website of Steve Neff
Here’s a video clip that has been on my site since it started years ago. I made this video back in 2006 when I was part of a great Boston function band “Soho”. This is a cover of “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye. I take a small solo towards the end of the Read More…
Mastering the Blues Scale Volume 1: Minor Chords
“Just play the blues scale!” All across the country, you hear this advice given in every band room. Students sit with blank looks on their faces as band directors tell them to use this or that blues scale on their solo. The advice usually doesn’t go much further Read More…
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A great sax player has mastered the art of bending and shaping their notes to express what they want to convey. It might be a mood, attitude or emotion. There is no doubt that bending notes adds excitement and emotion to a solo. Bending notes on the saxophone is Read More…
The II-V-I progression is one of the most common progressions in jazz. A number of years ago, I wrote my popular “The Best II-V-I Patterns” book. This book is a collection of the best II-V-I patterns that I have come across in my 30 years of playing and teaching. While there has been much praise Read More…
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Ok, so for awhile now my wife has been telling me I need to step up my video production……… I am all focused on the sax and teaching content but need to get focused on the flashy important stuff. She says I need to focus on getting a quality intro for the lessons. Something Read More…
The dominant bebop scale is an essential tool in playing jazz. It is used all over the place in jazz music. If you’re transcribing jazz solos you won’t have to go long before you find some variation of this scale being used. In my Approach Note Books I tackled Major and Minor tonalities pretty thoroughly. In Read More…
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A number of years ago, I was frustrated with my playing over static major and minor grooves. It seemed like I always ran out of ideas and the ideas I had were stale and unoriginal. At that time, although I could play in all keys, more often than not I was held back to the same old Read More…
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The II-V-I pattern is the most common pattern in jazz music. The more adept you are at playing this pattern in all the keys the better your facility in the jazz language. In the past 20 years I have been keeping a notebook of these patterns. I’ve tried to limit the ones in Read More…
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The II-V-I pattern is the most common pattern in jazz music. The more adept you are at playing this pattern in all the keys the better your facility in the jazz language. In the past 20 years I have been keeping a notebook of these patterns. I’ve tried to limit the ones in this 122 Read More…
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Here’s another video of me playing with that Hal Crook play along. I’m not even sure if this is still out there and published. It’s called “Creative Comping for Improvisation”. I haven’t seen it since the early 90′s. It is such a ball to jam to because the comping is not traditional at all. There Read More…
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