Practicing from 8 AM today!

• Warmup in E major :
  • Scalar Patterns
  • Ear Training : 3rds and 4ths in key
  • Blowing on II-V and III-VI-II-V
• Tunes :
  • Recorda Me
  • Up Jumped Spring
  • Valentino (original)
  • Along Came Betty
• Chords : 1st inversion triads
  • Trying many voicings
  • Playing all diatonic chords in C major
  • Hard stuff.
• Triad Pair : F-G
  • Many exercises
  • Trying to apply in modal context
  • total train wreck…
• Slominsky
  • #14 to #21 backwards
• Playing fast blues w/metronome
  • click as “quarter time”
  • attained at good 276 BPM for blowing
  • clean phrases and ideas
  • yeah!

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Played a nice trio session with two musicians I respect dearly. We played a few standards and many originals. The session was also a great learning experience because of some rhythmic ideas we worked on (metric modulations…) My sincere thanks to : Clinton Ryder and Mark Nelson.

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At night : teaching + drinks with friends.

Today’s Practice :

Trying to apply some Lee Konitz concepts. He uses the melody of the song as a springboard to creating meaningful improvised lines (before completely forgetting about the whole “theme” of song and blowing scales and arps…)

I’m improvising slowly on familiar standards and try to make sense of all this …

• All the Things
  • @52 metronome as 2&4

• If I Should Loose You
  • @52, then @104 (as 2&4)

• Days of Wine and Roses
  • @52, then faster (as 2&4)

Wow! Sounds and feels great. That’s new territory for me.

Later :

Practicing and recording Solo in Bb from A Modern Method Vol.3

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Gig @ Night. Trio with Clinton. Had a great time, as usual (and an even greater time because I was mostly improvising on the melody, not just “reinventing the wheel” each time!)

… a few beers surely helped!

(-;

(tomorrow’s my birthday)

I woke up late, still soaked in yesterday night’s conversations… and beer. It doesn’t matter too much because I started working on stuff right out of the bed.

I started with editing and uploading new videos for JazzGuitarLessons.net, then I answered many emails and took care of various businesses…

I’m going to the movies with the girl later so I’ll have to make a “quickie” practice right now (to get a few good hours of playing before we leave!)

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What I practiced : nothing (!)

Suprisingly, I did “other” important stuff.

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Movie was good : The Men Who Stare at Goats…

Around 11 PM I finally picked up the guitar to do some practicing on Bach Two Part Inventions for almost two hours straight! (before collapsing into my bed!)

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It really was a “Lazy Tuesday”

No particular plan today. I wish to let it unfold as naturally as possible. I think I know what I have to do and trust that it will all happen in today’s session.

• Kenny Werner Steps 1-2-3 (step 3 over C blues)
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• Improvisation and investigation : diminished scale applied to a dominant b9 chord.
  • With play-a-long (unfortunately). Dom7th b9 in all keys. Play through the whole cycle 4 times (each time focusing on a different triad, related to the root by either unison, minor 3rd up or down and tritone.)
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• Solar from the Miles Davis album Walkin’.
  • Played first solo with album 4 times. Got it 95%. Missing some articulations
  • Working on first improvised chord of second soloist (alto sax, what’s his name again?)
    • Sax being sax, there are a few hard lines in there! (phrasing-wise…)
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• Ted Greene’s Modern Chord Progressions p.24.
  • I played through the entire pages of 8 progressions. (I already knew 4 of them more of less)
  • The chords sound great. They’re all built around scalewise root movement (Cmaj Dmin Emin etc.) or scalewise bass motion using inversions (Cmaj Dmin C/E etc.)
  • Just discovered a new technique for the last progression on p24. It the “slant bar” of the index finger. I’m playing the 10th fret on the big strings with the tips of my index… it’s slanted so much that I can play the 9th fret on the little strings. Like this (try it on higher frets) :

Ted Greene is a real maniac…

So that’s over 2 hours of solid practicing right there. I need to grab some fresh air. at that point. I’m teaching on Skype in a few hours… I think I’ll go get some Perrier and bananas. Grocery store is still my favorite distraction!

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Practiced the song Like Someone In Love. I never really learned it deeply. It’s a beautiful ballad, check out Coltrane. After that, I went teaching yet another great lesson on Skype. I’m very grateful to have good students like this!

At night, I also taught 2 hours at a music school. It was “ladies’ night” : 3 new students, all women!

Then I relaxed @ home and had a few beers.

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Good little day of practice / teaching. Approx 50% / 50% ration between showing me how to play and showing them how to play!

It’s late. I’m tired and worked too much on the computer for the last 3-4 days. (I know it’s worth it though.)

I want to go to bed right now but I still have to change my guitar string before the bed… I want them to be fresh and well tuned for my lesson with JS Williams tomorrow.

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I’m tired because of the light-medium partying I did last night with Pierre… just didn’t sleep enough and had a few beers.