Dark light, good bad, happy sad, right wrong we have a world of opposites and this in its way causes boundaries to our knowing and ability to learn new things. They do create the topography of the maps that we create in our minds but they do also in turn stop us learning new things and there are moments when we need to turn them off in order to redesign the map and introduce new things that transcend the limits of what we currently know.

A good example of this is playing ‘outside’, in the jazz context being outside the scale or key and much of our perception of right and wrong are the boundaries that we create due to the presence of scales and chords.

Spend time doing the chromatic notes against a backing that is sitting on one or two chords and become family with all of the notes and how they sound, turn off the boundaries and hear the note as part of the chord and the chord as being part of the note and make the sound familiar in the way it is either relaxed or tense.

Listen to the possibilities of different pieces of music happening at once and allow them to co-exist. When they do how about making that happen in your playing? You can try this by playing two or three songs simultaneously on radios and computers etc.and become familiar with the feeling.

Other boundaries may include musical genres and by mixing these structures and patterns seeing what you get. Many different musical styles started like this from The Beatles to Led Zeppelin so see what you can find.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk next year’s dates are available, make sure that you book in