Sunday

Won't concentrate on Danny Boy anymore. Time to move on! Recorded it, and sent it to just my piano buddy and one band member who likes Irish music. Listened to a Crosby, Stills, and Nash album on vinyl and it was, well, ok. Up to page 26 of the first Swain book. Will add Danny Boy to my new piano repertoire.

Saturday

Good piano day. Finished (well, almost) with Danny Boy; sounds choppy and has mistakes, but after about working on it for only a week, it's ok. Will continue to work on it. Made good on my goal of not sending it out a recording of it for people to listen. 

My vinyl listen today was "Born in the USA" by Mister Bruce Springsteen. A great album!

Friday

Somewhat interesting musical day in that I was tempted to buy a saxophone! I tried it in the past (alto, tenor, and soprano). Realized that trying saxophone again isn't the best idea. 

Practiced some of Danny Boy on piano.

Listened to a great album on vinyl that I used to play so much of when I was a kid (Elton John's "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player"), and it was a great listen. During listening to it, I was convinced to stay with the piano and not move to saxophone! 

Thursday

Well I decided not to memorize. However, before I move on to another other piece of music, I want to have whatever I am working on played smoothly and at a good tempo. 

Practiced Danny Boy. Want to have practice time devoted to more than just song practice, though. Want to include:

A) Song practice

B) Building chord repertoire

C) Practice on chord construction

Listened to Elton John's "Madman Across the Water" album and really enjoyed it.

Wednesday

Facing a little dilemma. Not sure if I should memorize piano pieces or just go by reading them. 

Practiced Danny Boy, almost half through or so (not sounding too outstanding) but getting frustrated trying to memorize it.

Danny Boy

Still working on Danny Boy. Will celebrate my son's 19th birthday tomorrow! I actually bought a couple of albums tonight: "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player" and "Madman Across the Water," both by Elton John.

Sunday / Thank you, Alan Swain

Feeling more Catholic these days.

Anyway, I had a really good piano day today. Not because I practiced for hours. Actually I practiced just a little. But my attitude towards the piano has perhaps changed. It's getting more internalized, perhaps, that it's best if I take my time and see this as a long term thing. Started "Danny Boy" and it's coming along nicely, as is my chord learning. 

Looked up the Alan Swain piano learning books on the internet, and sadly, it looks like his internet site is down. That's not cool, because I think his book is a wonderful resource. I guess too many people are on their phones and doing other things rather than learn music. 

Anyway, if Alan Swain happens to read this, I want to say "Thank you" for your learning material.

Saturday

Band practice today - went well. Came home and spent just about the whole day  putting a bed together for one of my kids. 

Tomorrow will go back to the piano and start learning Danny Boy. 

Thursday

Saw a decent movie with my son: "Lights Out." Came home and did some good piano practice. Working on memorizing a short Alan Swain tune from his first book per his instructions. Added another chord to my knowledge bank.

Wednesday

Continue to work on the Swain piano material. Ted Cruz just recently got some attention with his speech at the GOP Convention. 

July 19, 2016 / MUSIC GOALS

Rode exercise bike for about 33 minutes. Eating habits today were pretty bad but I got back ok for dinner. Back to the piano:

I've been everywhere with this method and that method, combining methods and everything this past week or so. Changed my mind again. Going to work with Alan Swain's two books. Here are my goals for this year:

1) Using Alan Swain's material (and lead sheets) devote at least a half hour a day to piano practice. The key will be to use the half hour productively in a way that involves one or both of: memorizing chords, and playing them in songs. Take my time. Don't make mistakes. Be patient. Use the half hour wisely.

2) Don't share solo piano recordings with others (except perhaps my piano buddy) for a year. I think that by sharing my practice I am getting sidetracked. My goal at this point needs to be to learn the piano, rather than have an audience. Don't put the cart before the horse.

-----------------------------------------

Up to page 24 of the first Swain book.  Just questioning if I will eventually gain the ability to play chords automatically

while playing from a lead sheet...

A good day at the piano.

The July 18 Challenge

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour.

Well I've been changing plans all over the place lately. But this is a challenge I want to keep. Been working on a way to sound great on piano with, let's be honest, the least effort. So with the help of my piano buddy I figured out a way to memorize just 36 chords that just fulfill my needs. So here is the July 18, 2016 challenge:

1) Give my 36 chord program material a solid year of practicing at least a half hour a day. The key will be to use the half hour productively in a way that involves one or both of: memorizing chords, and playing them in songs. Take my time. Don't make mistakes. Be patient. Use the half hour wisely.

2) Don't share solo piano recordings with others (except perhaps my piano buddy) for a year. I think that by sharing my practice I am getting sidetracked. My goal at this point needs to be to learn the piano, rather than have an audience. Don't put the cart before the horse.

Today learned: C7 closed voicing, Bb major and Am open voicings, and C major open voicing.

