Improvisation & Scales
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Lush Life Chords & Harmonic Analysis: Billy Strayhorn’s Jazz Standard Explained
Explore the chords and harmonic structure of Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life, with functional and chord-symbol maps showing how one of jazz’s richest progressions works. Read article →
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Can We Have a IVmaj7 Chord With an Ionian Chord-Scale?
Here’s a musical concept nobody taught me at school. While analyzing 1000+ jazz tunes for The Jazz Standards Progressions Book, I noticed a great number of songs in major keys tonicize the IV degree at the beginning of the bridge.… Read article →
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A New Symbol in Harmonic Analysis
In the process of writing The Jazz Standards Progressions Book Series I realized the need to express a very common harmonic event with a new symbol. So far we had solid and dotted arrows and brackets to express II-V relationships… Read article →
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100 Essential Jazz Standards
Since the release of The Jazz Standards Progressions Book where I analyzed 1000+ songs I have been asked many times for a list of essential jazz standards. I do not want to promote uniformity in repertoire nor do I believe in… Read article →
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How To Find All Scales Containing Specific Intervals In One Simple Step
Let’s say you want to find all scales that contain a major third, followed by a half step, follow by a minor third (M3 H m3) Use the search button in Tessitura Pro and you will get all scales that… Read article →
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4 Ways to View A Scale’s Intervalic Formula using Tessitura Pro App for iOS and macOS
There are 4 ways you can represent a scale’s intervalic formula: Degrees Chord-Tones and Tensions Roman Numerals Melodic Intervals Degrees Here’s the major scale (Ionian) as degrees. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (all degrees al major) Chord-Tones and Tensions… Read article →
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Why No One Talks About The Circle of Fourths Anymore. Here’s how to view it in Tessitura Pro App
Almost every musician knows how to use the circle of fifths (and what it is), but there are a few countries and music schools that teach the order of the notes in the circle going the other way. This is called… Read article →
