This Simple Habit Will Transform Your Playing!

One of the biggest breakthroughs in my own practice lately has been a return to something simple, but powerful...

The melody

As jazz musicians, we’re often drawn to all the “juicy stuff” (exotic scales, enclosures, chord substitutions, hip chord voicings, blah blah blah). 😁 In this search for more info, we sometimes gloss over the one thing that truly grounds everything we more, which (again) is THE MELODY.

In this week’s video, I dig into the habit of practicing the melody—not just learning it once and moving on, but spending real time with it. I use All the Things You Are to demonstrate how melody can strengthen your sense of form, deepen your rhythmic language, and become a springboard for improvisation.

Melody isn’t a beginner skill, It’s a lifelong guide, even for the most advanced players.

So whether you’re working on your first jazz standard or your 300th, I encourage you to make melody practice a regular part of your routine. It’s simple, but it goes deep—and it just might change the way you play.