Update week 34

Ok, here's an update of the last week of practicing. From now on I'm gonna try to post a detailed update every week to get it a little more organised.

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:

1. Triads: maj, min, aug, dim -> playing it at tempo 80 bpm
2. seventh chords basic: maj7, min7, min/maj7, dom, maj6, min6, halfdim., dim. -> playing them now at tempo 71 bpm
3. seventh chords more difficult: maj7b5, maj7#5, dom7b5, dom7#5 -> now at tempo 61 bpm

note about technique:
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

I have two nice gigs this weekend on a big festival in Amsterdam. One is with a brazilian/pop band. I actually play drums on this gig, but I wanted to learn the tunes by heart so I had to put some time into that this week
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):

1. Played it monophonically
2. comping melodically
3. soloing
4. 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

The milt solos:

• solo 1
• solo 2

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

What's Up?

Quiet around here.

comping

yo!

I posted an mp3 on comping for you. Just turned on the recorder and played and talked a little. Should give you some ideas. There’s some BS in there. It’s hard to just comp and attempt to be creative on the fly. I think though I make my point.

If you want to get notifications of this blog...

If anyone out there wants to get emails on updates on this blog, please send me an email and I'll add you to the mailinglist!

My email: info@drumusician.com

Let me know...

Tjaco

two new songs

I transcribed two new songs. The first one is I Loves You Porgy and it's from Tony's Philly Five record. The other one is from Bag's meets Wes: S.K.J.

I Loves You Porgy --> I'm not sure about the second half of the bridge...??
S.K.J. --> The changes for the solos are a little different from the head, I hope I got it right...?

Here are the files:

1. I Loves You Porgy
   
2. S.K.J.

Let me know what you think, Tony

Don't Get Around Duets + All Blues idea

Here are two duets of Don't Get Around. The first one I recorded and played along with, sorry about the distorted left channel... The second one I played seperately with a click and then put them together.
I also worked on an idea for All Blues. I have played it a lot as a 4/4 funk version(on drums that is...) So I'm working on getting a 4/4 groove on vibes for the trio gig I'm doing(with sax and bass). It's actually only G7 that I'm playing. I'm probably gonna play something like this as an intro. I still have to work out something for the theme.

Here are the files:

Don't Get Around 1
Don't Get Around 2
Myxolydian sketches...

two recordings

Here are two mp3's of me playing.

The first one is a slow version of the Green Dolphin etude, not very good, but I made it through...

The second one is me playing solo(out of time) on some changes. There are some spots that I thought were ok, so I decided to put it up here. If you can guess the tune, that means I'm doing ok...right?

1. green dolphin
2. soloing on...

I'm gonna record a duet version of Don't Get Around and upload it tomorrow.