Anyone looking for a little practise motivation and guidance? I run guided practise session on zoom every Monday at 6pm (UK time). If you would like to come and try one of those sessions for free this coming Monday, either comment on this post or send me a DM. Matt

When do people change strings? Just when they snap? Otherwise it feels like a pretty random choice/ difficult judgement to decide when the sound is my technique or due to the ' hard wear'

I made a video for YT today talking about how we can boil everything down in 3 chords. I also created a free mini course in the classroom that breaks it all down further, find it in the "Simple Harmony Lessons" Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

What’s one thing that you think the violin can offer to jazz that hasn’t been explored enough in your opinion? I’d say double stops. Oscar Peterson always said that pianists should play like pianists and use the instrument for what it’s good for. The context being that when bebop first appeared, many pianists were focusing their playing mainly around single line work, emulating sax players, not exploring their left hand as much as in previous periods of jazz. Whilst the violin doesn’t have the same chordal possibilities as the piano, I think we should try to use the two note possibilities of the violin more. In both our arsel of improvisational techniques and our practise when we are trying improve our playing as a whole. In my 10 tunes course I incorporate it as an integral part of learning chord sequences. Using double stops two note chords as a way of learning the changes for tunes. If you can play through a tune using simple shapes for each chord, you will know the tune a lot better! Tcha Limberger is a great proponent of using double stops in his playing, I learned a lot from his approach to practising improv and technique.

I transcribed this about 13 years ago. Ola is one of the best bebop players in my opinion. He found a really interesting way to get that phrasing out on the violin. I interviewed him a while back also for my Jazz Violin Podcast here. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2TFteJg6NnxWGbUM9nicfs?si=KCLiLQUBRCWLT4Tv3LlpVg