Current State

Worked on a 251 sequence in F for the BJMC workshop. Used three Clifford Brown licks and a descending b9 (diminished starting on half step). Was pleasantly surprised at how fluid I became.

Back to Miss Jones as I did not follow through on this.

Have You Met Miss Jones?

Working on 2 251 paterns (Clifford Brown) over Have You Met Miss Jones. Will learn this standard thoroughly this month. Starting at 80BPM and working up to 140 bpm each pattern for each key centre of which there are four. Then to be able to insert them in time using Band in a Box. Raise the speed. Realised that you need to really get these patterns down under your fingers and work hard on them until they are really pollished. Will try and bring speeds up to 220 bpm at some stage! Currently feel that I can't do the things I want to do at 120 so need to work on my speed and my facility.

targets this week

learn and transcribe 2 more choruses from Blue and Brown.
Bring up spead on this tune.
Learn B section of Full House.

to transcribe

Don Byas' solo on Anthropology from his Night In Tunisia album would be a good one to get you into rhythm changes. (thanks to Sax on the Web)_.

Sonny Rollins, from Collossus. Autumn Leaves, Cannonball & Miles. Courtney Pine.

1st january - Targets for the year

I have been learning the solos of Clifford Brown on Blue and Brown, a blues in F with an 8 bar "round the houses" bridge every two chorus. I am using Transcribe! and writing it up into Band In A Box (BIAB). I bought a new mouthpiece for the holiday. It is more open, a 7, and am enjoying using it immensely although it sounds different every time I play it.?

This week I will complete the transcription and learn the solos.

For this year I want to:

1. learn at least 12 standards.
2. learn and transcribe 6 solos.
3. work on minor 251s.
4. work on the blues.
5. work on Rhythm Changes

This means that I can have a monthly schedule. The other golden target is improve my timing so that I am playing in time. Alan Barnes said at the summer school that timing and sound are more important than the notes you play. The more modern players tend to have split second timing and it really makes a big difference.