This method aims to help balance chord-scale driven improvisation pedagogy, by focusing on melody over harmony. Working first from a single tonic drone, students strengthen their relationship with each of the twelve chromatic pitches through experimentation, imitation, and reflection. Key melodic concepts, including tension and release, call and response, sequencing, and gesture take precedence over harmonic complexity.

Beginning with the Boswell Sisters in the mid-1920s through to the present day, this lecture traces the history of group vocal jazz by examining thirteen influential ensembles whose approach to performing and arranging shaped modern vocal jazz ensemble practice.

Aural Skills
Vocal Skills
Keyboard Skills
Improvisation Skills
Songwriting Skills
Production Skills
Entrepreneurial Skills

Five 8-bar melodies that meet the manual criteria for NYSSMA Level VI Vocal Jazz.

If you’re reading this, you probably want to become a better sight reader. Hopefully, these etudes can help you work toward achieving that goal. There are twelve etudes in this set, one for each of the twelve major tonal centers. If you are not as familiar reading in Gb as you are in F, then working on these etudes in numerical order might feel like a progressive challenge. Each etude is built from nine 12-bar choruses of the blues, labeled with rehearsal letters. They are intended to provide a steady increase in difficulty from Chorus A and B to Chorus H and I.

A Comprehensive Introduction

Repertoire and Resources to Jumpstart Your Journey in Jazz

Exploring tension and release in jazz improvisation

Targeted model recordings for teaching jazz singers