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.

A pretty usual Thursday (outside of the fact that I was sleepy almost all day!) :

• Practicing very slow stuff :
  • Improvising around the melody to Beatrice
  • Re-learning You Don’t Know What Love Is from yesterday…
• Very fast stuff :
  • Cheryl (Parker tune), head + blow
  • Kept blowing for a long time.
  • Focused, relaxed, yes!

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• Modern Method vol. 3
  • pages 31-33
• Working on Garzone triads
  • major triads slowly
  • some applications to Bb blues
  • trying to resolve my ideas convincingly

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• At Night : trio gig…

This one gig is worth of mention : trio Gilles (that’s me!), Pierre and Phil. We use to play a lot in our second year of university. We called the band Syllogisme (and then later Triologilles). So the little restaurant gig felt like a “reunion tour” to us. The mood and spirit of the music was great. Smiles all around (in the band and coming from customers!)

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)

This is, so far, my only regular gig. (Speaking of which, I remember, same time last year I had 3 or 4 weekly gigs! I didn’t teach much back then but I was waiting tables 2 days a week…)

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It was fun. We played three trio sets (Clinton Ryder – bass and Pierre Haché – drums). My girlfriend and a co-worker of hers had supper and listened to us. Another friend of Pierre also came over for the last set. We seldom play for so many people we know! Our friends excluded, the restaurant was 3/4 full and most customers seemed to have enjoyed the background music.

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This type of gig really is “business as usual”… but something was different for me. With my recent lesson with Jean-Sebastien, I felt energized and creative. I focused very hard for most of the tunes and tried to listen, listen, listen… Improvisation is a lot of fun when your ideas stem from what other musicians play around you; it’s like a game now! And apart from listening with ears with opened, I was getting into very specific details of my own phrasing and articulation. I sounded completely different last night, yeepppeee!

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Repertoire wise, we tried Stablemates which I don’t hear very well… then we tried I Should Care , yet another tune I’m learning right now. Both were ok but I know I need to spend more time refining my perception… and hear the melody/harmony better.

On the good side, we pulled out very decent versions of Alone Together, In Your Own Sweet Way, Girl from Ipanema, amongst other nice things we did.

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All in all, a nice little gig.