Pianoman Ameteur to professional. My Log

shane9689

BACKGROUND AND GIBBIRISH:

Im heavly into music. So much so that i studied it at 3rd level.
Yet i always find im constantly stumbling and failing to reach my goals.

See, Im lazy. If im not pushed, i wont do it. I need a daily goal, something small that keeps me ticking.
I find i get that motivation when i do sports. I enjoy keeping track of every little step, yet with music it always feels alot more tedious and a slower rate of reward.

So To take what ive learned from the sports, im going to keep a log which has daily tasks and goals for me to achieve.

Like a professional sports man who checks his weight and tracks every little detail from his diet to his sleep, i shall begin this endeavour but in the world of music, in the hopes of becoming a more serious and well-rounded musician.

THE TASK AT HAND

I play both violin and piano, but for the sake of this endeavour, it will be mainly regarding piano and tracking its progress.

Over the course of the next two years, I will track all my progress.

The Goal is to lay an extremely solid foundation in Jazz piano over the next 2 years, to transform myself from an amateur musician to a professional pianist.

By the end of the 2 years;
1. i want to have done 25+ piano jazz gigs.

2. I want to be able to play all jazz related scales and exercises with a consistent fluency.

3. To be able to play a repertoire of atleast 100 jazz standards to a professional standard

4. to develop an ear and ability to pick up on many other jazz tunes.

5. To have a strong sense of timing and rhythm (my weakness) which can range from south american to Javanese styles.

6. To complete consistently, my weekly assigned tasks.


This journey begins tomorrow morning, with first practice at 10:45.
The plan is to play for atleast 3 hours tomorrow. In that time, i wish to go over my current Jazz assignments (2hr) and revise my old classical repetoire (1hr).

I may try to record parts of my practice to post on youtube and here. I will log what i do tomorrow. ALL FRIENDLY ADVICE WELCOME

The journey of 10000 miles begins with a single step....

shane9689

19/06/2015

Played for only 2 hours.

1. Practiced jazz finger excercises in major keys at 90 bpm, minor keys at 84 - 86

2. Practiced blues piece and jazz piece no.7 from the book "the joys of improv" blues piece was good, jazz piece was poor. the chords were not learned 100%

3. practiced soloing on beautiful love at 90 bpm. Good improvement, needs slightly better timing. perhaps time to learn some alternate chord shapes and patterns in the left hand.

4. practiced out of nowwhere piece. 86 - 90 bpm, chords are learnt. Next step is to start improvising on this piece

5. Played Isreal at 60bpm. improvement needed. chords still not perfect. melody is easy.

6. Wrote out chord arrangement and practiced Bluesette. Only began learning this piece.

No classical practice completed

For tomorrow:

1. Recrod improv on beautiful love
2. continue practice as usual
3. Sing melody lines from "the joys of improv"
4. listen to more recordings of bluesette
5. increase practice from 2 hours to 3 hours

Rigsby

shane9689 wrote: »

ALL FRIENDLY ADVICE WELCOME

My advice would be if you intend practicing for three hours a day to break it up into one hour sessions. Any more than an hour at one sitting and the brain kind of switches off. Little and often is the way to go. IMO, it is a case of quality is better than quantity.

Best of luck with it.

shane9689

Rigsby wrote: »

My advice would be if you intend practicing for three hours a day to break it up into one hour sessions. Any more than an hour at one sitting and the brain kind of switches off. Little and often is the way to go. IMO, it is a case of quality is better than quantity.

Best of luck with it.

Thanks, i think youre right. im struggling alot with the 3 hour straight sessions, and not able to get past 2 hours....especially difficult on days which i'm already busy or tired.

shane9689

20/06/2015

No practice complete due to a concert concerning violin.

21/06/2015

Played for only 2 hours again (if even, was quite tired today).

1. Practiced jazz finger excercises in major keys at 94 bpm, minor keys at 90 bpm but very challenging.

2. Practiced blues piece and jazz piece no.7 from the book "the joys of improv" blues piece was good, practiced singing the melody, could be singing more accurately. jazz piece chords were better. attempted to play it at 77bpm, almost successful.

