Practice Pad

I'm staying with family for a couple of nights so I don't have access to my keyboard at the moment. I did however bring my trusty R-Tom practice pad so I spent a couple of longish sessions using it yesterday. The first hour I ran through Alan Dawson's Rudimental Ritual at a moderate tempo. For those who don't know Alan Dawson was a drummer/teacher in the Boston area who played with many greats including Booker Ervin and Dave Brubeck. He was a very well respected educator having taught Tony Williams before going on to instruct at Berklee for a Loooong time teaching others including Vinnie Colaiuta, Steve Smith, John J R Robinson etc etc. The Ritual is essentially a technique exercise using many many drum rudiments constructed in four bar phrases. It is a great workout and exactly what I need to get my hands back in shape right now.

In addition to the Ritual I spent quite a bit of time playing single strokes and double strokes along to the metronome holding the rolls for a long time (a hundred minim counts) and gradually working up the metronome.

I found it interesting to observe my body while I was playing. I certainly found myself doing a little breath-holding and occasionally tensing up - things which I tend not to do when practising piano. I also considered how one dimensional this kind of pure technique practising really is.

All my idols from Tony Williams to Vinnie Colaiuta and beyond have very good physical skills and this is one thing I have always wanted to achieve for myself. I've always spent a large portion of my practice time working on my hand technique. Having limited access to an actual drum kit I've always been of the opinion that I'd rather spend eight hours working out on a pad than not do anything at all. Recently though I've found myself really aching to spend more and more time just playing on an acoustic set and trying to address all the other important areas of creating music: Time playing, improvisation, motivic development, soloing, interacting with others, reading, coordination, IDEAS etc etc etc. Whilst I am always captivated by performances like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhLXm4LiODQ

... I am usually (well always) bored by performances where the physical performance is superior but the other elements are lacking.

I'm not sure how exactly to remedy this in the immediate future but the comparison with my piano practice has definitely given me some food for thought.

Piano wise: I think I'll pick up the old Grade One piano book today and I may actually get myself a book like the Alfred Adult Beginner Course. Although these books start a little too simply they are a way of getting from A to B in very small, easy to digest steps. The Grade Pieces are very well selected and arranged but the Grade system is an assessment tool and not a curriculum.

Rehearsal, more piano, more stuff

Tuesday's rehearsal went well. I felt a little weird behind the kit at first but by the time we had run through a few things I felt comfortable. We had three deps, all of whom did an incredible job reading through the (quite tricky) tunes and there were some really nice solos too. I am much more relaxed about Sunday's gig now. With the seven piece band I always try and tread a fine line between a) trying to stay out of the way and just create a nice foundation for people to play over and b) trying to really interact, play in the moment and make things happen. Time will tell which one of these approaches I will lean towards on Sunday.

www.myspace.com/alteregoseptet has details of the gig.

I did quite a bit of piano work yesterday. I'm still concentrating on the Kirnberger at a very slow tempo. I'm also running through the other four classical pieces and a few tunes in the ABRSM grade one jazz piano book.

I bought myself a CD of the pieces and found it interesting to hear the tunes played 'properly' for a change. I also had a big look at a lot of piano music yesterday and decided I will try and work through some more Grade One stuff before embarking on Grade Two. I tried to get the 'old' Grade One books yesterday but the shop had sold out so if you're reading this Andy... bit of an exchange?

Kirnberger Minuetto/Herbie Hancock/Stuff

I am starting to make headway with the Kirnberger Minuetto. As I mentioned I feel a bit like I'm starting from scratch again as I'm having to go ultra slow in order to play this music at all. The piece is basically constructed in two eight-bar phrases so I spent some time yesterday working on the first half and this morning I covered the second half. I finally put the whole thing together at crotchet = 30 and then worked up to crotchet = 40. Occasionally I'll stop to play the two hands seperately to work on fingering and also hear the individual lines more clearly. In some respects it is actually harder to play parts of the pieces this way.

This morning I opened my mail and found a leaflet from the Sage Gateshead which informs me that Herbie Hancock will be returning on the 14th November. A little online research told me that it wouldn't be Vinnie Colaiuta on drums this time around - A real shame as I would have loved to see my hero up close again. I'm sure that the band will still be excellent and I'm looking forward to it already.

Yesterday I went to the Cinema to see the new Batman movie. The trailers deeply distressed me - a movie starring Adam Sandler as an Israeli super-soldier who makes a new life in the west as a camp hairdresser with 'hilarious' consequences? A cartoon version of Star Wars? A self referential 'comedy' featuring Ben Stiller as an action hero actor, Jack Black as a comedy actor and Robert Downey Jr as an award winning serious actor... oh and they're making a war film... and Robert Downey Jr is blacked up... in 2008... 2008! I thought that Hollywood had finally run out of ideas until the main feature started and I realised that the Dark Knight contained way way way too many ideas. The film would have been excellent if it were about two hours and eight plot ideas shorter. I envied the childred whose parents took them out of the cinema when they were bored. I am also very surprised that the fim has been given a 12A certificate. It really isn't suitable for children.

Rant over... sigh

Tonight I have a rehearsal with my band Alter Ego:

www.myspace.com/alteregoseptet

We are preparing for a festival gig on Sunday and it will be the first time I have picked up a pair of drumsticks since my last gig. I think this is actually the longest I have ever gone without practising the drums. I'm hoping that the listening and piano playing I've done will see me through. I don't really know why I haven't practised. I have had a strange month, been off work, felt generally down and just needed a break from my normal day to day life for a bit. Its very odd as normally this time of year sees me doing a ton of practice. Hopefully the rest will do me good. Okay - back to the woodshed.

Monday

Last night I spent a few hours playing through a couple of pieces in the ABRSM Jazz Piano Grade One book. The idea was to give myself a bit of a break from the classical pieces whilst improving my reading. I managed to get through a couple of the blues tunes fairly easily. This was quite revealing - I first bought the book a few years ago and had a little look at it but couldn't play more than a few bars of one tune back then.

This morning I started by running through all scales and broken chords. I did a run-through of the four classical pieces I have looked at so far. I then decided to embark on a new piece: a Minuetto by Kirnberger. This seems quite a bit trickier than the material I have covered so far. I felt like I did last Tuesday when I first attempted to play the Duncombe Gavot. I'm having to take it verrrrrry slowly and work a few bars at a time. There are a number of position changes in both hands, quite a few accidentals and also two trills - written as quintuplets with a slightly tricky fingering. A lot to get my teeth into!

The super slow practice always helps me to really feel relaxed and get inside the piece, hearing the way the melodic lines and harmony work. I really appreciate these (seemingly) simple, perfectly constructed pieces.

Sunday

I spent about an hour yesterday trying to play the Vivaldi piece in time with a metronome. Things are definately falling into place here. I feel like I'm getting past the mechanics and into the music now. I was practising this at a modest 60 bpm yesterday but today I have worked it up to 100 bpm. The last eight bars aren't quite comfortable yet - I usually play them correctly but they don't feel like I "own" them yet!

Duncombe's Gavot is coming along nicely. I am playing this at 76 bpm now. The parts are starting to get programmed into my hands and as a result I find myself making fewer errors. Those errors which do ocur are usually down to a lapse in concentration.

I have the Song of Erin up to speed now and am enjoying playing it through.

I have also got Trudging up to speed - this is quite a fun piece to play.

I think I'll try and tackle another piece later on - I had a flick through the Grade Two book yesterday and it looks a little scary so I intent to cover all nine pieces in the Grade One book before diving into the more challenging material.