elwoods

[elwoods]

Hi David. I totally agree, I am working mainly on full voicings, the other stuff just helps me get the notes of each key under my grip, and is speeding up me finding the voicings.

As per my comment on my practice with lead sheets, playing the LH Sudnow voicings and only melody in RH once through before launching into the arrangements is because sometimes I get lost finding the full voicings and lose where I am concerning the melody, and hearing the chords in LH and melody gives me a better feel for the song. That was my reasoning anyway. I’ll try just jumping in.

thanks

[elwoods]

Hey David, you make a great point. One that perhaps I take for granted, for I have found that a physical approach, through lots of repetition and exercises leads to quick departs into rhythmic play and improv, both provoking “mistakes” but also flow, allowing both to exist is the key.

As that is my go to mode, I’m taking strides (pun intended) to really practice clean both stride and RH scales up 3 octaves in all 12 keys. Some still make my head hurt, so slow and goal is to not make mistakes on that. It’s a change for me, slowing down. Very worth it as it makes me very attentive and not muscle memory…. today was harder than yesterday, but still better than 3 days ago, I’ll take that.

The site is great. I spend a lot of time listening to the piano chats, songs, newsletters, etc. A great job and a hell of a lot of value. And some great playing. Thanks for the effort of keeping this available.

[elwoods]

RE-seeing scale patterns. This has helped.

Great topic and great ideas. Thanks David.

I’m back in this space after quite a few years of absence. I really dug it at the time, but I was also concentrating on new orleans style piano and got sidetracked. On both really, and dropped the piano once again after a lot of work and not happy with my results. (I could play ok, with a lot of practice, but if there were a few days absent from practice, and if I was somewhere where there was a piano, I couldn’t remember the notes very well—– must have been more muscle memory than knowledge.) I’m mainly a guitar player.

Reading this post, on the importance of scales, I started doing simple stride left hand (Root, 7th&3rd, 5th, 7th&3rd) while doing corresponding scale up two octaves at least and down with right hand. Very very slowly so I make no mistakes –it’s painfully slow in some keys— but the way the site is set up now, I went through a lot of the original seminar and his comment on not making mistakes really hit home (I always hit wrong notes).

Great practice. Still hard to see the scale patterns so I can easily improvise without mistakes BUT I came across something else which really helped this morning, both in playing the scales, seeing the patterns, and improvising notes while striding with my left –which I could never do before.

In Piano Chat 3, “Hanon and technique” near the end he mentions an exercise taught to him by Ritchie Beirach, in key of B, thumb on B, index and middle on #C #D at same time, thumb passes under, E, index, mid, ring hit the next 3 black keys, thumb pass under, etc etc. Pretty cool.

So I tried doing this in some of the other keys, and it really started to help me see the patterns. SO then I started doing the stride left for Misty -which I’ve totally forgotten and can’t play- (Root, 7th, 3rd -corresponding to chord type) and did that exercise for the key of Eb, starting on the root of the chord. Real slow, more just to see the patterns and play with that, while simple left stride, and it seemed to make a big difference for me. Plus you have to change for the minor chords, so that’s good too for the brain. From there to improvising simple lines for the chord is a lot easier.

Next is to try the stride closed chord ressource, while doing the same thing. For now, 7ths and 3rds are enough.

Then, only going up to the first bD (sill Misty), to engrain the voicings in my head, I’ve been going up and down a semi-tone, to really understand what is going on. Again very slow.

I also tried arpeggios of RH voicings, as Sud mentions in that Pianochat, which is a movement similar to the Beirach technique (compared to Hanon) he says. That too is very good for remembering the notes and chord tones.

All in all, very happy and excited to be back, working again on dear ole Misty, look at me.

cheers
Elwood

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