Here's a mailbag episode, free to all folks paid or unpaid. The two questions have to do with:

1) Concepts for beginners

2) Use of the diminished in the 6th bar of a blues.

These two questions lead me into quite a number of topics. Hope you dig it.

This is an epic video, an hour long. I go through the first chorus of Charlie Parker's solo on the Sep. 29, 1947 recording of Confirmation, showing how I would transcribe and figure out fingerings, articulations, and phrasing. The end goal is to internalize the feeling for the language of improvisation. For anyone who asks, "how do you transcribe stuff?," this is the video for you.

Here's something that I use constantly. Thinking of each dominant chord as a diminished 7th, and using that sound to create color and movement in the melodic line. If the theory doesn't make sense, I'd recommend to go back and look at the first couple videos in the "Symmetry" series.

This post addresses a member question from the previous post. I talk about how I was taught how to play changes, how I think about playing changes from a melodic perspective, and how it has very little to do with chords or scales. Examples are "All Blues," "There Will Never Be Another You," and "Confirmation."

One of my favorite exercises, that I've used for years to work on getting relaxed with forms and time. I give a bunch of examples from basic to advanced, and then explain what I'm doing at the beginning of this video. Upgrade on audio and video quality. Hope you dig it.

Here's an exercise that I do on all kinds of music to make sure that I've actually learned the melody. It's called take offs and landings. Seems easy, but on a tune like this it's a real challenge to do smoothly. Let me know if you have requests for things to talk about with this tune, and I'll add them to the series.

In this episode I go through a fingering for Charlie Parker's "Confirmation" as it is played on Sept 29, 1947 at Carnegie Hall. A lot of time is spent on ornaments, and how to get them to work smoothly and authentically on guitar, as well as the usual issue of where to play a particular phrase on the neck, and what you might consider when choosing a fingering.

An even longer video, finishing up the series on the 4th movement of the Sonata in C major for violin. Talking about specific choices in the passages from the last section, which is quite difficult with the pick. Also talking about ways of feeling the beat. Screenshot of the sheet music is attached.

A pretty long video where I go through the whole second page of the Allegro Assai. Talking about approaches to finding the best fingerings, isolating problem spots, and choosing strong fingers over weak fingers.

Third video on this piece, where we get into the part that is the real challenge for the pick.