As taught at Berklee College of Music Ready, Aim, Improvise!, Book 1: Preparation and Jazz Vocabulary by Hal Crook explores the critical areas involved in learning how to improvise, including: music theory, jazz harmony, ear training, jazz execution, jazz vocabulary, practicing, self-critiquing, career planning, and much more. Ready, Aim, Improvise! is filled with musical examples, exercises, and practice routines that help make the learning process easy and enjoyable. Two enclosed play-along CDs feature modal, key-area, and modulating chord progressions performed at a slow, manageable tempo. Ready, Aim, Improvise! is a clear, comprehensive study of the most important steps in a jazz musicians education. Don't be surprised if it gets you practicing more and playing better in no time at all! So get Ready . . . Aim . . . Improvise!

An exploration of the critical areas involved in the learning of improvisation, including: music theory, jazz harmony, ear training, practicing, and self-critiquing.

The only complete study on this important jazz song form.

The Improv Handbook is the most comprehensive, smart, helpful and inspiring guide to improv available today. Applicable to comedians, actors, public speakers and anyone who needs to think on their toes, it features a range of games, interviews, descriptions and exercises that illuminate and illustrate the exciting world of improvised performance. First published in 2008, this second edition features a new foreword by comedian Mike McShane, as well as new exercises on endings, managing blind offers and master-servant games, plus new and expanded interviews with Keith Johnstone, Neil Mullarkey, Jeffrey Sweet and Paul Rogan. The Improv Handbook is a one-stop guide to the exciting world of improvisation. Whether you're a beginner, an expert, or would just love to try it if you weren't too scared, The Improv Handbook will guide you every step of the way.

In Beyond Time and Changes, acclaimed jazz trombonist, pianist, composer, arranger, teacher, and author Hal Crook offers a methodology to guide the advancing improviser through the un-chartered musical territory known as "free jazz."

This book includes lead sheets in C, B-flat, and E-flat featuring chord progressions of standard jazz songs. The CD includes play-along tracks with chord voicings, and bass lines are played on an acoustic midi grand piano. Also includes MIDI files for computer sequenced work stations. Reharmonizations and rhythmic displacement of original chords included.

How to Comp: A Study in Jazz Accompaniment is a comprehensive, one-step-at-a-time method for learning how to accompany an improvised solo. It offers precise explanations, practical exercises, recorded examples, four play-along tracks, and daily practice routines. Intended for intermediate-to-advanced players of harmonic instruments (piano, guitar, vibraphone), it can also be used by drummers, bassists, and horn players.