Attacking Bebop

Had a mini-revelation last night; it was getting late, maybe 1.30am and I was practicing licks over a ii chord when a phrase that I had practiced more than a 3 months ago from Joe Gilman's practice sheet sort of lept into my head. I had only practiced this phrase a few times, hadn't even transposed it over all 12 keys but for some reason I felt my fingers pulling in a certain direction and as they played the notes, my mind was following-I didn't hit the phrase perfectly on the first try, it took me 3 or 4 run-throughs before I was satisfied that I was playing it correctly, but it's amazing how my ear could still feel out the phrase well enough to tell whether or not I was on. At certain moments, I could almost hear it. Current strategies for attacking improvising and improving my ear to build a foundation for playing in the bebop idiom are as follows:

-Ear training: (sing and playing)

• -arpeggios (major7th, minor7th, dominant7th, halfdiminished, diminished)
• -arpeggios with chromatic approach (above and below)
• -arpeggios with diatonic approach (above and below)
• -partner ear training exercises
• -diatonic and chromatic tone recognition

-Licks:

• -transcribe and transpose one chord/bar phrases from recordings
• -transpose selected licks from phrase books

-Modal:

• -transpose 2- note patterns chromatically, singing along when possible

-Songs:

• -learn melody and bass lines first, sing them
• -improvise over bass notes
• -listen in time