I'm working on getting the Whole Tone Scale into my playing at the moment. You might have seen this on my instagram or YT channel. Im making exercises, which are in the Classroom for all paid members. I'm also spending a bit of time just "playing". This is an important part of it all. Exercises to get things into our muscle memory. "just playing" with intention, to try and make it fluid and more improvisational. Here I am trying stuff out on a ii-V7-I backing track in C , mainly focusing on playing in and around C on all the chords apart from the G7. Im finding some interesting stuff. Mainly enjoying when I can successfully play an A aug triad musically over the G7.

I’ve been practising some more “set pieces” this past few weeks. I have a gig coming up at Ronnie Scott’s in London, a tribute to Venuti, Grappelli and Stuff Smith and I wanted to play some early Venuti tunes to show that side of jazz violin. His playing is really based on the jazz that was going on around that time, simple riff based melodies that are improvised around but also informed by his pretty flawless classical technique. I find this type of practise very different to how I practise “jazz”. I am in more of “recreating” mindset, similar to that which you need for classical or folk music. I’m enjoying the challenge of getting those tunes down and have actually found it has meant I’m playing more cleanly in everything else that I am doing. It’s helped me realise it’s quite good practice to have a tricky “set pieces” on the go to help you push your technique and musicality. Check this little rehearsal recording of “Wildcat” with the amazing John Kelly on guitar.

🏅The Challenge🎻 You have two options: 1. Take a line that you often play in C Major and learn to play it in Eb, Gb/F# and A. 2. Just learn my line in all of those keys (shown in the video) Then post it on here, you will get some feedback and encouragement from me and the group! As a thank you for taking part il send you a transcription of this line! ❓Why do this⁉️ Learning lines in major or minor thirds really helps you learn lines properly. It also gets you working out how you might change position or fingering for each key to make it work for you. There’s usually some way to play any piece of jazz language in each keys that will work, doing this sort of transposition helps you find the gaps you have in your technique whilst solidifying jazz language.

Wow this is a really tough one. It seems to follow the structure that a lot of early jazz tunes do, where it’s a number of different sections all with a melody that’s improvised around throughout rather than just head/solo/head. Really based on ragtime. I’m learning this 1927 version to play at a gig in a few months. Lots to work on here!

It is such a nice feeling when u start to learn a new song and couple of licks and tricks you´ve learned before just click and kind of fall into the place there. still sounds bit lame 🦙 therefore lets keep practicing 🖖🤓