My 9 Favorite Youtube Channels for Jazz Play Alongs

Before I really started using Youtube, I loved playing along to Aebersold tracks. Working through the tunes in the books and then performing them along with a top-notch band always made practice that much enjoyable. Youtube, however, has allowed for so much more diversity in the play along industry and there are a ton of …

Check Out: Jazz Lessons with Tim Price

If you are a saxophonist or a jazz musician looking to expand or improve your playing, I cannot express the importance of jazz lessons enough. Even though there are an infinite number of materials available – including pre-recorded digital lessons – and they can do a lot to help you improve if you’re trying to …

An Introduction to the Clarinet by Rheuben Allen

Hi everyone. This is Rheuben. Today I’m going to introduce you to the clarinet. The clarinet is a member of the woodwind family and is unique among the woodwinds. Most woodwinds over blow what we call an octave. When you finger a “d” and push the register key, you get a “d.” The clarinet is …

Leo Potts: The Lindeman-Sobel Approach to Artistic Wind Performance

Part I My name is Leo Potts and I’d like to share with you some concepts of the Lindeman-Sobel Approach to Artistic Wind Performance. The first concept we’ll deal with is “how do you play the first note of a musical phrase?” Now prior to playing the first note of a musical phrase, most musicians …

Lessonface // Sponsor Love

Today I’d like to spotlight Lessonface, one of our our wonderful Teen Jazz Sponsors! We have a number of sponsors without whom, we would be unable to do what we do here at Teen Jazz. As a big thanks to each of these fantastic companies and artists, I’d like to begin introducing a few of …

12 Things to Practice and How they Help You

Last year, as part of my Project 365, I’ve experimented with several different practice materials to see what would help me improve the quickest and most efficiently. To start, I’d like to say that it’s good to mix up your practice sessions, so don’t stick to any one kind of resource. It’s good to constantly challenge …

Finding Your Mentor and Your Voice | Katie Bull

We’d like to thank LessonFace for sponsoring this post. You can check out their upcoming masterclass with Katie Bull here.  “The voice is beautifully mysterious – sound vibration is an awesome, beautiful phenomenon – sometimes joyous, sometimes scary. So it’s good to have a playful heart when you’re in that landscape.” – Katie Bull Our …

The Blues Scale | A Mini Jazz Lesson

The Blues scale is, I feel, one of my most important scales to learn as it can be used to improvise in many styles of contemporary music such as: Pop, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Funk, R&B, Latin, Gospel, New Age, Reggae, Calypso. The Blues Scale Learning the blues scale is a great way to start your …

Diatonic 7th chords | Ascending & Descending Blocked and Broken chords in Root Position

Introduction Diatonic chords are chords that naturally occur within a key. They contain only the notes found in the scale or key that you’re working in. There are seven diatonic chords in every key with each chord built from one of the 7 notes in the scale. Download the PDF Exercise Sheet in C Major …

Practice and Practical Application

This article is a guest post from Sean Winter.  This article is to discuss learning to play what you’ve practiced for the beginning improviser. In the 12 years I’ve played and numerous teachers or clinicians I’ve encountered I always get a different answer to the question “Do you think while you play?” I want to …