Tag: Christmas Carol

A blog about jazz and related musings

An electronic orchestration of The First Noel

Knowing Christmas was coming, the time when I annually reach inward to give birth to a new rendition of a holiday tune, I first bought a couple of interesting synths for inspiration. One was Straylight by Native Instruments, a sample-based granular synthesizer. I’m a sucker for the X-Y modulation matrix….

Recent posts...

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A membership taking you full circle to jazz excellence
In the introduction video I recently posted, I started by saying, “I’m trying to solve a problem.” I went on to say that the problem I’m...
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More video lessons on playing jazz
People’s desire to learn through video has grown steadily through the years. A recent survey shows that 68% of consumers prefer watching videos to...
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Richie Beirach on unnecessary ornamentation in improvisation
With audiobooks becoming more and more popular and with the recent addition of audiobooks to Spotify, I thought I should record my last book with Richie,...
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Should you know the chord changes?
I’ve always believed that the best way to gain skill as a musician is to develop one’s ear and its connection to the instrument. That belief...
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The Benefits of the Ear to Instrument Connection
I recently watched a video performance by the amazing classical pianist Yuja Chang. I’ve seen her memorizing motion and heard her virtuosic playing...
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My AI on how to be a better jazz improviser
I have created a AI chatbot called Jazz Master Chat that draws from 75 hours of interviews from my Jazz Master Summit event a couple of years ago. I interviewed...
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How to improvise jazz better
What is jazz improvisation? Let’s first define what I mean by jazz improvisation. Jazz improvisation is a spontaneous conversation, but instead of...
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Three exercises for mastering your improvisation
As you improvise, how deep is your level of satisfaction? Do you feel confident? Do the lines coming from your instrument feel authentic to you or do you...
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The good and bad of transcribing solos
I was asked a question today by a young man eager to improve his improvisation. He asked for my thoughts regarding solo transcribing. Coincidentally, I also...
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How to improve your jazz improvisation
The title of this post is the question I constantly seek to answer for players like you: How can you improve your jazz improvisation skills? I’ve recently...
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Michael Lake

Trombonist, author, composer, marketer

Courses and books

Pocket Jazz

The Pocket Jazz course is a completely redesigned series of online videos of no more than three-minutes each. Most of the lessons also contain short excerpts of tips and wisdom from masters like Ron Carter, Randy Brecker, Dave Liebman, Richie Beirach, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and many more.

Teaching & Learning Jazz

From this book, Richie Beirach and Mike provide great stories of jazz wisdom, a reflection on university jazz education including how to choose a school, an analysis of the Hollywood view of jazz education, a look at the psychology of education, and many other previously unexplored essential topics for both teachers and students.

Available in soft cover and digital editions.

Trombone Improvisation Savvy

Trombone demands different physical abilities from other instruments, but certain skills are universal such as connecting your instrument to your musical mind. Learn from exercises and audio files specifically focused on trombone that will help you improvise much better.