Tag Archives: Improvising

My Summer Playlists

I realise that getting your practice in during the summer can be tough, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do some useful music related activities if you’re at the beach right now!

I’ve put together some playlists on Apple Music & Spotify to share with you over the holidays. One of them is a playlist of all the transcription projects that you can find on the Cambridge Saxophone website, the other is a mammoth Blue Note playlist with over 3 days worth of albums!

If you have other playlists then this app (Songshift) can help you transfer playlists between different streaming services!

Apple Music Playlists
(click on the link to open in iTunes, you can get 3 months free)

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/playlist/cambridge-saxophone-transcription-projects/idpl.u-7Dm0yFW4o2Ng

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/playlist/blue-note/idpl.84a62de323464fc3a8ee59a7f66f669e

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/playlist/best-of-prestige-records/idpl.9b77a66e2ffe4d2686e7f85d6f2bf56b

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/playlist/coltrane-standards-book/idpl.u-mPD8tzGveBo

Spotify (you can listen to Spotify for free, but with adverts)

I hope you will enjoy these playlists! Music streaming is an incredible resource for any music student and I urge you to take advantage of these whilst you’re away.

What is a Lydian Dominant Scale?

There are lots of Jazz Scales that have great names and the Lydian Dominant is one of them.

But what is a Lydian Dominant and how do you practice it?

Watch this video to find out how I work out on my Lydian Dominant Scales and what they have in common with a Melodic Minor and Altered Scale.

Sax On The Bridge

Back in 2005 I was invited to New York by my mentor Branford Marsalis.  In order to get warmed up before I hit the jam sessions, I followed in the footsteps of the great Sonny Rollins.

Sonny used to practice on Williamsburg Bridge during his sabbatical years and in this episode of #DansVlog I tell you the story of why I went to practice on the bridge and how I ended up with this AMAZING picture!

 

A Love Supreme by John Coltrane

Fifty years ago on Wednesday, 9th December 1964, John Coltrane took a trip from his home in Long Island NY to Hackensack, the home and studio of Rudy Van Gelder.

Along with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums, there he recorded one of the most important musical suites in history. If you haven’t heard it yet, BUY IT TODAY!

Seriously, if you play the saxophone you should have this in your collection, even if you don’t ‘like’ jazz. This album influenced Hendrix, The Beatles, U2, every jazz musician of the last 40 years and even many classical players.

I’d also advise checking out Branford Marsalis’ version record live in Amsterdam for the 40th anniversary …

 

Also, watch this programme by the BBC, again from 2004.

As Coltrane biographer Lewis Porter says, ‘There are obsessive fans of Elvis Presley, but nobody has founded a CHURCH like they have for John Coltrane!’

The work has influenced me personally a great deal and I took my 3rd year thesis studying A Love Supreme at college, and I’ve performed it a number of times, including here….


Joshua Redman, Ravi Coltrane, Ashley Kahn and others took part in a symposium reflecting on A Love Supreme, which you can listen to here.

So this week your ‘lesson’ is to either listen to this great album for the first time, or get deeper into what Coltrane was expressing through his music.

‘It is indeed A Love Supreme’

Elements of Music – Lesson 1

In this latest video I talk about the ‘elements of music’ as outlined in Victor Wooten’s excellent book The Music Lesson. You can buy it via the link below – I hope we’ll all read it in March and get some interesting discussion going via Google Hangouts. Don’t forget to register your availability for the next hangout here.

The worksheet for the lesson can be downloaded here.

Click on the link underneath to buy Victor’s book:


Enjoy the lesson and post any comments below.



Modes – Part 2 (on piano)


This lesson is a follow-up lesson to Modes – Part 1 (on sax).  In this video I’m sat at the piano showing you how modes work in relation to C major, i.e. just the white notes on the keyboard.

Remember, PLEASE leave a comment in the forum with any questions – if you’re brave enough to leave a question you’ll help the probably about 10 others who aren’t. I WILL answer all your questions as best I can, or if necessary do another video.