Category: piano

Piano day (1h 40m)

  • Technical
    • Dohannyi: continuing to try out exercises
    • Hanon: back to book 2
    • 7th chord 2-octave arpeggios: all keys, LH
  • Modal studies
    • Harmonising Mixo with shells in RH & 2-octave stride patterns in LH

Observations

Although Dohannyi looked cool at first, it turned out to be a little too complex for me. Also diminished-based exercises are really very “classical music-y”, and that’s not exactly what I’m going for. Playing that kind of stuff only makes you realise how much you suck in comparison with classical pianists. My goal is essentially jazz comping and more freedom in left hand patterns, so I might not need to go in this direction. This is why I picked up Hanon book 2 again that I put to the side back in 2017, and I must say it felt just right now. So I’ll stick to it for a while and go back to my voicing studies.

Piano day (1h 40m)

  • Technical
    • A Dozen A Day
      • “Stretching”
      • “Going Down Stairs”
      • “Flinging Arms” in all keys
      • “The Push-Up”
      • “Deep Breathing” in all keys
    • Oscar Peterson — Jazz Exercises
      • Exercise No. 1 (recap)
      • Jazz Menuet No. 1 (recap)
      • Tried out some other exercises and decided to use this book only for reading; quite boring, really
    • Hanon (ran a couple of random exercises from memory)
    • Dohannyi: checking out the book
  • Modal studies
    • Harmonising Mixolydian mode
      • LH: stride patterns: 1 — 1st inversion
      • RH: 7-3-5 shells

Observations

It seems like there are a lot of technical exercise books that might not be good for everyone. So it really is useful to take your time and go through some exercises to figure out whether they actually suit your goals. My goal right now is more freedom in left hand, so Peterson unfortunately didn’t work for me (although some minuets are very beautiful, so I’m going to go back to them time after time to practice sight reading). Dohannyi, on the other hand, seems to be my thing — it’s not as boring as Hanon, but technical enough to keep you challenged.

Piano day (1h 40m)

  • Technical
    • A Dozen A Day
      • “Stretching”
      • “Going Down Stairs”
      • “Flinging Arms”
      • “The Push-Up”
    • Oscar Peterson — Jazz Exercises
      • Exercise No. 1
      • Jazz Menuet No. 1
  • Jazz voicings
    • Cycling dominant to minor (+7 to m9)
    • Cycling dominant to minor (7b9 to m7)
  • Modal studies
    • Harmonising Mixolydian mode in all keys with shells (7-3-5 and 3-7-9)
  • Improvisation
    • Cycling minor blues scale in all keys over m7 shells (7-3-5)
      • One octave runs
      • Splitting runs between two octaves (b7, 1, b3 | (8va) 4, #4, 5, b7)

Piano day (1h 30m)

(Back to practice after a 3-day travel.)

  • Improvisation
    • Minor blues scale in all keys (over m7 chords in 7-3-5 shells)
    • Major blue scale in all keys over dominant chords in shells
    • Alternating between major and minor blues (sounded like crap)
    • Major Bebop scale in all keys around the cycle of 4ths (tried over major and dominant)
  • Left hand
    • 2-octave stride patterns
      • Progression from “Just One of Those Things” (without right hand)
      • Harmonising C minor with 2-octave jumps (root → 1st inversion with added m6, i. e. 3-6-1)

Next time: harmonise a tune from the Real Book, play to the walking bass & drums track, do some voicings, search for & add technical exercises