It’s Willie Time #2 – On the Trail

gary smulyan | January 14, 2011

Willie and I are back again for another jazz lesson in our 2nd installment of "It's Willie Time."  This time we take a look at "On the Trail" and some improvisation ideas for this tune.  When you're learning to play jazz, one of the most important things you can do is listen to others.  Willie and I talk about this a little bit, and then demonstrate some improvisational ideas based off of the melodies.  Playing off of the melodies is a simple way to start building jazz vocabulary.  I'll also show you some simple ideas of playing off the scales which in "On the Trail" is F and Gb.  We continue showing some examples of double time, embellishing the pentatonic pairs, and finish with arpeggios that use half step approach notes to each chord tone.  That's about it for this lesson, hope you like it!  More to come....  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to write below.