Timucua Arts Foundation

Designed for classroom or individual study, Jazz in Seven Minutes a Day is a comprehensive and methodical approach towards building facility, phrasing and vocabulary in the jazz idiom. The course is designed as a daily practice routine of scales, arpeggios, phrases, and a unique approach to sight reading that will prepare you for life on the bandstand.

Clinics available with Benoit Glazer, composer, trumpeter, and former music director of Cirque du Solei’s La Nouba (over 8000 performances).

There are 36 weekly lessons, each with 6 daily practice sessions for every lesson. They vary from 5 minutes to 8 minutes or so. A few lessons have a theory concept, but most lessons contain four parts:

The scale page should be played slowly at first, and sped up every day that you practice the lesson. I would not try to swing these. Subtle accents and a fluid sound will make them buoyant and interesting to listen to. Here we concentrate on one tonal center for the whole lesson, going down the circle of fifths each week.

The II-V-I page can swing, and should also be started slowly and sped up as the week progresses. Here we visit all 12 keys every week with a different pattern.

The dots page is meant to be used as a reading as well as a phrasing exercise. Use the included video or audio files or make up your own, and make sure there are rests built in. A new figure with a different number of notes should be used every day. By changing the pattern often, one also insures that the dots experience will be different every time you repeat the same page.

The chorale is also meant to be played with a rhythm as a call and response exercise.