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Seven years ago today
Wednesday, 3 July 2002
E-mail from Skip letting me know that Kate heard and liked the finished album tracks. I’ve still not heard them myself. I guess I’ll be getting a copy along with everyone else in August.
Eight years ago today
My blisters reached a head during morning combo rehearsal, so that on the last song I had to play basslines on the bottom of the piano. I caught Lynn Seaton after lunch and he advised me to buy some Johnson & Johnson tape and gave explicit instructions on how to wrap my fingers to protect them. I made a couple modifications, adding a band-aid over the blister to give a bit of padding, but his strategy works great. I can now play without any discomfort. Perhaps my fingers will have developed enough to enable me to play without tape on Friday.
One bit of conflicting advice from Lynn and Rufus: Lynn said don’t break the blisters and Rufus said to break them immediately. Going on memories from junior high, I decided to go with Lynn’s advice.
Masterclass with Rufus, and ended up sitting with him at dinner. He asked if I was studying with anyone, and I told him that I was studying with Greg Sarchet. He told me about meeting Greg many years after his attendance at an earlier Aebersold camp and asking Greg what he was doing and discovering that he was the principal bassist with the Lyric. Rufus was astonished and said that Greg was probably the camp attendee who had gone the farthest with his music of all the bass players who’d been there.
Tuesday, 3 July 2001
Louisville: First listening class today. Do I really want to sit through an hour a day of minor or major? Theory continues to be interesting. It’s been helpful that I have my flute in my bag as I can pull it out when we’re supposed to play through some of the scales. With everyone a little out of tune with everyone else it sounds like grade school band practice. I’ve met one of the flute players here, Todd Yampol (I hope I got that right). He really likes being one of a handful of flute players, especially given that the rest are all flute teachers (he’s a doubler from sax).
Random blast from the past
And it turns out that Kevin O’Brien who will be hosting the CHaT showcase on Wednesday was part of the ensemble as well. Small world.
Finished the lyrics for Salvation at a Discount.
Sunday, 22 July 2001
Well, that was fun. I finally took up Alex’s long-standing invitation and took my basses to St Teresa to play the 6p mass. Even though I’ve not played bass guitar since June, I was very much on, and was playing some of the nicest basslines I’ve hit ever. I credit the jazz camp.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009.
Guitar practice: “Salvation at a Discount” sounds pretty good. Or at least the guitar playing. I’m starting to focus now on breath control while I play. The blues stuff is still being a bit challenging, but it’s beginning to sound ok. I’ve decided to go ahead and add the next exercise into my practice repertoire next time around.
Piano practice: It’s been a ridiculously long time since I last sat down at the piano. But once I got past my creaky fingers, I was playing reasonably well. Song #3 in the Green Gather is in E, which is a nice challenge, dealing with playing with four sharps (my comfort zone tends towards the flat keys). The verses of the piece are some huge rolled chords with tenths or bigger in the left hand, which will be a fun thing to work on developing. If I can be a bit more timely in getting back to the keyboard, I should be able to move the bookmark to start with #3 instead of #2.
Sunday, 28 June 2009.
Bass guitar practice today was mostly setting things up so that I could mix my bass with iTunes through the MIO and then a bit of working on the bass line to Paula Cole’s “Feelin’ Love.” This is a great T-Lev bass line, one which really captures the sensual nature of the song, so of course it’s at the top of my long playlist “Bass parts to learn.” I had to cheat a bit to get the bassline, although the bass tab I found was off a lot, but having chords helped sort things out. I really like how Tony plays each phrase on bass leading into the tonic from the fifth. The 5-7-8-7-8 pattern is just amazing. I can see this as an element in writing my own bass lines, doing things where I start on a non-tonic and then resolve to the tonic. I’ll have to record some scratch tracks to practice against for some standard changes to see what I can do with it.
Friday, 26 June 2009.
Guitar practice today. Salvation at a Discount is coming a lot better. I think I’ve resolved the fingerpicking on the C and G chords, and the big weak spot is not the move from fingerpicked Em/G to strummed F#m.
In the blues book, I’ve managed to do pretty well with the left hand, but now my right hand is sloppy. Presumably I’ll have both hands working well on the next practice session and I can move forward in my learning.
Thursday, 25 June 2009.
Some flute practice. My second octave tone is pretty awful still and it’s hard for me to play above G and keep things soft. I’m not advancing past the current lesson until I can do that. In the Trevor Wye practice book, I’m getting a good tone on first octave B so I’m doing the second first octave tone exercise, playing notes down to C.
Monday, 22 June 2009.
A bit of guitar practice today. Still struggling with that 2-7 stretch. I comfort myself thinking that the author of the book was probably expecting readers to be playing electric guitars with shorter scale length, but it’s good practice. I’m also working on technique for muting a string so I can play the seventh across a mute D string.
Printing up words and chords for Salvation at a Discount made a difference, but I need to be careful with some left hand technique on that one.
Sunday, 21 June 2009.
Made it to the Pax Christi mass in the first time in what seems like forever. Played reasonably well.
Thursday, 18 June 2009.
A bit of guitar practice in today. I worked through the first two examples in the blues guitar book that I have. The 2-7 stretch on the B7 chord is a bit rough, so I’m going over that, but the initial E shuffle was something I was able to get through alright. I also tried to play through “Salvation at a Discount” but found that I had forgotten the chords on the bridge and some of the words. I do also need to work on breath support while singing to keep from going flat.
Friday, 5 June 2009.
Went to the Tenth and California open mic with Nalleli. It’s a pretty low key event in a church basement. Not very many performers (we arrived a bit late, but I’d guess that including the MC and a jam band for the closing there were 5 or 6 tops). I’d also guess that the median age of the audience was at least double that of the performers. Still, even though I’m old enough to be most of the other performers’ dad, I think I might re-enter performance at this event. It seems relatively low-key and supportive.
Sunday, 31 May 2009.
I got a little bit of piano practice in today. Even though I’m not practicing anywhere as regularly as I should be, I’m managing to feel some improvement in my playing. If I were actually disciplined about practicing, I could be good.
Sunday, 24 May 2009.
Did a bit of flute practice today. Feh. My tone is pretty weak and I’ve lost what little ability I had to play softly in the third octave. I pulled out the Trevor Wye book and the Flute Omnibus. With Wye, I’m not going much beyond playing long tones on B. With the Omnibus, I decided that I should go back to Book 2 to re-approach playing lower notes.