May 16, 2010

A hard working day at the piano. Working on "Just the Way You Are," with some good results. But the old frustrations kick in while I'm struggling over some past learned stuff...

May 14, 2010

Time to move on to "Just the Way You Are" by Billy Joel. Here is "The Way You Look Tonight." Needs practice, but I'm ready to move on.
Copy and Paste:
http://www.box.net/shared/tums5bcoq6

May 10, 2010

Well what do you know.....three practice days in a row.....
Worked on my two tunes.

May 9, 2010

Just taking my time....no rush! Working on my two tunes, and refreshing my D closed voicing.

May 8, 2010

Closed voicings for the three C's, and D major worked on.
Worked on "All the Things You Are" and "The Way You Look Tonight." Adding some closed voicing stuff in there. A great piano day.

May 5, 2010

It was a drag practicing tonight. Spent very little time, very little accomplished, and was too tired to make it work.

May 2, 2002

Working hard on "The Way You Look Tonight" and "All the Things You Are." Reading Kenny Werner's "Effortless Mastery." Finding that my brain can handle only so much while I'm at the piano, so breaks are needed!

May 1, 2010

After a little break from the piano due to the realities of life, I got back today and with a vengence. Worked on "All the Things You Are" and I'm pleasantly surprised at how relatively quickly it got back together. Working on "The Way You Look Tonight," and its sounds nice. Looking forward to the song after that, which will be a little change of pace: Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are." Have been playing around with the intro to it, and it has the potential to sound really nice. Have been toying around with maybe looking into New Age doodling, but nothing will take the place of me building a repertoire of songs using the Sudnow material. I'll probably be playing on and off throughout the day....

April 21, 2010

Working hard on "The Way You Look Tonight." Getting "in the zone" while playing...
Fm7 = new closed voicing using a bit in the song.

April 19, 2010

Started working on "The Way You Look Tonight," and ordered some sheet-music. Its really quite interesting about how quickly voicing has become, and how the clusters Suds talks about are getting in my hands. At one point Suds says that the problem won't be finding enough time to practice, but the problem will be finding time to do anything else. He's right. Having a good time.

April 18, 2010

I don't think I can do the memorizing stuff! But an interesting thing happened yesterday....After playing "All the Things You Are" about 7000 times, its kind of memorized alreday (tried to memorize it, too, but was frustrating). I think I'll just forget the memorizing stuff, and just work to get songs smooth. The memorizing (or close to it) might occur without even trying too much. On to the next song.....I wonder what it'll be...

April 17, 2010

Here is how "All the Things You Are" sounds at this point (copy and paste):
http://www.box.net/shared/6kbvuk1ui5

It sure ain't perfect, so I'd like to work it up so that it has less pauses and perhaps less of a rolling notes sound...

Working on memorizing it....I think I have voiced a bunch of songs in the past that have evaporated from my fingers, and I'm going to try to memorize to minimize the probability of that happening...its a pain, but, well, I think the benefits are worth it.

April 16, 2010

Working hard on "All the Things You Are." Using a little C closed voicing and C7 closed voicing. I'm drained! Sent away for a book on piano runs, a CD of Andre Previn playing piano, and Dr. Faustus (by Thomes Mann). I believe that the Mann book was a favorite of Sudnow's. Recently listened to Suds talking about using the tritone substitution. Interesting stuff.

April 15, 2010

A sneak preview. Copy and paste:
http://www.box.net/shared/cxdxbljq67

April 14, 2010

Just some musings....

...I've read some great stuff recently regarding the jumping from one piano method to another, the tension between wanting to play and wanting to play quickly, how its interesting how we sometimes practice as if we are waiting to be done the learning, and then beginning playing, and perhaps that is a shame....

I'm at a different place with the Sudnow Method than I've ever been, and that's a great thing..... What I mean is that although I've said it before, I think its sunk in that there's no magic bullet method. Its a matter of getting to the piano and utilizing some focused practice. And having fun along the way. Enjoying the practice. And the Sudnow Method helps me to do just that. Suds' Student Club and Members Club is just awesome.

Thanks, Suds.

Piano Buddy, thanks to you too. I couldn't have come this far without you believing in me.