Quick update

I've been away for a few days so practice time has been limited. I spent about an hour on Friday morning before I set off running through my current four pieces. I did the same thing last night when I got back. I worked in a less structured way than usual - more playing through the material than practising it. This morning I spent about an hour on Wonderful Tonight. This seems to be coming together quicker than the other two Grade 2 pieces. Maybe this means I'm getting better?!

Whilst I was away I bought an excellent biography of Wayne Shorter - Footprints by Michelle Mercer. I've nearly finished it already. Its definitely one of the better musician biographies that I've read (and I've read a whole bunch of them!)

I'm still listening to a lot of the first Brecker CD and it is fast becoming a favourite.

I've also been reading and toying with some of the sections in John Novello's Contemporary Keyboard Player. The improvisation chapters are based mainly on exercises Novello worked on with the enigmatic Charlie Banacos. I'm not expecting to become the next Bill Evans any time soon but its always fascinating to learn more about different approaches to improvisation.

(Almost) A week on....

I can't believe it has been nearly a week since my last blog entry. Although I haven't been spending much time blogging I have managed to get quite a few hours of practice in!

Today I spent about an hour at the piano:

20 mins - Bob Mintzer Etude 1. I concentrated on the second half of the piece, particularly the right hand part. I can now just about get through the whole thing at a modest 40 bpm.

20 Mins - Reinecke. I am now running the whole piece through at five metronome markings per session. Last time I ran from 40bpm up to 48. Today was 42bpm up to 50 and so on. I run the piece several times at each tempo (trying not to look at my hands so much.)

10 Mins - Scales. A, D and G major with both hands together over two octaves. I'm still finding this tricky!

10 Mins - Biehl piece at five tempos from 76 up to the marked tempo of 92.

Tomorrow is probably my last Wednesday off as my teaching is starting to pick up. I intend to make the most of it by getting stuck into a third Grade 2 piece and trying to work the full Mintzer Etude up to speed.

15 Minutes Composition - I intend to go through some of the exercises in the Ted Pease Jazz Compositon Theory and Practice. I did a lot of this earlier in the year but I'm a bit rusty so I need to get back into the swing of things.

I've clocked up a fair bit of drum kit practice recently. This feels good but I still want a set of Roland V Drums to practice on at home!

A new CD arrived in the mail today courtesy of Amazon. I've been on a bit of a Michael Brecker trip recently so I ordered his first album. I'm especially enjoying the tune "Choices" which I used to play in a band ten years ago when I was at college. Its nice to hear it played properly!