Description
Diatonic patterns are a must for any serious student of jazz.  Diatonic thirds are usually the first interval pattern that students will work on. It is important to get these interval patterns down before attempting larger intervals like fourths,fifths and sixths.  You need to work on these thirds until you can play them in all 12 keys without even thinking about it. The key to mastering these patterns is repetition. Where most students fall short, is that they don’t practice these enough. Don’t make that mistake!
Diatonic Third patterns are valuable because they give you tons of melodic material you can use,  they equip you with a thorough knowledge of the major scale and by working on them you improve your technique.  In this lesson I show you four common patterns using diatonic thirds. I give you tips on how to best practice them and demonstrate them for you on the soprano sax with some background music. Playing these pattern with background music is the best way to get the sound of them into your ear in each key that you work on.  This lesson also includes a 12 page pdf of the patterns in every key. Enjoy! (30 Minute Video Lesson)
Mark Klinefelter –
I am a 7 year alto player. Starting to learn basic improvisation. I knew it was about time to fully master the intervals. I have practiced them before but not in a serious fashion until a couple of weeks ago. A few days ago I downloaded this lesson on 3rd’s. Steve’s advice and experience were invaluable. The top tip was playing them against the Vol 24 Aebersold backing tracks. So melodic and beautiful. You can improvise over just those simple intervals and they sound great on the particular key track you are playing with. I prefer learning them by sound rather than staring at a piece of paper. That works better for me since you do not have time to look at paper when constructing a melody. I recommend this course for any serious musician.