Crunch Time

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour. 

Crunch time with health. Honeymoon is over and now my healthy habits have to remain a priority as the routine has set in.

At the piano, it's crunch time. The honeymoon is over. It's time to do the sweating and the work. Memorizing chords is hard work. Then quickly shifting them in a song is hard work. 

Patience

Ok well I just had a brilliant idea with regards to piano learning. I got what I think is a great idea regarding how to memorize chords. The answer rests in elegant simplification. I think I can memorize all major, minor, and dominant chords by combining what David Sudnow, Alan Swain, and perhaps Bill Susman teach. Now this will not cover chords such as 6th, 9ths, 13s, b5, so for those chords I'll have to study a little differently. 

But I think by combining methods, I can facilitate the learning of all the major chords, all the major 7 chords, all the minor chord, all the minor 7 chords, and all the dominant (7th) chords. Now that wouldn't be too big of a feat, taking only 36 chords to do all that! Yep, only 36 chords!

Saturday

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour.

R5Q.     3Q

If not maj min or o then dom

Up to page 21 in the Swain book, and learned a third boogie woogie left hand bass pattern. 

Thinking that the key to playing songs on the piano, for me anyway, is twofold: a) memorizing open chords as utilized by Alan Swain, and b) playing tons of songs.

A cool method for me might be to pick out a song, first memorize its chords, then play the song utilizing the melody note.

Friday / Four Days

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour. 

Continue to work on the Swain book. Added Fmaj7 to my list: chords known now are: Cmaj7, Dmin7, Emin7, Fmaj7, C6, and G7.

The piano is difficult. 

Sure I might know these chords, but playing them in the context of Swain's melodies (using a melody note and staying in time) is challenging. Finding myself getting ahead of myself thinking I should be better at it, how am I going to play it when it gets more complex, etc. BUT I'M ONLY FOUR DAYS INTO THE BOOK! WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT MY PATIENCE?? Hahahahahahahaha!

I think it will help to remember to not expect to be a master song player after just a little practice. This kind of thing takes time. And I am enjoying it as long as I don't try to get ahead of myself.

Went back to the piano after writing the stuff above and it was good! Working up to p. 8 in the Swain book and actually added another boogie woogie (from the boggie woogie book) left hand pattern to my left hand. Started to actually get a little bit in time slamming down right handed chord stuff as I jammed on those left hand patterns.

I thought earlier today that perhaps I should just work on the Swain material since I probably don't have the time to work on the Swain material AND the boogie wiggle book. But I want to try both, with an emphasis on the Swain method. That boogie woogie stuff is just too much fun to resist! 

Read about a boogie woogie piano player who only played in the keys of C an G. Inspirational!!  Man, play music your OWN way!

Thursday

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour. Have been doing great with regards to healthy habits including not eating in the middle of the night.

Worked more on page 5 of the Swain book; time to move to page 6. Practiced the first left hand pattern in the boogie-woogie book, too! That right hand / left hand coordination will be a bear!

Wednesday

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour. Lost 7.2 pounds in a week.

Almost done with page 5 of the Swain book. Fine line between trying to get the music known with no errors and knowing when good enough is enough. 

Toying with learning boogie-woogie piano. Listened to some old time boogie-woogie on CD. Toying with using the book "Boogie-Woogie Piano" by Todd Lowry. Started reading it.

Tuesday

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour.

Practicing Swain's Book One, and up to page 5. Learning some new chords, and p. 5 had a little melody that might take me some time to really learn. Liking this. Learning open chords and their application. I guess I just wasn't ready in the past to just take my time with this methodology. Alan Swain gives some useful practice ideas also in Book 1.

CHORDS LEARNED:

Cmaj7

Dmin7

Emin7

C6

G7

Monday

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour.

Started the first Alan Swain (I tried it before, but this is a restart). On page 4 of the the first book; started with three chords.

LEARNED CHORDS:

Cmaj7

Dmin7

Emin7

Sunday

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour.  With my dad, wife, and two daughters today for a visit. My son had to work so he didn't accompany us.

A (now replaced) challenge

Adapted from my challenge put forth earlier this week:

1) Give the Alan Swain material a year. A good solid year of practicing at least a half hour a day. The key will be to use the half hour productively in a way that involves one or both of: memorizing chords, and playing them in songs. Take my time. Don't make mistakes. Be patient. Use the half hour wisely.

2) Don't share solo piano recordings with others for a year. I think that by sharing my practice I am getting sidetracked. My goal at this point needs to be to learn the piano, rather than have an audience. Don't put the cart before the horse.

- Change of Plans -

Ok so here's the story. I am switching piano methods yet again. But here's what's going on. I like the open piano chords, but I think the Alan Swain material is at the detail that I need. It seems to not be extremely different from the material I have been using, but the Swain material (in two books) seems to teach the material in a detailed way that I need. 

