[Dixielandjazz] cycle of 5ths, 4ths

[Robert Reck]

I have found practicing around the circle to be an amazing help.  I am not one of the greats, but I can now play at my level (such as it is) in all twelve keys....  I got the idea from an excellent book by Ed Lisk called "Alternative Rehearsal Techniques".  Ed (an excellent tenor sax player) took what jazz players have been doing with the circle for years and applied it to the concert band.  The book doesn't say anything about jazz... 
 
One day I was giving a bass lesson to a youngster who was in a band who regularly played scales, arpeggios, and any number of patterns around the "circle of fourths".  I had just showed her her first walking pattern and I told her to play it around the circle.  She did, and got it right in all twelve keys the first time.
 
I have been taking licks around the circle ever since.  I later got to ask Ed about it, and he said, "Rob, the whole thing is based on the old jazz circle."  
 
Now, regardless of what you call it, most jazz guys (OKOM or other) will do better to practice in fourths.  That is the way the chords resolve most of the time in OKOM, bepob, pop music, and even western swing.  (Like Am, Dm, G7, C..)  You can add the +9b13 etc if you are a bopper...
 
Later I heard him call it the "row" of fourths in a clinic, probably so he wouldn't have to argue with folks about whether it was a circle of fifths or fourths....
 
Rob "playin' the bass in Tulsa, OK" Reck

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Rob Reck
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