Jazz Club

 
A while ago I was talking jazz with ConcreteDog.
I was trying to work out which scales go with which chords when playing Smooth Jazz. ConcreteDog is very helpful and suggested that I get the iReal b app which a lot of jazz musicians use.
At the time I thought it was a bit expensive for an app which taught you how to play jazz songs which one downloaded from a forum. I guess I wasn't concentrating that day and didn't buy the app. About a month or so later I had another look and thought that at least I could learn something by playing other people's songs so I took the plunge.
The app has lessons for you to practice jazz standards and chord progressions and one can indeed download tracks from the forum but what makes this app so outstanding for me is that it has an editor with which one can enter chords and have them played in just about any jazz style at any tempo. Suddenly I'm writing stuff that sounds like jazz and for me that's all I ever wanted.
Now, this would be a decent recommendation for an app if I left it there but iReal b has a killer move. Once I've entered my chords, set a tempo and chosen a style I can export the whole thing as a MIDI file straight into Cubasis where I can re-voice the tracks and add my own embellishments. How good is that.
One final trick up iReal b's sleeve is that it will suggest scales that work with my chords and I can then use those to create melodies.
I've only just started messing with this process and I know I'm going to have fun and get the results I've longed for so thank you ConcreteDog, it is and always be a pleasure to mine your vast knowledge.