Group 2

Welcome! Please scroll down to view the assignments before watching the lessons. 

 

Note: I have removed the due dates for all assignments. Please continue submitting things as long as you would like (even if you didn't properly sign up for this class 😉) 

 

Learn how to start visualizing harmony and free yourself up for greater melodic expression over chord changes. This two-week intensive looks at two simple standards, and guides you through simple creative exercises over these harmonic progressions. By the end, you’ll be taking hipper, more melodic solos built on simple concepts – and having fun!

What to Expect:

  • 🔗 Guided Exercises: Creative exercises that start simple (playing the roots of the chords in time) and introduce gradual variations toward cooler and cooler sounds. By the end, you’ll be playing upper altered extensions and more – without the sweat of a typical music theory class.
  • 🎶 Expert Guidance: Led by Ethan Chilton, professional LA-based trumpeter and improvisor who built the tonebase trumpet library, these sessions offer a unique insight into the practice strategies that the great improvisors have used to develop fluency over virtually any chord progression.
  • 🤝 Community Interaction: Share your experiences, receive feedback from peers and your instructor, and engage in a supportive community of fellow music enthusiasts and aspiring producers.

Who Should Attend:

This course is tailored for a trumpeter at any level looking for structured assistance toward improving as an improvisor. Intermediate proficiency with music theory is highly recommended.

What is Covered:

Participants will practice a series of guided exercises over standard compositions. The exercises will build in complexity, culminating in a final solo chorus over On Green Dolphin Street and an F blues, one of which they will be invited to record and share with Ethan and the community for feedback!

No special equipment is needed to get started; just bring your enthusiasm, a working trumpet, and whatever recording tools you have—your journey to hipper solos begins here!

Timeline

  • Sign-Up : June 12th-June 16th
  • Course Period: June 17th-28th
  • Optional check-In via Zoom: June 24th at 1 PM PST (link TBA) 

 

Supplementary PDF Exercises:

2wi_guided_improv_intensive_june_2024

Lessons

Lesson 1: Play the Roots in Time... From Memory!

Monday, June 17th, 2024

https://youtu.be/uckUMY60Byk

 

Assignment: Optional video submission. Please practice playing the roots to On Green Dolphin Street in time, along with the backing track, and from memory. For reference, the sheet music is available in the Supplementary PDF, linked above. 

 

Lesson 2: Chord Tones and Voice Leading

Wednesday, June 19th, 2024

https://youtu.be/dfwlQmJ5aWc

 

Assignment: Image submission. Using the examples provided in the supplementary PDF on pages 7, 8, and 9, and write your own a voice-leading exercise (in half notes) over the chord changes to Green Dolphin Street. Print the blank sheet music on page 10 for this exercise, write in the notes by hand, and then please take a picture or scan of the finished exercise and submit it here on the forums (not on the YouTube comment section). 

Please message or email Ethan if you have any questions! 

 

Lesson 3: Chord-Scales and Motivic Development

Monday, June 24th, 2024

https://youtu.be/fMRQ-GPxMSk

 

Assignment: No required video submission – practice both tunes as instructed in the video! 

 

Optional ZOOM Check-in: June 24th at 1 PM PST
https://zoom.us/j/91405703995?pwd=SemvvFoWjRBcMy1ZBOqvUeS7WVXM3s.1

Meeting ID: 914 0570 3995
Passcode: 783728

Lesson 4: Performance and Conclusion

Wednesday, June 26th, 2024

https://youtu.be/Ntl4IHxc_-I

 

Final Project: (No due date)

Please submit a video recording of yourself performing either 1-2 choruses on Green Dolphin Street or 3-4 chorus over an F Blues, using the backing tracks provided below. Upload an unlisted video to YouTube and then copy the link into a response to this forum post! Please let me know by a direct message or e-mail if any questions or concerns. Thank you for your participation! 

 

Notes

Supplementary PDF Exercises:

2wi_guided_improv_intensive_june_2024

 

iReal Pro: https://www.irealpro.com/

 

YouTube Backing Tracks:

Green Dolphin Street

 

Bird Blues

 

Memory Palaces: https://artofmemory.com/blog/how-to-build-a-memory-palace/

 

Some Amazing Recordings of On Green Dolphin Street:

- Miles Davis from Kind of Blue

- Miles Davis and John Coltrane from The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series (Live in Stockholm)

- Miles Davis from Live at the Plugged Nickel (1965)

- Chet Baker from Embraceable You

- Woody Shaw from Stepping Stones Bonus Tracks

- VSOP from V.S.O.P. The Quintet: Live Under the Sky (with Freddie Hubbard)

- Nancy Wilson with the George Shearing Quintet from Swingin's Mutual

- Ahmad Jamal Trio from Count 'Em 88

- Eric Dolphy from Outward Bound

- Joe Henderson & Wynton Kelly from Trio from Four!

- Sonny Rollins from On Impulse!

