a single-line notation. It notates melodic ideas. Its aim is simple and single-minded. To get you playing like singing in the shower. You can go on to more complicated stuff after you master this. … Continue reading →

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Anyone trying learn the bridge of Jimmy Rowles’ sublime composition “The Peacocks” will end up consciously or otherwise doing a MOVES breakdown of the patterns it contains. In the illustration you can see the bracketed patterns are {-1 -3 -1 +3} and {-9 … Continue reading →

Posted on June 19, 2014 by jazzpanflute | 5 Comments

What Boys Like

Posted on June 12, 2014 by jazzpanflute

When I taught beginner’s sax to ten-year-olds I used to ask them what was the first tune they wanted to start work on right away. There was a clear sex divide in their preferences. “Doh, a deer” and “East Enders … Continue reading →

Posted in Music Education, Scale Practice | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Seventh Heaven

Posted on June 8, 2014 by jazzpanflute

Like Monsieur Jourdain in Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme who didn’t realise he had been talking prose all his life, most of you have performed faultless major and minor seventh leaps (± 10 or 11) without thinking. Yet if asked to sing … Continue reading →

Posted in Interval Training, Moves notation | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Slow down

Posted on June 7, 2014 by jazzpanflute

Teachers never tire of telling students to play it slowly, and students often cannot see the point. One thing I can suggest is that you use the time to conjure up a yearning for the next note, so that when it … Continue reading →

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A (Random) Scale a Day

Posted on June 6, 2014 by jazzpanflute

There are some 2048 possible interval arrays spanning one octave starting from a given note. Some of these are labeled arpeggios and others make up scales. The most numerous are the hexatonic and heptatonic scales with 462 types each. Next … Continue reading →

Posted in Scale Practice | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A Kind of Hush

Posted on June 5, 2014 by jazzpanflute

A Kind of Hush {-1 -9* +5 +4 -2 -3 -3 +6 -2 -8* +5 +3 -2 -3 -3 +6} x 12 This is an exercise that is easy to hear in you head, as it comes from the hook … Continue reading →

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Ear Stretching Exercise

Posted on June 5, 2014 by jazzpanflute

This is a daily exercise I invented for the whole tone panpipes. The aim is to strengthen the ear to take command of the instrument. With the panpipes you are forced to play blind, unless you use a mirror. But … Continue reading →

Posted in Interval Training | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment