Completed the Gary Burton Intro to Improvisation class on Coursera. 39,000 people signed up - I wonder how many actually finished. It was a great experience for me - luckily, I can already play scales of all kinds freely all over the vibraphone and understand music theory and can read music (LOL - this was a big roadblock for a lot of people who started out). It was great though - people at all different levels and lots of beginners wanting to learn jazz improvisation (well, some people thought Gary Burton was going to teach rock improv, or whatever). The last couple of assignments really chewed up some time: chord scales, common scale and guide tone/lines analysis (then using this in your improv) for Memories of Tomorrow, Theme and analysis (very short theme for soloing) in a Major Blues tune and finally putting it all together on Ohlos de Gato - very challenging. I really pushed the final deadline for getting my recordings up onto SoundCloud. Only one take on the blues and a couple on Ohlos, but luckily a student cancelled at the last minute and I did manage to finish it on time. How did it go for my other FB friends who took the class?
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 18:27:10 +0000