Technique:
- White note scales: Worked them up from 82 -> 86 bpm. It's getting better, sometimes I just hit the right notes without even paying attention to it...
- Major scales: Worked from 95 -> 100 bpm
- Major modes: worked from 89 -> 95 bpm
- Melodic minor modes: I'm now playing 2 keys everyday at tempo 60 bpm. I play one key untill I can play all the degrees in one take through without making any mistakes.
- Arpeggio's: I started also with playing all kinds of arpeggio's. I'm doing all arpeggio's in 12 keys and this takes about 15/20 minutes. I made 3 groups of exercises:
- Triads: maj, min, aug, dim -> playing it at tempo 80 bpm
- seventh chords basic: maj7, min7, min/maj7, dom, maj6, min6, halfdim., dim. -> playing them now at tempo 71 bpm
- seventh chords more difficult: maj7b5, maj7#5, dom7b5, dom7#5 -> now at tempo 61 bpm
I'm now playing about 1 hour of 'single' line technique each day. I'm not thinking about making music, but I feel that I really have to connect with the instrument fysically. It still feels that I sometimes can't be free to play stuff that I hear because of lack of technique. I'm really trying to structure this hour to build my technique gradually. I practice with metronome and when something feels comfortable I increase the tempo by 1 bpm. So this is hardly a difference, but I think this is the way to gradually increase my technique and speed.
I guess I'm gonna try to get some 4-mallet technique stuff going. I'm gonna think about how to structure that...
What else?
- Preparing for gigs 25/26th of august
The other gig is on vibes with a funk/jazz group and they play all kinds of odd-meter stuff. 11/8, 7/8, 5/4 etc... Also not the standard 2-5-1 changes, so this is a challenge! I also learned that stuff by heart so this took a lot of practice time this week. I'll try to record the gig and post some audio on here.
Because of these gigs I didn't have a lot of time to practice other stuff, so that's a little disorganised at the moment... What I have been doing is:
- Green Dolphin Etude: I played it a couple times through at tempo 65 bpm
- Don't Get Around(only in original key):
- Played it monophonically
- comping melodically
- soloing
- recorded the two milt solo's (see links below)
- Practiced soloing on Blue Bossa(I also started transcribing the milt solo on the album Big 3!)
- Practiced I loves you porgy chord changes
There is one thing that I think I should do more, but I still don't... PLAYING SONGS IN 12 KEYS!! This is still hard. It's easy for me to play only melody or only chords in 12 keys, but when I put that together I get lost and have to think hard and take it slow. This takes a lot of concentration and so takes a lot of energy... But I'll just go and DO IT!!
Next week I have a trio gig on wednesday, so that's gonna be nice. So after the weekend I will be working on that repertoire only! So from thursday I'll pick up the old practice stuff.
Let me know if you have questions and what you think!
cu
Tjaco
