It's Autumn so that must mean piano practice...
I say that because I remember that going back to school after the summer holidays often coincided with a new term of piano lessons, and that usually meant piano practice. Or at least thinking about piano practice. Funny how good we become at preparing for or contemplating that which we ought to be doing. I say 'we' although I do, of course, mean 'I'. Having said that, I was just talking to my Barcelona buddy who had just completed a precision strategy for doing the copious amounts of work he has on at the moment. He hadn't quite started the work yet... I likened it to the staggeringly brilliant revision timetables I used to prepare for myself when preparing to revise. Putting the final touches to my revision timetable usually justified a long break, just no revision. I was a bit the same with piano practice.
Anyway, the slight nip in the air has put me in focused frame of mind and I decided to order a couple of jazz piano tutors - that's books, not people, although if you're a jazz piano tutor and fancy popping round, please do. I'm making a sort of determined bid to do some proper piano practice so I can up my jazz piano skills. It feels horribly like preparing a revision timetable and I do, strangely, have quite a lot of jazz theory/exercise/how to practise books already. Just not these ones. Hey, I got an email from jazzwise and it compelled me to purchase. I think I'm what you call a marketer's dream. Anyway, I thought it might give me a little theme to follow through on a bit of a blog push. I can describe how well I'm doing... Hahahahahaha.
Looks like I might finally have a tentative date for recording in November. Just have to finalise the studio, musicians and tunes so it's not entirely in the bag yet but I do have a producer. Hooray.
Oh, and just to keep you up to date, I've now lost 2 stone 6 and a half pounds since I started my weight loss thang in February. Bloody brilliant.
Don't forget to come to The George in South Molton on Friday 26th September for a great gig with Philip Clouts, Al Swainger and Gary Evans. Top band, top venue, top gig.
Rx
Labels: gigs, jazz, piano practice
posted by Rachel at 2:55 PM
2 Comments:
I wonder if you created a weight-loss plan in February.
Interesting that you might have the same philisophy as myself regarding textbooks. Years ago when I was an Engineering student I used to think that just having the books on the shelf would be enough to lead to a path to success. The knowledge would somehow pass to me by osmosis. Sadly it didn't quite work out like that. Hence I got a Third (not cockney rhyming slang).
I've fallen into the same trap with Jazz piano as I've got far too many books. The problem with most of the books is that usually there's a really good example followed by the phrase 'learn in all 12 keys'. Definitely puts a dampener on things...
I have found though that 10 minutes with a guru like Pete Churchill can bring on more progress than any number of textbooks.
Good luck!
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