Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

I had Friday off from work, which meant three glorious days with Tall Nick (my piano). Or at least three days featuring several hours of practice. My goals? Continue my work with After You've Gone , dive a little deeper into Lead Sheets Lesson 7 , explore a couple of possible tunes for a new arranging project, and take whatever courses were next in the Analysis 1 track on Piano With Jonny . The Wonder of Analysis It's so funny that I love analysis so much now, because I hated it most of my years as a piano student. Mention "theory" and I would run screaming in the other direction. Now I can't seem to get enough of it. The first analysis course of my three-day piano-fest was Passing Chords and Reharmonization 1 . I actually started this course a couple of years ago when learning Jonny's bluesy Amazing Grace, but the material was just a little too challenging then and I set it aside. This time? It mostly felt like review. The secondary dominants lesson, which ha...

The first few days of January have been some of my best piano days ever. I started a new practice setup, and so far it’s working surprisingly well. I feel focused, energized, and more intentional than I have in a long time. Foundations Level 4 Course: Playing Lead Sheets with Seventh Chords I’m back in the lead sheets course, but this time I’m actually committing instead of endlessly restarting it like a broken record. I already know the first two lessons (circle-of-fifths and turnaround progressions), so I jumped ahead to Lesson 3, which focuses on extended turnarounds. I’m practicing it in C, G, and the most common flat keys (F, Bb, Eb, and Ab), depending on the day. I’m also working on the course’s sample tune, "Gone Away," which has a bossa nova feel. Can’t say I'm much of a bossa nova fan, but I’d like to make a video of this one eventually. It’s not flashy or technically brutal, but at the recommended tempo of 120 bpm it demands focus and consistency. So it's ex...