3. practiced soloing on beautiful love at 94 bpm. I feel i am growing in confidence on this piece, solo felt better but needs a second judgement.

4. practiced out of nowwhere melody at 94 bpm. attempted to solo at 90bpm, couldnt. Slowed it to 80bpm for solo but needs work

5. Played Isreal at 60bpm. improving.

6. practiced Bluesette in 3/ time at 58bpm. Good for a first attempt with a metronome, the chords of chosen need revision

Classical

went over old repertoire. More rusty on these tunes than i expected. needs work.
Began to get tired and couldn't complete revision properly, gave up playing.

Didn't record any of my playing today as I felt tired. Probably wont record till next weekend as Ill be using a crappy keyboard this week which is an embarrassingly poor keyboard to use and would prefer to wait before recording a practice.

For tomorrow:

2. continue practice as usual
3. Sing melody lines from "the joys of improv"
4. listen to more recordings of bluesette
5. increase practice from 2 hours to 3 hours ( will take on the advice of dividing the practice session into shorter sessions through out the day as I'm finding it difficult to practice for 3 hours straight)

shane9689

21/06/2015

Away from home and quite occupied
briefly practiced from the jazz book and improvised on beautiful love without a metronome

about 20 mins in total. going to attempt at least 1 hour or more tomorrow despite being away

Zcott

Get a teacher, even if it's just for one lesson to point you on the right track. Plenty of great jazz pianists around the country who give lessons as well.

shane9689

Thanks Zscott, thats what im actually already doing, and had a lesson today.

23/06/2015

Had a lesson - 1hour

New assignments,
1. Improve soloing on beautiful love, slow it down, improve sentencing, less randomness.
2. learn beautiful love chords backwards, and perhaps try practising different left hand rhythms.
3. write out a new chord arrangement for bluesette using different notes than last time.
4. start lesson 8 from the book
5. write out an improv. for "out of nowhere"

unlikely to have much time to complete any of it today,
but shall certainly commence tomorrow.

shane9689

24/06/2015

Did about 1 hour practice, all jazz

wrote out bluesette again for new chord arrangement, still needs to be finished

started lesson 8 with metronome.

shane9689

Practice was almost non existent over the past few days so i didnt bother logging it, but back on track again

01/07/2015

completed about 2 hours or more.

1. made new chord arrangement for bluessete

2. improvised over beautiful love at 88bpm, i think its sounding better, need a second opinion.

3 practiced lesson 8 quite a bit. chords still need to learned, finger excercise is the same as the last lesson, so decided to focus on the minor scales for the exercise

4. attempted lesson 9 briefly

for next time: Need to write out an improv on "Out of Nowehere" , learn new chord arrangement, attempt lesson 9.
continue practice as usual.

shane9689

02/07/2015

completed a full practice but didn't log it.

03/07/2015

was going to practice but had to work unexpectedly, didnt get much done

04/07/2015

Completed a practice
about 2 hours, kept taking breaks but went through everything. I feel i might have t ostructure my practices as 1 hour in the morning then 2 hours in the evening if i can.

1. went through lesson 8 of the book "joy of improv" at 70bpm

2. attempted lesson 9 at 70bpm, poor but im ahead of schedule for attempting this lesson anyways

3. solo'd on beautiful love at 94bpm. Nie tempo but i feel i hit bit of a wall with my solos, dont know where to develop them next. might post it online for more feedback

4. attempted "out of nowhere" solo at 80 bpm, better but still not good. need to write out a solo but i dont think i can do that yet on this tune, going to keep practicing it

5. practiced "isreal" and "Bluessete" at slowish tempos.

Finding it increasingly difficult to stay motivated, especially since im trying to tackle many other things other than piano at this time. Its too easy just to do nothing. need to stay focused more.

to do::

write out solo on "out of nowhere"

Get lesson 8 up to scratch

figure out a better solo for beautiful love.