Piano day (2h)

Left hand + shells

Descending major 10ths workout (10-5-1 + 6-7)
- Only LH
- With RH: 7-3-5 shells
- With RH: alternating shells of same chord (7-3-5 to 3-6-9 or 3-7-9) — octave jump
- With RH: connecting descending shells (cycling 7-3-5 to 3-7-9)

Left hand + modal studies

Lydian DNA (Imaj7 — II7) in all keys
- Blocks
- LH: 1-5-10-6’-7’ | 1-1’, RH: 7-3-5 shell | 1 octave scale run

Left hand + scale studies

Major blues scale recap (LH: broken 10ths, harmonic 5ths and 6ths)

Reading + analysis

Fascinating Rhythm by George Gershwin (first 4 bars, then quick improv over LH pattern) — Exercise #14 from Jazz Piano: The Left Hand book

Observations
I haven’t been practicing too much bass during the last months, as I’m trying to focus in on left hand on piano, but recently I picked it up late at night and simply did some walking over a jazz standard. Then some inversions. Some permutations. Some arpeggios. All that stuff that I though I’ve had enough of. One big takeaway from that? Wanna get excited about seemingly boring material like scales, arpeggios and reading on your instrument? Simply practice another one for a month or so (completely ignoring the first one), and I swear you’ll start CRAVING it! 😂

Bass day (1h 45m)

Scale studies
- Scale dissection
  - Minor blues: R, b3-4-#4, 5, 7 (recap)
  - Major bebop
    - R-5, b6-6, 7-R
    - 7-R (below), 4-5, b6-6 (above or below), 7-R (all chromatics) — COOL!
Walking bass / chord tones
- Voice leading / connecting inversions with passing tones (Phil Mann exercise) over All of Me in G
Reading
- Afro Blue
- Afternoon in Paris
- Airegin

Observations

Just found another very effective way of internalising a new scale. Instead of going up and down the neck, you can first figure out all chromatic intervals in it and them play only them, memorising their position relative to the root. Semitones are normally the simplest to memorise and visualise on fretboard (like, major 7 below — root), therefore there’s a big chance that you will get familiar with them really quickly, and afterwards it will be much easier to learn the rest of the scale. In the case of major bebop, the chromatics are: 7 below — root, M3 — 4, b6 —6 and 7 — R (above). I played them around the cycle of 4ths in all keys, sometimes playing b6-6 run below — because it is quicker to find — and must say that I’m definitely feeling much more confident with this scale!

Bass day (1h 30m)

Scales studies
- Linking shapes (Scott exercise)
  - All Aeolian scales in V position
  - All Ionian scales in I position (recap)
- Minor blues scale permutations
- Scale dissection
  - Minor blues: R, b7 (above & below), b3, 4
  - Major blues: R, 2, 6 (above & below), 5
  - Lydian pentatonic: R, #4
- Applying scale tones over I — VI7 — ii — V7 in all keys
Reading melodies
- Afro Blue (from Real Book in bass clef)
- Hrabe etude #4 (in Bb)

Observations

New exercise! I try to test different approaches to scale fluency, and this time I decided to take the scales that I’m currently actively working on on piano and focus on particular degrees, playing them above as well as below the root. In my opinion, it should really help to achieve fluency in any given scale regardless of the position on the fretboard where you happen to be when you need to apply it. It is especially cool with pentatonics, because their nature kind of encourages you to use pattens and it’s very easy to get caught in the box shapes slavery. I’m using Phil Mann’s permutation approach to twist the scale like a want and also Todd Johnson’s “above / below” trick. Also trying to sync my bass and piano routines to make practice overall more productive. How am I doing, Mr. Devine? Am I organised enough? :lol:

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”.

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!