Finally we are approaching the end if this great course review,  Here are the quick links
to Part 1 and Part 2

Lesson 5:
Theme and Variations, 
Logic and Construction of Musical Statement.
Song Form Analysis

   In his final lecture  Gary Burton talks about importance of the very basic composition method; theme and variations. 

 Let's think - what improvisation really is?

Hi folks, you can check the 1st part here and now let's go to progress in the course.

Lesson 3:
In this lecture, Gary Burton shares with us his excellent method of choosing quickly, "on the fly", the right scale for given harmony of the song. 
On the fly - means without preparation in advance, at sight, in real time during a trial or jam session. This method is actually very interesting and effective. It is based on answering to one or max two questions for each chord situation:

Please note that terminology in my review is used in the same manner as Gary Burton did  in the course. Various methods and schools can use other synonymous names: (guide tone lines vs. voice leading,  altered vs. super-locrian, etc.)

Despite the course’s name, it reffers only to JAZZ improvisation and some basic knowledge is necessary to make the best use of the material. 

As I mentioned in my first post Lesson Zero - ear training and quality of musical hearing is the most important feature of every musician.  Countless music geniuses keep on saying this on many occassions, including my personal favourites Pat Methney and Miles Davis. It is not how many notes we play, not important how fast we can play them as long as our notes are "kicking" by sitting well in time and creating interesting melodies. And inner hearing is the origin of our melodies and our rhytms.

​Ear training is a huge subject and there is plenty of methods and systems.  I have been using Ear Master Pro software many years and it is quite nice but....  But nothing compares to transcibing real music of your heroes.  This is the best and fastest way  to develop your ears and this was the only method available to those masters back then. Again, 

Hi guys, this week I have some mindblowing harmony game for you - based on a great Joe Pass Blues in Bb. Only 3 choruses, 12 bars each,  stuffed with chords like crazy:)  The big thing here is to: 

And there is plenty of great harmonic devices like: 
- tritone substitutions
- secondary dominants
- alterations and color tones in almost every chord

Some more explanation you can find in a pdf I have created with the changes trnsposed to all 12keys: