Its all gone quiet...

I listened to another favourite album today on the way to work - John Coltrane's Blue Trane. The sleeve notes contain a receipt which shows that I bought this in April 1996, a few months before I started the Jazz Studies course at Leeds College of Music. I have spent countless hours listening and playing along to this recording and still hear new things with each listen. I enjoyed it so much I listened to it again on the way home before checking out Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil.

When I arrived at work I had a brief 15 mintes practice pad time so I sung a tune to myself (Blue Trane at slower tempos and Locomotion at quicker ones) and Practised triplets playing a chorus each of Single Strokes, Double Strokes, Paradiddle diddle with one accent and Paradiddle diddle with two accents. I chose these patterns as they are the ones I am using in the solo licks I am currently trying to work into my vocabulary. I started at 100 bpm and worked up to 220bpm in increments of ten. By the time my first student appeared I felt sufficiently warmed up!

Piano practice today as been an hour of the Bach piece (four 15 minute blocks.) I'm playing through the entire piece over and over at 40bpm and making fewer mistakes now. To finish off my session I tried playing the whole thing at 50 and 60 bpm and was pleased to discover that I could do so without sacrificing too much accuracy - an encouraging sign.