I have been trying to get a solo part in Jazz Band but I can never actually do it. Written solos, freshmen aren’t allowed to try them until 4 months in Jazz, and I can’t improvise any improvised solos. I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know music theory and when trying to learn it, I just don’t get it. I don’t know what notes sound good together, and I don’t know what to do to change that. I also don’t know how to improvise a solo on the spot with just a key and measure count of how long the solo is. Like.. idk how to do that, where I am told to improvise a solo in measure so and so for so and so measures and the song is in the key of Ab. I don’t know what the other players play during that section, I don’t wanna play something that’s dissonant all the time.

Happy Fall everyone! I'm curious what you're working on these days. If you had to whittle it down to one question, what's the next thing you want to achieve musically? It can be big or small.

Happy Fall Everyone! I noticed the past few weeks since I set the new weekly schedule for our group lessons, attendance has been down. Just wanted to make sure everyone knows that we're doing the group lessons at 3:00pm Eastern on Sundays now. I have the site set up to send out reminder emails the day before, but I wonder if people are getting those. Please let me know if you were aware of the schedule but just couldn't make it, or if you've wanted to attend but didn't know it was happening.

Hi! Hopefully you remember me and it’s been a long time since I’ve done anything here. I’d like to say that I’ve gotten a LOT better at trombone, and recently joined a jazz band class at school. This is fun, however, the rhythms are getting increasingly trickier with every new piece and I was wondering if you could help me get better at sight reading so that I don’t have to ask my class how to play something. Would you please help?

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I'm scheduling this week's free 30 minute group lesson on Sunday, Nov 30th at 1:00pm Eastern. Hope to see you there!