Friday

Only one more day of 'proper' work til the Summer Holidays, I still have a few gigs, rehearsals, private teaching and a trip to Switzerland before I'm fully off but all of that stuff is more fun than the daily grind.

I spent about 40 minutes today working on Yo Me Songo. I'm going to try and book myself into rehearsal space fairly regularly over the Summer in order to supplement my practice pad work and keep things moving forward.

Thursday

Got to work early and spent 40 minutes working on Yo Me Songo slowly along to Sibelius at minim=60, 63, 66, 69 I finished up by trying it along to the CD to see how far I need to go with this. The answer? Very far!

Some more of the diploma music arrived today. It looks... meh... not so good.

Hoping to do some piano this afternoon too. Watch this space!

Wednesday

Piano:

30 minutes sight reading. Note to self - I need to do a lot more of this!
30 minutes Bergonzi On The Brink - 5 permutations 84-100bpm

Drums:

30 Minutes - Yo Me Songo

I've made up a little practice pad set to work on some of my new diploma stuff at home. I programmed Yo Me Songo bassline plus clave into Sibelius yesterday so I spent half an hour working on the first section. I'm trying to memorise the material as I go along and also seem to be latching on to the 'in the cracks' feel (neither straight nor swung) to make the patterns sound a little more Cuban and a little less English!

Busy Few Days!

The last few days have been hectic:

Thursday - Work, gym, gig
Friday - Work, rehearsal
Sat - Youth Band rehearsal, rehearsal, gig til v late
Sun - Youth band rehearsal, gig
Monday - Work, private lessons, gym, sleep!

I actually have a little time off in the next few days so I hope to get some more practice done. Since looking into the diploma I have started working on my uptempo jazz playing as one of the pieces is a rather swift 300bpm.
I ordered 'Funkifying the Clave' which contains two more tunes from the repertoire list. It arrived on Sat so I have flicked through it and listed to the CD a few times. I had some spare time at work yesterday afternoon so I programmed a bass Tumbao into Sibelius and practiced some of the basic patterns from the Songo chapter of the book and then ran through the different sections of the piece 'Yo Me Songo'
At the moment I am working at a VERY slow tempo!

Piano:

20 Minutes Scales
20 Minutes Beginning to see the light. A quick run through and then working on tricky areas.
30 Minutes Bergonzi. All permutations @ 72, 76, 80bpm