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 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

Piano day (2h)

Jazz voicings
- +7 to m9 (dominant to minor)
- 7b9 to m7 (dominant to minor)
Imporvisation
- Minor & major blues scale recap in all keys
Modal studies
- Harmonising Lydian scale in all keys with shell voicings (7-3-5)
Left hand + reading
- “Just One Of Those Things”
  - Stride pattern
  - Breaking down voicings used in the left hand (octave bass + shells)

Bass day (1h)

Didn’t do too much consistent practice (only quick improv and mode runs sessions) during the last couple of days, as I was busy doing some production and other work. But I did play piano a lot while recording so it definitely counts! 😆

Chord tones
- Harmonising F Lydian scale with 7th chords in all 24 permutations (root inversion). Yeah, and it was just one key, one mode, and only root inversion… “What can you practice for 8 hours straight?!” is not a question anymore, lol!

Bass day (1h 45m)

Chord tones + walking bass lines
- Harmonising A, E and D major scales with all inversions of 7th chords (trying to go without stops)
- Harmonising A, E and D with 5-X permutations of the root inversion
Chords
- Triads in all inversions (recap)
- Play along to “All of Me” in G mixing all inversions