*Excerpts from the

IAJE Journal Review on “The Art of Improvisation”

written by John Kuzmich, Sr. Editorial Columnist*

(published in the IAJE Convention issue, Feb. 2006)

The Art of Improvisation is perhaps one of the most ambitious/comprehensive improvisation methods on the market. The manual has 320+ pages with extensive information on improvisation and innovative ways to practice and learn improvisation concepts. The premise of this method is “visual” jazz, which is defined as seeing what to improvise in your mind’s eye. That enables you to create beautiful improvisation melodies expressively, instead of relying only on slow and ineffective rote learning (copying others’ ideas). This encourages one to sense where the music needs to go and how to take it there, which clearly separates technique from musicality.

The Art of Improvisation is based on three foundation elements: 1) Flexible Scales (which help you create musical ideas); 2) Virtual Practice (a systematic approach to ear-training); and 3) SHAPE (a three-dimensional, visual approach for organizing ideas)

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Included are over 400 concise musical examples, written and MIDI-file, to illustrate what is being taught. There are over 200 exercises to help you try out what you’ve learned. Most exercises have three levels of difficulty: basic, medium and challenge. There are over 300 standard jazz tunes in a clear, easy-to-read format, with over 350 play-along MIDI files for practice. If that isn’t enough, there are solo excerpts plus written out transcribed jazz solos along with their recordings that are also analyzed.

The manual is well organized for both study and practice. But practice is further enhanced with a Supplement book that contains a wealth of additional articles on improvisation, plus chord progressions to over 600 practice tunes including 300 standards. The CD-ROM is both PC- and Mac-compatible with 250 exercises ranging from entry-level to advanced. In addition, there are over 800 pages of easy-to-read text as well as over 600 play-along tunes for all instruments and 1000's of links to chapters and sound files.

Put all of this together in these three publications, you have the most comprehensive and insightful improvisation method on the market today

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Congratulations on providing such a comprehensive improvisation materials with ear training, theory, chords/scales, and rhythm patterns to motivate and instill one to learn and practice improvisation.

This method is uniquely creative and unlike any other on the market. It must be seen to be believed as to why it is not a duplication of any other publication. Each of these three publications are innovative and worthy by themselves for review and when comprised as a system, a powerful improvisation method is constituted.