More Doug McKenzie

In case it is easier, or you prefer to watch some of the vidoes from Doug's site online there are many posted on you tube, and they have been listed at http://www.pianologist.com/.

http://pianologist.com/piano-videos/learn-jazz-piano-playing-from-doug-mckenzie-at-youtube/

Pianologist looks a very nice site too. Lessons, transcriptions and videos.... Just watching a clip from one of my favourite pianists Dave Newton.

Chromatic warmup

Here is a little warmup I have been working on recently. I have found it useful for both the fingers, as well as warming up the feeling and sense of rhythm before tackling other things. I usually start quite slow, maybe 100bpm and gradually increase. As the metronome is kept on the 4th beat only I had to download a program that could play slow enough as my normal one only goes as low as 40. I use weird metronome as you can program it to play anything you like. Of course this type of exercise is open ended, and can be applied to scales or other patterns as well as different accent and rhythmic variations.

http://www.pinkandaint.com/weirdmet.shtml

Advanced saxophone lessons

Here is a great blog I just found dedicated to saxophone techniques and improving your playing. The site is written by Andy Hampton author of "Saxophone Basics"

http://advancedsaxophonelessons.blogspot.com/

Choosing a new sax

A student of mine recently sent me a mail about choosing a new saxophone. In my research i found this very useful site on the web.

http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk/Reviews/Pro_saxes.htm

shwoodwind.co.uk is an excellent site with lots of information and reviews as well as sound :-) advice on buying the right sax.

blanksheetmusic.net

As an addition to the previous post here is the link for another useful site regarding free score making tools. This online tool doesn't actually allow you to input notes but is a program for setting up and printing your own blank score layouts. It's quick and easy to choose any number of staves, clefs, keys and lines by clinking on the relevant icons. It even comes with a flash tutorial to help you out.

www.blanksheetmusic.net

Summertime

Ok, so this is it. It's been a while since Ive managed to post because of my hectic schedual the last month or so. Now finally summer is here - at least in India that is - and I'm back to working on my music. First up is composing as I really would like to be playing new material next year. I'm not very good with notating scores on the computer so I also decided to write up all my existing pieces. Less complaints now hopefully about my writing from other musicians!

Anyway, was browsing the web and found this very useful site for free music software. www.making-music.blogspot.com has an extensive list of what is available out there including free notation software. I downloaded Finale notepad 2008 and was quite impressed. It certainly has it's limitations and is a bit fiddly (took me an hour to get 4 bars per line) but otherwise it's a good program available for free.