Category Archives: Uncategorized

‘Terry Town Line’ is a bop line I composed based on the changes to ‘I Could Write A Book’ by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.  The tune is dedicated in part to my mother, Roddy O’Neil Cleary, who for a … Continue reading →

In a recent master class with my students at UVM, Stefon Harris talked about the connection between language and melody in an improvised solo.  While discussing the performance of a student group, he said: ‘The details of rhythm are connected … Continue reading →

The voicing which Phil Degreg calls the ‘B form’ of the minor ii V i progression starts with a clear demonstration of why Thelonious Monk referred to the minor 7 flat five chord as a ‘minor sixth chord with the … Continue reading →

The previous posts in the ‘Harmonic Moss’ series dealt with various voicings, scale outlines and various melodic patterns for the major ii-V-I progression. Although I have another post, ‘What Is This Scale Called?’, which deals with scale choices over the … Continue reading →

This melody line  combines patterns from the posts on one-bar ii-V progressions (‘Give it up for the root (position pattern)s‘ and ‘Midnight Donna and Reets in Paris‘)  and with those introduced in the posts on longer ii-V-I patterns (Harmonic Moss … Continue reading →

‘Simple Paris Dancers’ is a melody line in the bebop style on the ‘Rhythm Changes’ progression.  I encourage you to check out the charts below along with a recent recording of the tune by my quartet Birdcode.  It is through-composed, … Continue reading →

‘Everybody’s Inside Blues’ is a through-composed melody line on the twelve-bar ‘jazz blues’ progression.  Here’s a  live recording  of it (in the key of F) from a gig I played a few years ago with guitarist Steve Blair and bassist … Continue reading →

 You Are Here is a tune I composed based on the chord changes of the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein tune ‘All The Things You Are’.  (Click the link to hear a recording of the tune by my band Birdcode.)  ‘All The … Continue reading →

The ‘B form’ voicing of the major ii-V-I prominently features the 9th degree of the minor 7th chord which functions as the ii.  I find it a useful exercise to apply this voicing to tunes which both use major ii-V-I … Continue reading →

This series of blog posts is titled ‘Harmonic Moss’ as it deals with rootless chord voicings, and moss is sometimes referred to as a rootless plant.  This is not the first time I’ve come across moss in reference to music; … Continue reading →