This came up while I was practicing out of my book, Syncopation in 3. An extremely ordinary practice system used with Syncopation is to a) swing the top line rhythm, b) fill in the remaining […]
Category: Reed interpretations
Reed tweak: yet another uptempo method
Minor tweak to an ordinary right hand lead Reed system, making an approach to playing jazz at fast tempos. I’ve probably written something like this before, I can’t be bothered to check. This way has […]
Paradiddle-diddle game
Everybody Good Knows The Same Stuff, Part 1000: Another handout from a clinic Russ Tincher at UC Berkeley in 1989— I confirmed that’s where it was from. Here he shows how to interpret triplets with […]
Uptempo drill a la Riley
Major rehash alert: an uptempo jazz drill I was playing yesterday, using what John Riley once called “my C major scale”: an SSBB pattern in 8th notes, with notes omitted. The page below is very […]
Harmonic coordination summary
I never did a really good summary for my harmonic coordination system (which I’ve variously called Harmonic Coordination Whatsis or Harmonic Coordination Improved, etc), let’s do that now. I use it a lot in teaching, with […]
Reed interpretation: short rolls
An easy thing to do with Syncopation, adding short rolls. This will be a no-brainer any time you want to work on your rolls without a lot of extraneous stuff, using familiar materials. I wrote […]
Charleston inversions
Kicking off 2023 with a library item— file this with the pages of tresillo/cinquillo inversions, and this page. The Charleston rhythm is a form of the tresillo rhythm that found its way into mainstream American popular […]
Marking up Reed for chart reading practice
Continuing the kicks/set-ups Reed tweak— in aid of that kind of practicing, let’s mark up the full-page exercises in Syncopation some more. You may not want to look at these changes all the time, so […]
Reed tweaks: kicks and setups with RH lead triplets
An online student in Europe is working on his reading with me, in preparation for an audition, and we’re talking about kicks and set ups. There’s a minor tweak to a common Reed solo/fill method— […]
Syncopation exercise: downbeats and &s
A full page syncopation exercise with the notes spaced a quarter note a greater. Some practice systems only work well, or work well at faster tempos, when there are certain limitations in the reading material, […]
Reed tweaks: 16ths doubled
This is a small change to a very basic Reed method, that makes it a lot more interesting, to me. I don’t seek these things out, they just happen while I’m practicing. I play with […]
This week’s drill
Some things I’ve been playing through this week— promoting some previous posts, and rounding up some very useful practice systems. Basically I’ll just play down p. 38 (formerly and famously p. 37) from Syncopation the […]