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Song chapter packet for:

Have You Met Miss Jones

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Accessing and Playing the Audio FilesThe audio files for this packet are available to you within a Soundcloud playlist for the book Trombone Improvisation Savvy. The link to the playlist is: bit.ly/improvbook2.

On the playlist page for the book, simply look for the files associated with this particular song. All the audio files for a song are grouped together. Obviously, you now have access to every one of the almost 150 sound files for the book. Many of them won’t make sense without the book’s instruction, so if you like this song packet, perhaps you’ll want to own the book. You can preview and buy the book at: bit/ly/ImprovSavvyPage

Each time a soundfile is available within this packet, you will see the music icon followed by the name of the file. For example:

bit.ly/improvbook “East of the Sun - swing rhythm only”

In the above example, you would go to the soundcloud playlist at bit.ly/improvbook2 and select the file called “East of the Sun - swing rhythm only” within that playlist.

If you lack an internet connection that feeds a sound system, perhaps find a fast connection and download into a folder the files listed within this packet. Then feed them through your sound system which could be everything from a state-of-the-art stereo to an iPhone. Upon selecting a sound file on the Soundcloud playlist, click to the right of the file and select Download from the dropdown options.

The very bottom of the Playlist page displays some controls for going to the track start, play/pause on current track and next track. There is also a cycle link that will repeat the current track if you want to keep cycling the track. An application for that would be to cycle the ear training file Groovy Jazzy as you warm up your chops and your ears.

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Click to cycle a track

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bit.ly/improvbook2 “Miss Jones - melody”

Have You Met Miss JonesThis is a great tune to learn. Miss Jones is a popular Rogers and Hart standard that is both easy and difficult to improvise over. It’s a standard 32 bar AABA form that can be played in a variety of tempos. The A section is basically in F, but it’s the bridge that causes problems for many.

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Have You Met Miss Jones Richard Rogers

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The bridge starts out in Bb for one bar then drops a major third to Gb major then it again drops a major third to D major. It goes back to Gb major before the turnaround back to F in the last A section. This chord progression of major third changes was unheard of in 1937 when Richard Rogers wrote this song. Nearly 30 years later John Coltrane created several great songs like Giant Steps and Countdown using this major third relationship between tonic centers.

The difficulty of this progression is marked by the lack of notes in common between major tonalities a major third apart. The above Gb major seven and the D major 7 share Gb (F#) and B (Cb) only.

So how do you practice this bridge progression? One way is to play simple melodies through the changes - melodies that tie together the desperate tonalities. Audio file Miss Jones - bridge loop ML is a recording of the three phrases below which are melodic phrases over the first four bars of the bridge. The audio file Miss Jones - bridge loop rhythm is a loop of the eight-bar bridge. Play the following phrases over the first five bars of the loop and then create your own for the remaining three bars. Consider the written out four bars as a launching pad for the remaining three. Eventually play over the full bridge as you start to hear the harmonic movement and your ear and arm take you through the changes. Try writing out two bar phrases that help you go from one chord to the next.

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bit.ly/improvbook2 “Miss Jones - bridge loop ML”

bit.ly/improvbook2 “Miss Jones - bridge loop rhythm only”

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bit.ly/improvbook2 “Miss Jones - ML solo”

bit.ly/improvbook2 “Miss Jones - rhythm only @190”

Michael Lake solo on Miss Jones

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If you want to hear classic bebop phrasing over this tune, listen to Bob Brookmeyer’s solo with the Stan Getz Quintet album recorded in the early 1950’s. As with all transcriptions in this book, I recommend that you play along with Bob’s solo and learn some of his great phrases. If the tempo of quarter note = 190 is be too fast, use the audio file Miss Jones - rhythm only 160. Feel free to use that quarter note - 160 tempo audio file as a rhythm track for practicing this song’s exercises and the song’s melody as well.

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bit.ly/improvbook2 “Miss Jones - rhythm only @160”

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Bob Brookmeyer solo on Miss Jones

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Mind’s Ear SavvyLet’s begin by taking a step back from the typical initial lesson on improvisation. Rather than starting with harmony followed by the technical link between chords and scales or by launching into patterns, let’s consider the most basic skill required of you as an improviser.

That basic skill is that of creating melodic phrases in your mind. We haven’t yet gotten to your trombone. Rather, let’s start with tapping into your inner musician. As mentioned earlier, putting the trombone to your face creates a complicated filter for your inner musical ideas, so leave aside the horn for the moment.

Listen to the following backgrounds and improvise some musical ideas over them in your mind. But do so by whistling, humming, or scatting them. Without your trombone getting in the way, hear the music of your inner improviser. Now play over the sound files with the trombone. Have fun with it! Much of this book will encourage you to record yourself so start with this exercise. Listen back and ask yourself what is the difference between your inner improviser and the one playing the trombone.

