Practice from a jazz book you already own
What you already know gets played the most. The rest waits. Type each line you are working on, one example per line. Play keeps time. Next brings the next one. Each example comes up once, then the order changes.
The books below stay the books. Buy or borrow the legal edition. These pages name them so you can practice a line you already have. They do not reprint the exercises.
Melodic lines
One cell, pattern, or short line per example.
- Jerry Bergonzi, Inside Improvisation Vol. 1: Melodic Structures
One short melodic cell per line, in one key.
- Jerry Bergonzi, Inside Improvisation Vol. 3: Jazz Line
One phrase shape per line.
- Jerry Bergonzi, Inside Improvisation Vol. 5: Thesaurus of Intervallic Melodies
One interval melody per line.
- Jerry Bergonzi, Inside Improvisation Vol. 6: Developing a Jazz Language
One sentence you can sing per line.
- Jamey Aebersold, Vol. 1: How to Play Jazz and Improvise
One scale, chord, or short pattern from the chapter you are on.
- Dan Haerle, The Jazz Language
One phrase shape per line, in one key.
- Jerry Coker and others, Patterns for Jazz
One pattern you are memorizing per line.
- Bert Ligon, Comprehensive Technique for Jazz Musicians
One technical pattern per line.
- Scott Reeves, Creative Jazz Improvisation
One motive or short line from the chapter you are on.
- Jerry Coker, Elements of the Jazz Language for the Developing Improvisor
One language element you are learning to hear, per line.
- David Baker, How to Play Bebop, volumes 1–3
One bebop device per line, in one key.
- David Baker, Jazz Improvisation: A Comprehensive Method
One pattern, chord-tone path, or short line from the chapter you are in.
- Bert Ligon, Connecting Chords with Linear Harmony
One line that joins two chords.
- Shelton Berg, Jazz Improvisation: The Goal-Note Method
One path into a goal note per line.
- Joe Riposo, Target and Approach Tones: Shaping Bebop Lines
One approach into a target tone per line.
- Joe Riposo, Developing a Jazz Vocabulary
One vocabulary phrase per line.
- Ed Byrne, Linear Jazz Improvisation
One linear idea per line.
- John McNeil, The Art of Jazz Trumpet
One line shape per line, on any instrument.
- Oliver Nelson, Patterns for Improvisation
One pattern you are learning per line, in one key.
- Nicolas Slonimsky, Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns
One melodic pattern per line. Leave the rest of the book closed.
- Hal Galper, Forward Motion
One phrase that aims at the next chord.
- Gary Campbell, Expansions: A Method for Developing New Material
One developed motive per line.
- Yusef Lateef, Repository of Scales and Melodic Patterns
One scale or one melodic pattern per line.
- John O’Gallagher, Twelve-Tone Improvisation
One row shape you are practicing per line.
- Wayne Krantz, An Improviser’s OS
One rule you keep for those bars, per line.
- Mick Goodrick, The Advancing Guitarist
One voicing or one moving voice per line.
- Miles Okazaki, Fundamentals of Guitar
One path of pitches or one rhythmic grid per line.
Scales and pitch sets
One scale, pentatonic, hexatonic, triad pair, or interval set per example.
How to practice scales and pitch sets
- Jerry Bergonzi, Inside Improvisation Vol. 2: Pentatonics
One pentatonic color per line.
- Jerry Bergonzi, Inside Improvisation Vol. 7: Hexatonics
One six-note set per line.
- David Liebman, A Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony and Melody
One chromatic path into a chord tone per line.
- David Liebman and Matt Vashlishan, How to Approach Standards Chromatically
One section of the tune per line.
- Mark Levine, The Jazz Theory Book
One scale or mode from the chapter you are in. Progressions from this book are under chord changes.
- Ramon Ricker, Pentatonic Scales for Jazz Improvisation
One pentatonic pattern per line, in one key.
- Gary Campbell, Triad Pairs for Jazz
One triad pair per line.
- Walt Weiskopf, Around the Horn
One pattern per line in the key you are on.
- Walt Weiskopf, Intervallic Improvisation
One interval pattern per line.
- Walt Weiskopf and Ed Rosenman, Beyond the Horn
One pattern per line, then the next key as its own exercise.
- Tim Murphy, Triad Pairs: The First Step
One pair per line, the shapes you are learning first.
- Ramon Ricker, Technique Development in Fourths for Jazz Improvisation
One fourths pattern per line.
- George Russell, The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization
One scale color you are learning to hear, per line.
Chord changes
One progression per example. Set Bars to the length of that progression.
- Hal Crook, How to Improvise
One chord, motive, or comping idea from the chapter you are on.
- Hal Crook, How to Comp
One voicing or one comping rhythm per line.
- Hal Crook, Ready, Aim, Improvise!
One soloing target per line.
- John A. Elliott, Insights in Jazz
One section of a tune per line.
- Conrad Cork, Harmony with LEGO Bricks
One short progression you can move through the keys.
- Mark Levine, The Jazz Theory Book
One progression from the chapter you are in.
- Alan Kingstone, The Barry Harris Harmonic Method
One harmonic move per line, on one degree.
Time
One rhythm, polyrhythm, or metric idea per example.
- Jerry Bergonzi, Inside Improvisation Vol. 4: Melodic Rhythms
One rhythmic placement of a melody per line.
- Hal Crook, Beyond Time and Changes
One metric idea or one free-time cue per line.
- Peter Erskine, Time Awareness for All Musicians
One time grid you can tap, per line.
- Ari Hoenig and Johannes Weidenmueller, Intro to Polyrhythms
One polyrhythm per line, for a full cycle of the bars.
- Ed Saindon, Exploration in Rhythm
One rhythm you are exploring per line.
Sound and attention
One sound goal or one attention cue per example.
- David Liebman, Developing a Personal Saxophone Sound
One sound goal per line: air, soft, loud, or a color you can hear.
- Kenny Werner, Effortless Mastery
One attention cue per line, such as sing it first, or play it soft.