Max Perkoff

“Jazz is so rewarding! It is music that can express every human emotion. The people's music, as Duke Ellington called it, is flexible enough to combine with any other musical style, and yet it keeps certain core attributes. The Blues, improvisation, the widest - possible definition of swing and soulful feeling are always present in any style I personally consider to be jazz. Essential Steps to Be a Good Player • Memorize all 12 major scales. Practice with a metronome, beating on beats 2 & 4 of a 4/4 measure. Be sure to play them at widely varying speeds, from very slow, to very fast. Ideally, you should play them from your lowest to your highest note, or a minimum of two octaves. For beginners, two octaves will be very difficult on certain scales. Learn one octave, and expand to two and beyond as soon as you are able! Always go for quality over quantity - beautiful tone, accurate rhythm, clean articulation, all at slow to moderate speeds. • Listen to live jazz as often as possible. There is NO substitute for hearing music live, up close and personal. Check your local paper, internet listings, my gig schedule, etc., for details. • Listen to recorded jazz as often as possible. Here's a great way to learn a lot from any recording: First pick one you really like. New to jazz? Start with "Kind of Blue" - Miles Davis Second, listen to one tune all the way through while focusing ONLY on one instrument. Your mind may wander, but stay focused on the bass, drums, piano, trombone, violin, voice, or whichever instrument you pick. Third, do it again focusing on a different instrument, repeating until you've focused on each one. Use the same tune. You'll be amazed at how much you learn about how jazz is played, the functions of each instrument and section. Step 4: Start with the blues. Learn to play and sing (instrumentalists too!) the blues. Sing along with recordings of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Joe Williams, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, etc. Memorize the blues scale: 1 b3 4 #4 5 b7 starting on all twelve notes. Apply it two ways: First, if the chord is C7 play the C blues scale. Second, play the A blues scale. This functions as the relative minor blues scale, and works beautifully! Step 5: Learn jazz by learning & memorizing jazz tunes. [Each step is done in a steady tempo. Start as slow as you need to. Gradually build speed, never sacrificing musical phrasing. Use a metronome. The click or tone of the metronome should be heard as every beat in the bar, and also heard as beats 2 & 4 of a 4/4 measure.] a) Learn the melody (& words if there are any). b) Play these patterns over the chord changes: Roots; 1-3; 3-1; 1-3-5; 5-3-1; 1-3-5-7; 7-5-3-1; 1-3-5-7-9; 9-7-5-3-1 (up to 11 & 13). All combinations you can think of. c) Riff over each chord. Make up one bar riffs (short melodic fragments). d) Play a scale over each chord. Play from the root (1) up to the 7th tone; reverse directions; 1 to 9; 9 to 1, etc. e) Listen to as many recordings of the tune as possible. f) Whenever possible, improvise with a play-a-long recording. If you can, make your own., or you and your friends make it for each other. g) Practice all of these steps with other musicians. h) With other musicians: Play bass lines for each other, chords if possible. Call and response thru the changes.” - Max Perkoff