Bare Necessities: Learning the Outro

For the past three mornings, I've spent 20-30 minutes on the Bare Necessities outro. The outro is both very simple and very tricky.

It's simple in that the left hand is pretty basic, and the right hand follows a very straightforward, upwardly chromatic pattern.

It's tricky in that the chromatic pattern sometimes emphasizes notes that aren't in the chord (for example, playing an Eb in the right hand while playing an A7 in the left hand ... or working toward a resolution to C, and playing C in the right hand, but having to play a D7 in the left hand instead). With each measure, I'm very aware of what chord I'm in, so when the right hand emphasizes notes that aren't part of the chord ... it kind of throws my logical mind for a loop.

Also, despite the "simple" elements I mentioned above, this section is not very intuitive. For three mornings in a row now, I've felt like I've had to re-learn each instance of the pattern (there are three). At the end of the practice, I'm playing all three of them through pretty comfortably, and at a slightly faster tempo than the day before. So it's coming along. Slow and steady.

Here is a video of me playing it very slowly. It's not much fun to listen to, but it'll be fun to compare it to the day when I can play it at a blistering pace!

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Picking Up the Pieces

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