Category Archives: Moves notation

MOVES to the rescue !

Posted on October 31, 2015 by jazzpanflute

You would have thought that the bass guitar was one of the most logical and intuitive instruments around. It even beats the 6-string guitar because its tuning only uses fourths (=5 halfsteps), while the guitar slips in a stray major third … Continue reading →

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Why Saxophonists are so Annoying

Posted on June 27, 2015 by jazzpanflute

Last week a friend, who remembered me from back in the day when I used to play saxophone, invited me to come on a gig with him in Paris. I wondered how come he didn’t know any sax players in … Continue reading →

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MOVES: Melodic Freedom for the Classically Chained

Posted on June 7, 2015 by jazzpanflute

Followers of this blog (both of you) will have noticed that I like to quote the NLP adage: “The Map is not the Territory”. And one of my main beefs about most traditional musical instruments, when it comes to learning … Continue reading →

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Adding colour to the diminished scale

Posted on May 11, 2015 by jazzpanflute

It is easy to slip into the idea, from studying harmony textbooks, that the only way to form scale-tone chords is to make stacks building upward from each note of the scale, skipping every other note. Then depending on how … Continue reading →

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The Universal Scale Game

Posted on February 25, 2015 by jazzpanflute

In my last post I mentioned Taffanel and Gaubert’s daily exercises. One of the most popular of these has been nicknamed the Scale Game. It might be more accurately named the Pentachord Game as it only covers 5 notes of … Continue reading →

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An Enharmonic Experiment

Posted on December 29, 2014 by jazzpanflute

I trust you are all familiar with Irving Berlin’s masterpiece Cheek to Cheek, made popular by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and recently given a new lease of life by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. This week I am working … Continue reading →

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A Christmas carol game for two

Posted on December 18, 2014 by jazzpanflute

Here’s a game for two players that you can use to improve your intervallic awareness, develop your melodic reflexes on clarinet or piano or just as a fun way to get into the Christmas mood. You can play it in … Continue reading →

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How to work a lick

Posted on December 4, 2014 by jazzpanflute

So you can’t get that lick or turnaround out of your head. You wonder how anyone can just come up with something that cool –  just like that! – in the middle of a solo. You realize it’s time to … Continue reading →

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How to be talented

Posted on November 30, 2014 by jazzpanflute

What musical talent isn’t Musical talent used to be a mystery, and to many still is. Some people even want to believe that it is God-given. Not a very empowering  view, unless you think prayer will change your lot. And … Continue reading →

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Intervallic improvising

Posted on August 14, 2014 by jazzpanflute

When making analyses of great solos, jazz teachers like to look at the scales and arpeggios used and try to relate them to the underlying chord sequence. The operation consists of extracting all the notes in a passage and stringing them out … Continue reading →

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