How come the saxes always get to play all the fun parts in big bands? Cool, beautiful and hip melody lines, accompanied by an occasional “bap” or “do-bauw” from the brass section. Ok, it is not the whole truth, but there are some fun sax parts that are (reasonably) playable on trombone as well. Do I need to say how good it will sound when played on trombone?

Thad Jones is known for his brilliant music for big band, and Groove Merchant is one of my favorites. Especially the sax chorus is amazing. Full-fat super-hip lines with intense voicings, this is Thad at his best! And even better, it is actually quite suited for trombone. Admitted, it is a bit technically challenging, but the range is spot on – when playing it an octave below the lead soprano. I wrote out the harmony as well, it´s a fun piece to solo on. read more »

It does´t matter if you are a jazz or classical player, you still want to make music. And you should still make music in your practice room. A really good way to get some music into your daily routine at an early stage, is to play some free improvisation. Again, it does not matter what genre you play, as a matter of fact, if you are a non-improviser I would say that this tip is even more important!

Here is what I want you to do:
Find a simple warm up exercise and play it for a few minutes, just to get some air through the horn. Then you play a totally free improvisation for five minutes. Just play, and see where it takes you! Don´t worry about stiff lips, bad sound ore any other detail that probably would distract you if you where playing your standard 4 pages of flexibility exercises.

“But I have never learned how to improvise!” No problem. Here is the key: read more »

I stole this phrase from a Mike Stern recording a few years ago because I liked the sound of it. And bored on a rainy day, I decided to write it down in all keys and work on it on the trombone. It turned out to be a quite hard but rewarding technical trombone exercise. Try to play it as written, and you´ll get a good high range work out!

Enjoy…
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Are you a jazz improviser? Do you know all the maj7 (major seven) and maj7#5 (major seven sharp five) patterns in all keys by heart? If not, I strongly recommend that you get started! They are extremely useful in when you improvise since they set the mood of a chord very clearly, and most of them are quite well suited for trombone as well.

The reason that I bring up the maj7 and the maj7#5 patterns at the same time, is because read more »

There is a lot of good music out there that has already been played! As a jazz player, you can of course take advantage of that and learn from the masters. Of course, transcribing jazz trombone players is a good place to start. There are many great players and even more great solos to dig in to! Transcribing solos played on your own instrument is smart, even if there might be some technically challenges, you know that it is playable on the instrument. Many times, you will find that what sounds really hip or hard, actually is quite logical on that specific instrument.
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DOODLE TONGUING IN A JAZZ CONTEXT

In the previous articles in this series, I have talked about the fundamental of doodle tonguing, basic and advanced exercises. Doodle tongue is the perfect solution for all jazz trombone players who want to be able to play fast and precise legato lines.

This time I want to share some patterns and exercises that I have found to be very useful. This is stuff that I use a lot when I play improvised jazz solos. Let´s get started! read more »

Do you know your minor pentatonic scales? And I mean really know them, up and down and inside out? I recommend that you spend some time with those five tones in all keys. It is a great way to build up your technical skills on the instrument and learn to find your way around the instrument.

Pentatonic scale or blues scale? There´s a important difference. The blues scale is identical to the pentatonic scale, but it also consists of the b5 (or #11). So pentatonic scale has five notes and the blues scale has six. This post is about the pentatonic scale, and how to use it. I´ll get back to the blues scale later on.
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Here´s some more triads to play around with. Check out this trombone lesson for the background of this exercise. I suggest that you try to come up with some more exercises in this style, and practise them without sheet music. There are some quite interesting melodic lines out there to be explored! read more »

Regardless if you are an improviser or a ligit (classical) player it´s very important to be able to hear the music you play. And that is actually hearing it before you play it (if you can´t hear it while playing you should consider plumbing or mountain climbing instead of playing music). Knowing what the next note is going to sound like makes it much easier to play in tune and with rich sound. I would actually say that the audience can hear the difference if you know the music by heart or not, even if you play it correct and in tune. read more »

Hear the music before you play it

You can learn all the great licks, all the fancy notes in every chord and play faster and higher than a supersonic stealth bomber and still sound like crap when you play an improvised solo. The most important factor as an improviser is the ability to hear what you want to play – before you play it! read more »