Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Writing a musical - Sorcery at Sea

Last year I had the great pleasure of being part of a team of people in Auroville that put together an original musical. As a collaborative musical effort this was probably one of the most enjoyable and satisfying things I've been a part of. The Video posted below gives a good idea of the work behind the scenes that went into the production. It includes interviews with myself, Paul Blanchflower, who wrote the script and co wrote the music, and Clare Stewart who co wrote the lyrics and was involved in pretty much everything in the project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-OwUqR0aDY



Sunday, August 17, 2014

Practicing Slowly - When you havn't much time

A lot has been written on this subject on the internet by excellent writers and knowledgeable teachers of music, but I felt I had to post something on this subject because it is so important. In fact I would say that if there was one thing I would recommend to any student this would be it. If you want to become better faster - even in a short space of time - practice slowly.

Some weeks ago I was practicing the piano for a concert in which I had to play tunes at a faster tempo than I'm usually able to handle. In the short space of time I had, there wasn't a lot of hope for me to achieve the desired technique, but with several concentrated sessions of slow practice, I was at least able to get to a point where I was relaxed while playing at these faster speeds. I may not having been ripping around all over the piano, but I could play, and I was playing comfortable solos within my limitations. The results were undeniably better than the fumbling, tense improvisations of my previous attempts.

When you are short on time the natural thing to do when you need to improvise on a fast tune would be to crank up the metronome and hope by brute force you'd hit the mark. But does it work? I don't think so. The best you can hope for using this technique are very short term results. Try playing the same solo a few days later and most probably you are back to where you started.

So what happened when I gave those hours to slowly building up the tempo? Starting at a cool medium pace and notching the metronome up every 15 minutes or so. Suddenly everything was different. I was relaxed, I could see the notes in front of me, I was aware, conscious of the movement of my fingers, my brain had time to make musical decisions, my brain had time to cope with those unexpected twists and lines that come when you improvise, I was rhythmically solid, and I was enjoying the moment... I was making good music!

And when I came back several days later and had to play the same solo again cold? Well... it was ok. It took me time to reach where I was, but I know that it was a lot better than if I had done all that practice at speed. I wasn't starting afresh each time I reached the piano. Body and mind knew it was going in the right direction and with a couple more similar sessions I probably would hit that mark.


Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Piano voicings - 7th chords made easy

Ive been having to do a bit of a refresher these last weeks. I get by reasonably well on piano but since I don't play as much as Saxophone some things slip. Playing through the changes of "All of Me" for a recording I realised that the conventional 7th rootless voicings were not coming out as I would have liked. They were missing some of the fuller, darker quality I usually enjoy in other chords.

I gave it some time and this is what works for me. Here are two simple voicings that work very well. As with most of the things I study, I try to keep things as simple as possible to remember:

1. In the left hand all you need to play is the third and seventh in either inversion. 
2. In the right hand play a stack of three 4ths starting on either the 6th or the 9th.
3. Take a look at the score below to see how.
4. www.noteflight.com/scores/v...


The score was made with www.noteflight.com

Later on this week I'll post on how to make these voicings sound even richer by altering the notes in the left hand.

Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Jazz Hero TV - Jazztutorial on Youtube

I came across this today, a very useful channel on YouTube by pianist Julian Bradley. The videos cover a wide variety of topics and are very well explained. From what I've looked at so far its geared towards beginner and intermediate players and is an excellent and comprehensive resource for students of Jazz piano as well as Jazz theory in general. I will definately be recommending this to my students.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu1yiKjTRetsoZ-OSeOMmzg

For more information have a look at this trailer: