ThreeFold Attack

Going to try to divide practice time into:

1) Piano For All Program

2) The book “Beyond Chord Melody” by Martin Taylor (guitar)

3) The book “Chord Tone Soloing” by Barrett Tagliarino (guitar)

I’m thinking of doing just a little of each three at a time. 

Beard (Before):

Beard (After):

Piano For All / Book 1

Finished Book 1 in the series, and it’s on to Book 2!

Beard

On Recording

Just read on a YouTube comment that Tommy Emmanuel practices ten hours a day. TEN hours. And what do I do? Practice so much less. 

I think it would be beneficial for me to stop doing so many recordings of me playing and devote that time to practicing instead. Let’s face it: recording is a lot more fun than practicing. With recording, I get to add reverb, play with panning, and add numerous tracks. After I record, I then send it out to people waiting for feedback about how wonderful it is. But alas, the feedback isn’t always so great. So when it isn’t that great, of course I don’t like it.

So would it not be better if I just practiced more? Yes. I’m happy to be practicing the Piano For All Program in small bits. I hear that these small bits of practicing are good. But perhaps I’m getting lazy and can ramp it up more practice time.

More doing the difficult stuff like practicing the piano and guitar; less doing the stuff that doesn’t really add to my skills: recording. 

79

Up to page 79 of the first book in the Piano For All Program. Recorded “Popsicle Toes” with me playing solo.  

Piano For All / Book 1

Up to page 77 of the first book in the Piano For All  Program.

Piano For All

Up to page 72 of the first book in the Piano For All Program. I like it! Have been listening to The Who in mostly chronological order, and I’m up to “Live at Leeds.” Really really like it. Pete’s guitar work is quite cool. And Keith’s drumming is all over the place but in time ... awesome. Our trio rehearsed tonight and it went ok.

Piano For All / Book 1

Was tempted a little to get into early jazz guitar but decided not to for now. Up to page 67 in the Piano For All Book 1.

Continue to work on the Piano For All Book. Up to page 63 of book 1.

59

Up to page 59 in the Piano For All Book one.

Good jazz trio practice this morning. Working on a jazzy and vocally cool “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”

56

Up to page 56 (of 91) in the first Piano-For-All book.

Beatles

Continue to work on the Piano-For-All book 1. Tempted to also work with a Charlie Christian book I have. Worked on a jazzy version of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” 

Watched Ron Howard’s movie about the touring years of the Beatles; a great film.

Snowing! 

Piano, Norwegian Wood Five, Michelle

Up to page 16 of 92 in the first Piano-For-All book.

Recorded a version of “Norwegian Wood” that might be modified for our trio.

Found a version of the Beatles’ song “Michelle” that I recorded some time ago. I played it in a back seat of our vehicle while my wife was driving me and the kids home from a vacation. You can hear the cars on the highway and our car in the background. One of the kids held the recorder as I played.