Saturday

20 Minutes Grade 3 Jazz Piano scales - mainly trying to nail that pesky D minor pentatonic.

20 Minutes making a start on Footprints. I felt I needed some fresh material and a new challenge. I worked slowly through the first 20 bars.

20 Minutes Bergonzi: On The Brink using 1235/1345 working with the click from 60-96 bpm

Friday

45 Minutes on the practice pad working on Bill Bachman singles and Alan Dawson's Rudimental Ritual.

Tried our some verrryyy nice (and verrry expensive) cymbals this afternoon...

20 Minutes Scales - The fingering for D Minor Pentatonic over two octaves with both hands together still a sticking point... yes you read correctly - I suck.

20 Minutes Bergonzi Assignment 1 - Lady Duck along to CD, On the Brink along to click.

Tiring Thursday

Drums:

1 hour practising looser time and solo ideas inspired by some of Adam Nussbaum's playing I listened to yesterday.

30 Minutes - Bill Bachman Singles

I may be too tired for Piano tonight - I'll catch up tomorrow and at the weekend.

Return of Lazy Wednesday

20 Minutes Scales:

Jazz Grade 1-3 scales up to and including D minor pentatonic over two octaves - another tricky fingering.

20 Minutes:

New Grade 3 piece - Neat Feet by Michael Garrick. First 8 bars at 60bpm

20 Minutes:

Improvistation practice. Jerry Bergonzi Assignment 1 - Lady Duck along to CD. The turnaround is much more comfortable today.

Went for a massive walk whilst listening to two Michael Brecker CDs. The combination of a great day and some fantastic music put me in a very good mood :)

20 Minutes scales - I need to nail D minor pentatonic over two octave with both hands together!

I like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubgLFD-gTm8

20 Minutes More Bergonzi working through Tune 2 "On the Brink"

Tuesday

Drums:

Bill Bachman Singles as a warm-up.

1 hour trading fours with myself trying to improvise with variations of the licks I practised 1000 times each last week.

Piano:

20 Minutes Scales - concentrating on the different fingerings for B flat Lydian and F Major.

20 Minutes 'Swing Fun'

Back into the swing of things (I hope!)

I've had a very hectic few weeks - lots of work, trips away, weekend and evening work, rehearsals, gigs, family dinners etc... I'm looking forward to a more 'normal' week.

Drums:

30 Minutes trading 4s, 8s, 12s with myself (alternating time playing and soloing)at a variety of tempos trying to improvise lots of variations of the Steve Gadd ratamacue lick.

Piano:

20 Minutes:

Warm-up with Jazz Grade 1 quick studies.
Swing Fun - all written sections at 60bpm apart from the tricky descending chromatic run in bars 22 and 23. I tried this at 40bpm and it still wasn't quite comfortable. I've now bought the Jazz Grade 4 book too so I'm hoping to finish Swinf Fun asap to get stuck into that.

20 Minutes:

Jazz Grade 3 scales. Quick run through G Dorian and C mixolydian and then concentrating on the strange fingering for B flat Lydian.

20 Minutes:

Jerry Bergonzi 'Lady Duck' using 1235/1345 patterns along to slow playalong. This is much better than it was the other day. The only sticking point is the last four bars and that is more of a technique issue than a lack of understanding.

10 Minutes: Running through Fly me to the Moon and Barrelhouse Blues