As I hope you experienced from the above exercise, the music in your mind is vastly different from the running of scales and memorized patterns that happen to fall easily on the trombone slide. The fundamental skill required to improvise musically is to reflect through the trombone the music you hear in your mind’s ear. I think the goal of any improvising trombonist is for the trombone to simply be a transparent vehicle for projecting the music born within. Hear first, then play the trombone - not the other way around.

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bit.ly/improvbook “Groovy Jazzy”

bit.ly/improvbook “Stabbing the Drama”

bit.ly/improvbook “St. Thomas Block Party”

“Keep searching for that sound you hear in your head until it becomes a reality.”

- Bill Evans

“Once I could play what I heard inside me, that’s when I was born.”

- Charlie Parker

“External instruments are only extensions of the biological instrument.”

- Yusef Lateef

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The skill of any improviser is to project the music inside of them through their instrument as if the instrument is a transparent extension of their musical voice. The following exercises are built to strengthen that skill.

Improvising with musicians or other sound source works something like this:

Music begins in the mind, not with the horn, so let’s discover what you can hear. The following exercises provide you with tones and phrases which you will first hear and to which you will then respond. Once you hear the tones in your mind’s ear, you’ll have a much easier time playing them on trombone, which leads to improvising well.

Trombone tonesThe soundfile called Random Trombone Notes contains various random notes played on trombone. Playing the soundfile, sing or whistle the notes after you hear them. Once you have no trouble singing what you hear, play them on the trombone as you hear them. Playing them on the trombone is much harder, so make sure you hear them first and can sing them before playing them on the horn.

The trombone is a tough filter for your musical ideas. Before you can sing through the horn as if it’s an extension of your voice, you must build the connection between your mind’s ear and the trombone.

How quickly and how accurately can you match these notes using your voice? Try singing each note before you play it on the horn. A hint: the first note is (tenor) tuning note Bb. Don’t overthink any of these. Play what initially feels right. If you land on the wrong pitch, challenge yourself to hit the correct note on the next try. How many tries do you need to land on the correct note? One, two, more? Just react, don’t think.

Another excellent use for these ear training sound files is to buzz them in your mouthpiece without the horn. Mastering The Trombone, the excellent book by Edward Kleinhammer and Douglas Yeo, contains a chapter on buzzing. They recommend standing with your back to the piano keyboard and upon striking any random key, buzz that pitch on your mouthpiece, “visualizer” or cutaway mouthpiece. The same can be done with any of these ear training exercises.

Various timbres The next audio file contains notes of various timbres, but not of trombone. Sing them first, then play them on trombone. Instead of always starting at the beginning of the soundfile, move the playhead located at the bottom of the Soundcloud soundfile page to somewhere in the middle. Then start at different places. How quickly and accurately can you find the pitches? When unsure, hit a short note, pause briefly and from that note see if you can find the note you hear in one more try.

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bit.ly/improvbook “Random Trombone Notes”

bit.ly/altobook “Miscellaneous Random Timbres”

External sound source Mind’s ear Trombone improvisation

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The magic of the minor third

The minor third is an important interval in jazz improvisation. Hearing how it fits within a dominant chord will give your playing a hipper more Bebop flavor.

Notice the minor thirds within a C7 b9 chord:

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minor third minor thirdminor third minor third

Play notes over the above chord from the C diminished chord. Because minor thirds repeat tones at the forth minor third interval, there are only three diminished scales. Here is the C diminished scale:

Play minor thirds based off C and notes from the diminished scale over the soundfile called C7 flat nine hold:

You’ll notice that every note fits within the chord’s harmony. Better yet, if that C7 b9 resolves to the I chord (F major7) which it often does, many of the notes within the diminished scale fit that chord as well (A, C, E).

In the audio file, Minor third resolutions to tonic, I’ve recorded some lines using minor thirds and the diminished scale to resolve from C7 b9 to F major. After my five lines, eight more two bar rhythms are played so that you can play your own lines over these tonalities.

Hear the minor thirds and how nicely they fit within altered dominant chords and resolve into the tonic. Keep an ear out for the various examples of minor thirds within this book’s many transcribed solos.

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bit.ly/improvbook2 “C7 flat nine hold”

bit.ly/improvbook2 “Minor third resolutions to tonic”

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Hearing your place within the chord changes

One sure sign of an inexperienced improviser is the lack of hearing the harmonic foundation of the tune over which they are improvising. In other words, they don’t sound like they are sure of the tune’s key or chord progression. Listen to great jazz players John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and Sonny Rollins and throughout their great lines, we hear their acute awareness of the tune’s fundamental harmony.

