June 17, 2005 at 9:00 PM

Most of you know Wednesday is officially piano day for me...If you read my last blog you know that I met a jazz pianist that studied at the Berklee School of Music, well I had to put Bach on the back burner last week, hey that didnt sound good, nevermind. No I am so busy working out new jazz tunes that I had to put off working on more Bach for now. I decided it is ok because I can always study bach, Im at a lucky part of my life that I know a expert in jazz harmony and I need to focus on learning as much from him as I can.

So anyways we worked on some new music "A Night in Tunisia" by Dizzie Galespie and and "Ornithology" by Charlie Parker. We actually played a tune also instead of just analyzing chords and structure, so we decided to play "Naima" by John Coltrane, I know all the harmony for Naima now and its so fun improvising on it, my friend ron really liked my arrangement. Naima was the name of Coltrane's first wife and it is such a beautiful tender ballad. One day Ill put up an arrangement for violin including a solo. See one of my goals is to transcribe and make arrangements for the violin in addition to composition. Also, studying jazz and classical harmony is going to help make my compositions sound more robust so Im trying to wait until I learn more about composition and harmony before I commit anything formally to paper.

Even if I never get very good at violin I hope one day I can write some amazing music or make a transcrtiption and hear someone great perform it. Ive also been sightreading "blue trane" from my Coltrane transcription book and I played it onstage monday at the blues jam. This schedule of monday blues jam - wednesday piano studies and saturday guitar lessons / violin day is working for me well and Im starting to learn and grow as a musician again, its so fun and rewarding! One thing that made me excited is I talked to Ron (my piano firend) and asked him if he was interested in playing some fusion and he said yes. I have wanted to form a fusion band for a realy long time, maybe 20 years and I always wanted a violin in the band, I never thought I would be the violinist though.

As far as selling everything I own to get an amati - well I would but I dont really have anything to sell unless... well never mind

cheers
scott (muggle violinist)
visit my webpage

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on June 18, 2005 at 12:28 AM

Massive collection of great links at your site. Thanks. Regarding composition, the only way to get started is to start. Put down anything.

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on June 18, 2005 at 12:46 AM

Scott, it's great that you're working hard on so many things and feeling good about all of them. I know that jazz is a very complex genre. You're fortunate to have a friend to mentor you. It's a wonderful opportunity, so go for it! I look forward to seeing or hearing your jazz violin compositions or transpositions.

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June 17, 2005 at 9:00 PM

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