Friday

My shiny new stuff is sitting in the house but I won't get to use it until next Tuesday. I have two rehearsals on Tuesday so I'll have a chance to hear how things sound in context.

Piano:

30 Minutes Bergonzi - On The Brink. Five permutations at slow tempos 60-66bpm. My fingers need to catch up with my brain for this

I'm having the ultimate day of drum geek-ery today:

My new issue of Modern Drummer arived in the post, shortly followed by the four DVD set of Modern Drummer Festival 2008. I also spent about five hours completely dismantling, thoroughly cleaning and replacing the heads on my drum kit. Hopefully it will have been worth all the work when I get to play them along with my new cymbals on Tuesday!

New Cymbals...?

I went to one of the local drum shops to try out a few cymbals recently and have arranged to go to their warehouse to pick out a few new toys. Hopefully I will get a new set up in the next couple of days. It won't be cheap but its years since I spent any money on equipment. The set up I have now is really better suited to the loud R&B band I was in a few years back than my current playing situations.

30 minutes: Scale Workout

Looooong walk whilst listening to Michael Brecker's Tales from the Hudson.

30 Minutes Bergonzi - Mixing up permutations on Lady Duck. I tried On The Brink as well but this needs more work!

UPDATE:

I bought new cymbals. I am now poor.

Lazy two and a half weeks day.

Its the first day of my Easter break today. I'm hoping to get a lot more practice, composition and playing done and I should be having first rehearsals with two new bands - a lot to look forward to.

Piano:

30 Minutes scales/arpeggios workout.

30 Minutes Bergonzi - Tunes 3 and 4 with basic 1234/1345 patterns

1 Hour working on an arrangement. I hope to have a few done by this time next week. They are fairly bare bones but I need to get reacquainted with Sibelius!

30 Minutes working on Michael Garrick's Neat Feet which is really starting to come together now :)

I've been taking care of some teaching admin too so its been a fairly full day so far.

Another 90 minutes working on arrangements.

Yesterday's Practice

I only managed an hour today:

30 Minutes Bill Bachman Singles on practice pad

30 Minutes working on some drum ideas for a couple of tunes I intend to work on in one of my new musical ventures.

It was a long day and by the time I got in I just wanted to celebrate my new found freedom from work so I chose red wine over piano practice!

Monday

Things are falling into place in preparation for my Easter break :)

Got a long day tomorrow and then I'm off - plenty of time to relax, practise and prepare for some new musical ventures.

Today:

20 Minutes Scales

3 Hour rehearsal

Sunday

30 Minutes Noodling. I tried playing through some 2-5-1s in verious keys and had a try at comping through a few tunes in the real book.

30 Minutes Scales.

30 Minutes Bergonzi. Lady Duck all permutations along to slow and fast versions on the CD. On the Brink basic patterns along to slow playalong.

1 Hour Composition.