Tag: left hand

Piano day (1h 20m)

Mostly left hand practice, as I — as stupid as I am — injured my right while skateboarding 😕 Nothing serious, but just need to give it some rest for a week or so.

  • Comping practice (“A Night in Tunisia” by Dizzy Gillespie (slowed down significantly)
    • Playing with shell voicings in LH
    • Trying to follow the “minimum movement” principle and choose the voicings with that in mind
  • Cycle progressions
    • Cycling dominant 7th chords in 7-3-6 — 3-7-9
    • Cycling minor to dominant progression in 3-7-9 — 7-3-6

Observations

The last two were pretty boring practice sessions, but it will get better. I’ve also got in a habit of doing a track analysis and writing a couple of bars of bass solo, so that compensates for the temporary lack of fun in the actual routine 😃

Piano day (1h 30m)

  • Improvisation (Dan Haerle — Jazz Improvisation for Keyboard Players)
    • Improv over major II — V — I in C, F, Bb, G and D
    • Left hand voicings:
      • 3-7-9 — 7-3-6 — 3-6-9
      • 7-1-3-5 — 3-6-7-9 (yes, not 3-5-7-9!) — 7-1-3-5
    • Improv over minor ii — V — i in C- and F-
    • Left hand voicings:
      • 3-b5-7-9 — 7-b6-3-5 — 3-5-#7-9
      • 7-1-3-b5 — 3-5-7-b9 — #7-1-3-5

Observations

I’m so glad that I spent some time with Mr. Haerle’s other book “Jazz piano voicings” before staring with this one. He’s using shell voicings all the time, and I’m already somewhat familiar with them, so that helps me adopt the improvisation concepts much quicker.