“This is, I think, probably the most beneficial way of thinking about these three improv pillars of Head, Ear, Hand: Say, Sing, Play. Head, ear, hand – say, sing play. So at the head level, you can tell me what is happening. So in a jazz situation, if you go to just a jam session, oftentimes, somebody may say “Alright, let’s play Blue Bossa”. And somebody may say “Yeah, I forgot the chord changes to it”. You want to be able to tell that person what the chord changes are. That, to me, is how I assess the head level. Can you tell me what is happening? And I’m not talking about “Can you give me a detailed harmonic analysis of that Bill Evans solo we just heard?” Just like see that chord? C Major 7th. Can you tell me what the notes of C Major 7th are? CEGB. Great, you’ve passed the head test, okay. You can tell me what’s happening. The next level is Sing, the ear level. Can you sing to me what is going on? And it obviously is not about the quality of your voice or your vocal range. It’s just – can you even just hum the rhythms to me? Can you vocalize in some way? And of course so many jazz musicians do this. Sometimes it can maybe get a bit much, there actually is a bit of an art to doing it. I found that it’s best to sort of just literally hum along because you can do that with your mouth closed. I think sometimes if we actually start singing, it can just sort of overpower everything we’re doing. But if we just literally have our mouth closed and hum it, you know, that can work. So you can sing what’s happening a bit. And then the last level, the Hand level, play. So to me, this is actually the most important element. Head, Ear, Hand are the three pillars. But I’d love for you to walk away distilling that down even more to “Say, Sing, Play”. Head, Ear Hand. Say, Sing, Play.” — Lorin Cohen, Jazz Bassist and Educator → Watch the full episode: https://musicalitynow.com/283