Back In to it

So on Friday I got my Selmer back from having what turned out to be almost an entire overhaul (Sax isn't exactly mine, its the universities, and had been played for a number of years with out a service) Thanks Dirk! It plays great. But I didn't start practice again until Monday, the finger is fine now, a little tender on the nail, but its cool, I can bear it now.

So on Monday I had an almost 2 hour rehearsal with my band for my recital. I felt a lot of ground was covered however it didn't go to well. Lots of work to be done.

This was followed by a 2 hour ensemble class, where a group plays random charts that people bring in. Which is good, and I felt my playing was really average, a bit hit and miss.

The afternoon was filled with finishing my Dexter Gordon Confirmation solo and Hank Mobley Confirmation solo and decided for my Improv exam on Wednesday I'll be learning Dexter's. Its much easier, and more practical to have it ready for Wednesday. I spent a little bit of time playing through the major, melodic minor and harmonic minor modes in 12 keys.

On Tuesday I did my long tones for an hour, I played my major, melodic, harmonic minor scales in 12 keys, and diminished and diminished dominant scales. I then had a really helpful and productive Jam session with a great young Alto player Joe Lloyd, We started with Dear Lord by Coltrane. Joe showed me some great techniques to use over that song that are often employed by Coltrane by more so by Brecker and even more so by Kenny Garrett. It was good, we then played through the Aebersold books All Bird and Sonny Rollins books. This was really good and helpful to be playing and talking through this stuff with an older player from the uni. The Jam went for around 2 hours, really good fun and I got a lot out of it.

That afternoon I went home and spent another 2 hours playing through Confirmation and Have You Met Miss Jones and Dear Lord, about 40 minutes on each tune divided into 10 minutes solo with the metronome on varying the tempos by tiny increments around a set tempo (120, 118, 122, 124, 120 etc). 10 minutes of playing transcriptions with the recording. 10 minutes of playing with the Aebersold and another 10 minutes of work shopping certain chords, or phrases or turnarounds that kind of thing, in particular Miss Jones Bridge, and the dam G#-7 chord, I don't know it just does my head in, its like the one chord that pops up in a tune and makes me flip out every time, I guess its because when I play scales I think Ab Melodic minor, Ab Harmonic, Ab Aeolian, Ab Dorian and so forth and then up pops G# in a chord progression and my mind just freaks but getting there. Confirmation is now sitting comfortable at 220bpm, and Miss Jones at 200bpm.

Wednesday involved a short stint of long tones and scales in the morning before a day of class, as did today.