Tag: left hand

Piano day (2h 45m)

  • Improv / scales study
    • Locrian 2-octave scales in all keys with two hands
    • Improvisation: Locrian scale over m7b5 chords, all keys around the cycle (to the bass line and rhodes)
    • 2-octave Lydian pentatonic in all keys (major shells in LH)
    • 2-octave minor pentatonic in all keys (minor shells in LH)
    • 2-octave “Locrian pentatonic” (1-b2-b3-b5-b6) + m7b5 shells in LH
    • Hirajoshi scale (checked out in C)
  • Left hand
    • Intervallic patterns
      • 1-5-6 in major & minor (cycling)
      • Broken tenths (1-5-10 + 1-5-6 8va) in major & minor (cycling)
      • Broken chords (1-5 + 1-3-5 8va) in major & minor (cycling)
  • Interpreting pop tunes (wow!)
    • Muse — New Born
    • Damon Albarn — Hostiles (looked up chords on UltimateGuitar and adapted to piano using intervallic patterns in LH and shells in RH)

Observations

Moving towards 3-hour sessions on weekend. Taking breaks after each hour is essential! Also, 3 hours really feel awesome in terms of stuff you can cram into this time without rushing and messing up. Musical observations: I finally go to Locrian mode! I have been avoiding it for such a long time. Professors in music school only mentioned it briefly saying it is not that useful, we weren’t asked to compose in it, so I totally ignored it. Until lately. And man it’s beautiful!!! Don’t believe anyone who tells you that Locrian is “ugly” or “scary”. It’s sad, tragic, dramatic, incredibly touching, anything but ugly. Also I discovered a whole family of modal pentatonic scales that can be derived from normal heptatoic modal scales by applying major or minor pentatonic patterns to them. For example, you can take 1-3-4-5-7 and apply it to Lydian mode, which will give you 1-3-#4-5-7, which is BEAUTIFUL! Fun fact: most people on the internets tend to use major pentatonic pattern to derive modal pentatonics (1-2-3-5-6), but it’s definitely worth looking at minor as well.

Another cool practice routine I came up with is adapting pop songs to piano using patterns that I already learn (or am learning). That is, taking chords and breaking them down to shell voicings and intervallic patterns for the left hand. Makes any song sound immediately like a “piano version”.

Piano day (2h)

  • Modal studies
    • Modulating within one mode
      • Secondary dominant: Lydian progression in all keys going around the cycle over V/V
    • Recap: Mixo & Dor in all keys (typical progressions and harmonisation)
  • Technical + left hand
    • 2-octave broken chord pattern + shells (1-5-1-3-5-6 in LH / 7-3-5 in RH) in all keys @ 40bpm
  • Free improvisation (Hm1 + Dor + Lyd)

Piano day (1h 40m)

  • Technique / left hand
    • LH patterns
      • Steady 5ths & 6ths (in all keys around the cycle)
      • Broken 10ths + occasional 6ths
        • Modal progression in C Dorian (i — v — ii — IV7 — i — IIImaj7 — VImaj7 — IV7)
        • Around the cycle
      • Stride (quick recap, didn’t go full circle)
  • Improvisation + scales study
    • All minor scales in handfuls (playing scales as tonal clusters with proper fingering) — learned from this vid

Piano day (1h 40m)

  • Improvisation
    • Chromatic progressions
      • Mixolydian scales over dominant 7th chords in shells in all keys
        • LH separately
        • Shells with LH
        • Arpeggiated shells with LH
      • Dorian scales over minor 7th chords in shells in all keys (same approach)
    • Just a quick Lydian pentatonic recap
  • Modal studies
    • Mixolydian transitions between all degrees in A — B voicings (F)
      • Base 7-3-5
      • Base 3-7-9
    • Same with Dorian (C, F)

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.