Thursday practice

2 hours drums - Lots of John Riley stuff.

Rehearsal after work.

No Lazy Wednesday

Had to make up for Mondays missed time today.

Did an hour of John Riley stuff.

I intend to spend a bit of time exploring his regular time - double time approach.

I've also been more aware of my body in recent practice sessions. I notice that I tend to look down a lot (bad) and find myself holding my breath a little (also bad) Oddly I don't seem to do either of these in rehearsals or gigs.

Tuesday

1 hour drums: John Riley stuff.

Another really good rehearsal last night. I'm starting to feel like the practising I've done over the last couple of years is really paying off. I changed the way I approach practising and it has really helped. I now feel like the hours spent in the practice room DO result in improved (and more musical) performance... I didn't always feel this way in the past.

15 Minutes Footprints

15 Minutes Bergonzi On The Brink all permutations 60bpm

Monday

A combination of very minor car problems and my stupidity and lack of mechanical knowledge led to my car going into the garage today and me having to cancel work.

This means I should get a bit of extra practice done.

30 Minutes - Footprints from 80-100bpm with attempted soloing. This is a coordination challenge.

30 Minutes Bergonzi - Lady Duck 5 permutations then mixing it up. Along to slow and then fast playalongs.

30 Minutes Scale workout.

Sunday

30 Minutes Footprints all the way through at 80bpm. No right hand solo... yet.

30 Minutes scales.

The 'just do it' philosophy has led me to try and make contact with a really good piano/jazz improvistation teacher who used to lecture at Leeds. I'm hoping to get occasional lessons from him. I've been thinking of doing this for a while but decided to stop thinking and start doing.

30 Minutes all jazz quick studies Grades 1-3. Its a while since I did any sight reading practice and I was really pleased with how easy this seemed. The improvised sections were comfortable too.

Saturday

30 Minutes Footprints Head plus left hand part for solo at 60-72 bpm. The writen voicings for the solo section are definitely trickier than the ones in the earlier jazz grades. It may take a while to feel comfortable enough to solo freely over the top. That being said... the 'Just Do It' approach always seems to work out in all areas of music and life at the moment.

30 Minutes scales including first 5 Grade 4 ones.

And now... to the Tynemouth Lodge!

Friday :)

I did an hour of drum practice today as it was 'Charity Day' at one of my schools. This meant that students were far too busy being dressed as giant bananas etc to come to drum lessons. I practised the John Riley triple comping exercises working up and then back down the metronome.

Listening: More Chris Potter. I have listened to the whole thing now. Link here:

http://urge2burge.wordpress.com/

When I got in I finally made a start on my reports then hit the piano:

15 minutes Footprints head at 60bpm. There are a few Kramer Voicings (TM) in this arrangement.

15 minutes scales.

20 minutes Bergonzi Lady Duck