Left hand + shells
- Descending major 10ths workout (10-5-1 + 6-7)
- Only LH
- With RH: 7-3-5 shells
- With RH: alternating shells of same chord (7-3-5 to 3-6-9 or 3-7-9) — octave jump
- With RH: connecting descending shells (cycling 7-3-5 to 3-7-9)
Left hand + modal studies
- Lydian DNA (Imaj7 — II7) in all keys
- Blocks
- LH: 1-5-10-6’-7’ | 1-1’, RH: 7-3-5 shell | 1 octave scale run
Left hand + scale studies
- Major blues scale recap (LH: broken 10ths, harmonic 5ths and 6ths)
Reading + analysis
- Fascinating Rhythm by George Gershwin (first 4 bars, then quick improv over LH pattern) — Exercise #14 from Jazz Piano: The Left Hand book
Observations
I haven’t been practicing too much bass during the last months, as I’m trying to focus in on left hand on piano, but recently I picked it up late at night and simply did some walking over a jazz standard. Then some inversions. Some permutations. Some arpeggios. All that stuff that I though I’ve had enough of. One big takeaway from that? Wanna get excited about seemingly boring material like scales, arpeggios and reading on your instrument? Simply practice another one for a month or so (completely ignoring the first one), and I swear you’ll start CRAVING it! 😂
Black Hole Piano 