| When I was studying with Jimmy (just spoke with him Wilmer, he told me you were at the jazzmobile) - he really stressed developing good finger technique, and being able to play phrases through all twelve keys - one idea we would use was playing a phrase in one key a certain predetermined number of times while figuring out in your head how it lays in the next key you would be going to so once you switched keys you could play it right away. These phrases could come from jazz standards, solo transcriptions, your own melodic ideas, anywhere really.
Another thing we worked on was being able to play your maj, min and dom scales in 3rds, 4ths, 5ths and 6th intervals - up and down, and backwards as well (starting from the 6th of the scale, etc . . .).
There are so many great great things from Jimmy's teachings. Hopefully his time will allow to take me on as a student again one day. But I am teaching myself by developing my own exercises based on deficencies in my playing.
Cheers,
Jason |