- Vince Guaraldi from In Person

 

Ethan's live stream on Mastering Your Chord-Scale Relationships (HELPFUL PRE-REQUISITE VIEWING): https://app.tonebase.co/trumpet/live/player/tpt-mastering-chord-scale-relationships-chilton

 

Teoria for Ear Training:

https://www.teoria.com/

10 replies

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    • Trumpet Lead
    • Ethan
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Hi everyone! Checking in to see if there are any questions with this assignment as it progresses. Feel free to post your voice leading exercise here as a reply to this topic! And, as always, let me know if there are any questions. 

    • Dmitry
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Here's mine. Had to edit 12th bar in iReal Pro to dominant 7th though. 🙂

    lead-tones.heic

      • Trumpet Lead
      • Ethan
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       Thank you for this! (That's an adorable cat by the way hahaha)

      Great job flowing nicely through the changes and using motifs (especially in the first four bars).  A few things that struck me: 

      In the last line, those first two chords are A- to D7, so we'll likely want a C-natural rather than a C-sharp! 

      Bonus tip: there's a concept called "implied polyphony." Polyphonic music consists of two voices sounding together, and while we can't do that on trumpet, we can imply that by creating the illusion of two offset voices in our solo.

      In the fourth line of your solo, the Ab is the first voice, and the Db sounds like a new second voice, since it's kind of far away from the Ab. Then you go to a G in the second measure, and that note seems to belong to the Ab/first voice. The Eb at the end of the second measure seems to belong to that Db/second voice. But.. we can write smooth voice leading between implied voices, too! This gives the solo the illusion of greater connection. If the Db was instead connected to a C in the 3rd bar, both of our voices would be moving in half steps... which is excellent voice leading!

      SO.. I could resolve the 3rd measure of the 4th line to a C natural instead.. and the result would be quite nice. I attached an image showing these suggestions. 

      I noticed you even had a C written here originally haha... but honestly I think either work quite well! And it may sound like an arbitrary rule.. but it can add a lot of melodicism to your playing to study the possibilities with this concept. 

      And also.. not directly related to this course, but there are a few notation things: in the second line, it'd be standard/technically correct to write the second note in those first two bars as an 8th note tied to a dotted quarter. You want to be able to see the middle of the measure in how you notate so things are as clear as possible. (But this is just me being very picky!) 

      Overall, really excellent job! I'd just take a look at that last line and play around with implied polyphony. Looking forward to hearing your final assignment! 

      lead-tones.heic
      • Dmitry
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       Great, thank you for the feedback! I'll try to experiment with implied polyphony.

      I missed the natural mark in the last line, meant to be a chromaticism, of course. 👍

    • Dmitry
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Sorry, not a video and not one take, clearly. 😁

    https://soundcloud.com/musonic/on-green-dolphin-street

      • Trumpet Lead
      • Ethan
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       Hi Dee! Thanks so much for your submission. Nice sound and recording quality, and great accuracy over the changes :) Your approach reminds me of something between Chet and Kenny Dorham, especially with your vibrato. I admire the patient way you play, and how melodically connected everything is. Wonderful job with this!! 

       

      In the future, I'd encourage you to experiment further with longer 8th-note lines, even if you have to slow the tempo down. It's nice to create contrast between short, thoughtful motifs, which you have an abundance of, and longer ideas. Have you ever messed around with the Charlie Parker Omnibook? It could be nice just to get some longer phrases under your fingers. And there are a few moments (1:57 for example), where your time feels a little stiff. After you do your fundamentals practice, I'd spend 5 minutes articulating scales in 8th notes and trying to get the exact time feel you hear on the records. Soft tongue, triplety subdivision, slurring upbeat to downbeat, minimal accent. 

       

      Though, frankly, the approach you used works super well for a tune at this tempo! Bravo! 

      • Dmitry
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       Thank you for the elaborate feedback and recommendations! Clearly long lines of 8th note is beyond my current ability 😭 as illustrated by timing issues where I attempt to play more. I agree, the Chet Baker sound is what I probably had in my head. I guess it's kind of classic even if you don't listen to a lot of jazz.

      I didn't get how to subdivide 8th note into triplets and always start on upbeat. This sounds confusing. Do you mind to elaborate?

      Cheers,

      • Trumpet Lead
      • Ethan
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       Hey Dee, you're very welcome. 

      When you have time, definitely check out Stuart Mack's Jazz Fundamentals course & Jeremy Siskind's Basics of Jazz Theory course. Jeremy's first lesson in particular illustrates a lot of different useful concepts, including what I'm saying about 8th notes and triplets. 

      In a swing feel, the 8th notes aren't even (the downbeat is longer than the upbeat). How much longer? If you instead divided a beat into 3 triplets, the first eighth note would take up the space of two triplets, and the second eighth note would up the space of the third triplet. Your 8th notes were sometimes very even (or "straight") when they should be a bit more swung. 

      When I suggested you practice scales, I wasn't suggesting you start on the upbeat. Play them normally, on the downbeat. But use the articulation Stuart Mack recommends you use in his Articulation/Phrasing lesson. Hope this helps! 

      • Dmitry
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       Ah, makes sense now. Thanks!

    • Trumpet Lead
    • Ethan
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Hi everyone! I'm removing the due dates for these assignments. So you are free to continue posting assignments for feedback anytime you want, and I'll reply as soon as I can. Thanks all, and hope these have been useful! 

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Content aside

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