If playing over chord changes feels like guesswork, you're probably missing a handful of core exercises that make the whole process feel logical and musical. This course is the antidote.
We're going to work through three essential exercises built around a ii-V-I in E♭ major — F minor 7, B♭7, E♭ major 7 — that will sharpen your ability to navigate chord changes fluently. The scales you need are: F Dorian over F minor 7, B♭ Mixolydian or B♭ Altered over B♭7, and E♭ Major over E♭ major 7. Make sure you grab the PDF of 25 scale fingerings from the resources tab — those are the fingerings used throughout this course.
The ii-V-I is the fundamental building block of jazz harmony and appears in virtually every standard. Starting with a clean, simple version in E♭ gives us a manageable framework before moving the same exercises into more complex progressions. Once you have these exercises mastered in a couple of keys, you can move them up to a blues, then a 32-bar form — that's the long-term goal.
Master it on a couple of ii-V-Is, master it in a couple of different keys, then move it up to the blues — a longer chord progression — and then move it to a full song, a full 32-bar form, because that's the goal.
As you get comfortable with each exercise on the ii-V-I, challenge yourself to apply them to longer progressions. If the B♭ Altered scale is new to you, this course is also a great context to start introducing it on the V chord — the exercises will make the colour of the altered scale much easier to hear in context.
