June 21, 2005 at 8:33 PM

This week I noticed myself reading alot more notes than I have in a long time. Now that I have someone to perform with, I have something to force me to practice well, I dont want to mess up the chance to work with my new piano firnd Ron who studied at the berklee school of music, lets face it when you try to work with someone who doesnt make the effort to learn the music, you want to find someone else who learns the music quickly or already knows the music. I want to be the one who learns new tunes very quickly. Infact, I got so much work done the last few days that I still have tonight before we rehearse tomorrow, since I got so much done I have time to study bach tonight so thats what Ill do. Im determined to memorize and be able to play all of the bach g min adagio by the end of the year, remember I have only been playing violin for about 2.5 years. So regarding tomorrows jazz studies, where as before the focus was more centered toward chord study at beginning, now it will be more balanced between chord anaylsis, theory analysis, scale possibilities, and discussing ideas for melodic lines over common changes, that and playing the music after all analysis has been done.

As far as what we will be rehearsing, it will change. Every week will be something different, reminds me of 10 yrs ago whgen I moved in with 2 saxophone players and every day we pulled out a different lead sheet and played something different every day. The following is a review of music learned so far

week 1
naima
misty
there will never be another you

week 2
a night in tunisia
ornithology

week 3 (tomorrow)
django
maiden voyage
all the things you are

Django is a tune ron wants to play, Im not familiar with it, maiden voyage is a tune by herbie hancock and all the things you are is a classic that even parker and rollins used to play. With respect to recordings, naima is on coltrane's giant steps cd, also on the afro blue impressions cd, misty is on the perlman/peterson cd, there will never be another you I have a good recording with george benson, a night in tunisia is on a cd called the quintet with dizzy, parker, bud powell, mingus and roy haynes, ornithology is on a charlie parker cd called bird at the high hat, django I dont have a recording of, maiden voyage is in a cd called vsop, and all the things you are is also on the quintet cd.

That being said, I am beginning to realize my interest in jazz is more focused around harmony, Im iterested in altered chords and new ways to voice them, Im still interested in blazing solos and playing lines like coltrane and parker but mostly interested in the pure melody approach of bill evans piano style. Also pinist Mc Coy Tyner interests me but even though he plays sheets of sound like coltrane that sounds like lightning coming out of the piano, it is the bill evans approach that I prefer more, not as many notes and just everything is pure melody and those wonderful chord solos!!!! also the bill evans approach is more of an introverted, less obtrusive style, if you listen to the early trio cds of bill evans there is nothing that pokes you in the eye and its very relaxing to play that way. This fits my personality better.

I tend to play something until it becomes familiar and comfortable and over time, I keep phasing in new songs. When I learn something new I tend to stop playing the old stuff, that way I am always playing something new.

My practicing that last few weeks has been focused on chord voicings, mostly to learn alot of new music fast. I started to miss studying back so from here out I will have more balanced music study sessions, 20 min of scales minimum, half of the rest of the time is for bach the other half is for anything else. That being said tonights practice session will likely be interrupted by that interview with the real runaway bride, hmm...

There are some cds I have to get... I recently found an oistrakh cd for sale with the vitali chaconne on it after looking for a really long time, I used to have a cd in the oistrakh edition that had this recording but I gavce it to my first teacher a few years ago. It will be nice to have that recording on cd again, I miss it so bad. I also want to get this mysterious paganini dvd, it doesnt say who plays on it but ill let you all know when I get it.

Ok, now, how many words can you think of that include the word cat...
catatonic
catatstrophy

cheers
scott (muggle violinist)
visit my webpage

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on June 22, 2005 at 12:32 AM

Scott, it's so interesting to read about your musical ventures in jazz. We don't hear much about jazz on this site. I hope you put up some recordings of you playing so that we can listen.

Please tell me more about the Perlman CD with Misty on it.

I feel just the same way you do about Bill Evans. We must have similar personalities in that regard.

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June 21, 2005 at 8:33 PM

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