Author: Jan

Je suis cool.

Piano day (2h)

  • Technical
    • Hanon
      • Book 1: 5, 6, 7 + 8
  • Improvisation + Modal studies
    • Haerle — Jazz Improvisation for Keyboard Players, ex. 3 & 4
      • Mixo scales in all keys (improv over shell chords w/ voice leading) around the cycle of 4ths
      • Dorian scales in all keys over minor shells
  • Jazz voicings
    • Major + minor ii — V — Is over IVs with 7th chord arpeggios in the LH (all keys)
    • Major + minor ii — V — Is over IVs with octave stride bass patterns in the LH (all keys)

Bass day (1h 40m)

  • Technical / Experimental
    • Playing Hanon piano exercises on bass! This is awesome!!! (Just #6 from the 1st book)
  • Walking bass
    • Worth the Wait in C, Eb and F (all inversions, 7-1-3-5 permutation)
  • Pick / Rhythm
    • Famous Bass Lines, Line #8: 70 to 90bpm

Observations

WOW!!! I just tried it out of pure curiosity and it turned out to be a completely mind-blowing exercises. The cool things about Hanon exercises are that they all start deep in bass clef (which means you won’t need to bother adapting them for your instrument) and they’re pretty much all in C — which means you can TRANSPOSE THE SH*T OUT OF THEM. And yes, they are absolutely mathematical, and you don’t have to read through the whole sheet once you’ve got the logic. Of course, the coolest thing is that they feel very uncommon (because they’re meant to be played on piano!), and even the simplest could be pretty tricky on bass — both in terms of fingering and harmonically. On the other hand, transposing them on piano is a huge P. I. T. A., whereas on the bass you can do it pretty much on the fly once the pattern is clear! Yuppie! Okay, so I’m going to do it every time now, just like I do on piano — and we’ll see how it goes!