Saturday

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour.

How we as a society might be dealing with troublesome issues is by unfortunately giving them lip service when issues are brought up, but then not really doing to much to actually change situations. Read on about a personal hero of mine and among other things, how he was given a lot of superficial acknowledgement (and then he almost lost his life for not giving up):

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/the-police-are-still-out-of-control-112160

All sides need 2 B listened to. Yelling at each other = those in power will change nothing. Black Lives Matter? Yes. Police Lives Matter? Yes. The Democrats might have something important to say? Yes. The Republicans might have something important to say? Yes.

With the band today, worked on making a demo of three songs: "Under the Boardwalk," ""Memphis," and "White Sport Coat." Sounding pretty good; didn't record the complete songs, but just shortened versions hopefully to be used on some kind of band website some day. 

Practiced my 1/2 hour of piano. Learning more about proper right hand placement for these open chords. Added two more chords to my knowledge base, and fixed one of which I was fingering incorrectly. 

Chords Learned:

C

F

G7

Am

Bb

Dm

Friday

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour. 

Ok so I figure I learned two (open) chords yesterday. I realize it will probably get confusing as I add on to my list of known chords, but I figure that I only have 34 chords left to go. Not going bad at this rate, but must stay patient. 

Learning them in the context of songs, I think, is important. That is, it's one thing to be able to play a chord. But I wouldn't say that playing a chord is playing music. 

Playing music would be the ability to move from chord to chord in a smooth way within the context of songs. Saying I "know" these two chords is a lot different from saying that I can smoothly play them one after the other, especially if you additionally take into account that in a song, there would be a melody note to accommodate.

Put in my 1/2 hour piano practice; now know the Dm, F, G7, and C chords (open). Starting out, things were a bit difficult, but practicing without mistakes, and relying on shapes seemed to settle things down, and facilitate learning. Interesting how utilizing some of Sudnow's and Swain's practice ideas was helpful. 

I'm learning the chords one at a time as they are presented in the Beatles song, translating the learned chords into learned chords with melody notes.

Chords Learned:

C

F

Dm

G7

Thursday

Rode exercise bike for about 37 minutes.

Connected with a Sudnow Method student and it looks like we might hopefully keep in touch. 

Started the Susman material today, and worked mostly on the F major chord and the Dm chord. Will try to work on the Beatles song "All My Loving" to use the chords in context. 

Started making a demo recording for what might hopefully be included on some kind of web page for our band.

THE JULY 6TH CHALLENGE

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour. Figured out if I utilized the piano idea I originally had yesterday, I'd need to memorize 252 chords/melody note combinations.

Feels good to be working on my health. Today might only be day 3, but I feel a little momentum building with regards to keeping the good habits.

Really looking forward to starting the Bill Susman material. It is somewhat like Alan Swain's approach, and somewhat like David Sudnow's approach. The Susman stuff appears to be more my style, though.

What's great for me though is without my background in The Sudnow Method, the Susman material would have appeared much more inaccessible to me. Exposure to The Sudnow Method with the help of my piano buddy helped me to learn scale tones.

What's cool too is that exposure to Alan Swain's material may help with learning how to have chords ingrained in my memory.

So here it is. The July 6th Challenge:

1) Give the Susman material a year. A good solid year of practicing at least a half hour a day. Try to have the chords ingrained by using Swain's ideas regarding practice, but also learn songs.

2) Don't share solo piano recordings with others for a year  I think that by sharing my practice I am getting sidetracked. My goal at this point needs to be to learn the piano, rather than have an audience. Don't put the cart before the horse.

New Direction

Attempted to try a new way of learning how to play piano from fakebooks "on the fly" utilizing the Sudnow Method, but it did not quite work out. As a matter of fact, if I tried to implement my idea, it would require memorizing over 400 chord shapes!!!!!!! Reviewed some stuff from Bill Susman's "Play Like Me" piano site. Ordered one of his books. Will see how it goes! Started yesterday yet again to take action to improve my health. Yesterday and today I rode the exercise bike for 1/2 hour and started to take care of myself better.

July 4, 2016

So many different musical directions are possible. Guitar comes natural to me, yet the piano calls me. 

Tempted, and just might, utilize the Sudnow Method again. Might try to internalize some chord clusters in isolation to learning songs, also, in order to facilitate an old goal I have had which is to play songs on the fly using fakebooks. 

Still can't get away from that guitar, though. 

July 3

Started working on "Wichita Lineman" for solo piano. Not used to it, but using a R-5-3 pattern in left hand.

Graduation

Nice time today; band played for my son's graduation party. And he played drums on a song ("I Saw Her Standing There")!

Piano Friday

Interesting development. I was looking at maybe utilizing a piano method book strategy. Was also looking at buying a course. Then I got some input from my piano buddy. She gave me some cool things to work on. I'll be trying my hand at "Wichita Lineman."