Hearing the tune’s harmony is critical to improvising well. That awareness is also critical to finding your way back from being lost in the changes. If you are improvising over a tune in Bb major and hear yourself outside of the chord changes in a bad way, playing Bb and a simple melodic phrase around Bb could be a way to find your way back to the tune’s harmony. But you’ll have to be aware that you are in Bb.

I call notes like the above mentioned Bb an anchor note because it serves the purpose of “anchoring” you back to the tune’s fundamental harmony if you become “lost at sea” in your solo. In fact, I created a video on this called Making your jazz improvisation on trombone easier and better. You can find it at: bit.ly/anchornotes

Now, it’s one thing to think to yourself, I need to get back to the root of the tune which is Bb. It’s more useful to be able to hear the root of the tune so that your ear can guide you back to the tune’s fundamental harmonic root. So let’s practice that important skill. For each sound file below, listen to the progression then play the root of the progression.

I’ve recorded five different chord progressions in various styles and feels, each in a unique key. In jazz, the harmony can change rapidly. What is currently the root will change in another few bars. I’ve purposefully created chord progressions that center around a specific root, so even though the chords change, there remains one fundamental key center to these exercises.

The answers to the key centers are at the bottom of the page. Don’t look at them until you have done your best to hear and play the roots on trombone.

“Listening is the key to everything great in music.”

- Pat Metheny

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bit.ly/improvbook “Root identification exercise one”

bit.ly/improvbook “Root identification exercise two”

bit.ly/improvbook “Root identification exercise three”

bit.ly/improvbook “Root identification exercise four”

bit.ly/improvbook “Root identification exercise five”

1.D 2.A 3.A 4.C 5.G

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How to learn a tune

You know a tune when:

• You can play the melody in any key.• You hear the changes in your head as you play the

melody.• Your improvised lines flow well without thinking

about the changes because you anticipate them.

You really cannot improvise well over a tune unless you truly know it. Your lines flow, they are harmonically congruent, and you don’t need to look at the changes. How many tunes do you know that well?

Here are some tips for learning a tune. There’s no requirement to do them all. This is a list of the things that have worked for me on the tunes I know well.

• Analyze the form and the changes so that you understand the harmonic flow of the tune.• Be able to comp the changes on a piano or guitar. You don’t need to be Chick Corea. Just

be good enough to play a root in your left hand and a 4-note 9th chord in your right. There are many great books on chord comping that non-piano players can master.

• Comp the changes mentioned above by heart.• Record yourself playing the melody and blowing over the changes. Then listen to it,

hear what needs to improve, then do it again, and again.• Write a book on improvisation and dedicate a chapter to a tune, creating a rhythm

section, recording the melody and transcribing your improvised solo. I’m kidding, considering the work involved, but the truth is that there is no better way to learn something than by teaching it. This book has improved my improvisational skills and has helped me play a bunch of tunes better! Maybe do some of that on your own. No need to publish it.

• Play the tune over and over and over and over and... • Call the tune when you sit in with bands and jam sessions. Force yourself not to use

the written music.• Listen to others play over the tune.• Transcribe the solos of great players, then play those solos over the changes for practice.• Find the tunes on Aebersold records and play with them.• Learn the lyrics, if they have any.• Write out your own lead sheets containing the melody and the changes. Of course

you may already have the lead sheets in fake books or on line, but writing things down ingrains details in your mind.

• Play the tune over and over and over and over and...

“You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.”

- Charlie Parker

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“Michael Lake’s book is as comprehensive as it is insightful and practical. I can’t wait to delve into it further and look forward to sharing it with my students. I highly recommend this book for all levels of trombonists and improvisers alike.”

– Steve Davis, Trombonist/Composer/Educator

“Mike has created what has to be one of the most comprehensive tools for learning to improvise specifically for trombone! From the basics to more advanced concepts, great tune selections, and an amazing array of interactive play-alongs and demonstrations. This is a thoughtful, thorough, and dynamic approach to learning trombone improvisation.”

– Nick Finzer, New York Trombonist & Educator

“I’ve studied from a wide variety of books on trombone and jazz but Michael Lake’s book provided me something I’ve never before experienced. Within about an hour of working with one of the tunes in Trombone Improvisation Savvy - a tune I was soloing over with some difficulty in my band - I could now understand and hear the tune’s harmonic structure, I could play well over the most difficult sections, and I finally felt comfortable soloing over the entire tune. Even my bandmates noticed a difference in my playing at our performance.

I really think that when this book gets into the hands of trombone players wanting to ‘crack the improvisation code,’ it will be a must have for all jazz trombone aficionados!”

– Barry Kierce, Jazz Trombone Connoisseur

Also read additional articles, watch videos and check out his recent CDs and other books.

Roads Less Traveled Alto Trombone Savvy

Insights and method for mastering alto trombone

The Electrik Project Michael Lake

Visit www.altobone.com to receive a free piece of Michael’s original music free each month.

Praise for Trombone Improvisation Savvy