Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

I’m now in the “Major 2-5-1” course at Piano With Jonny . I’m still in Level 4 (Early Intermediate) when it comes to theory, though this isn’t my first time learning these progressions in all keys. But it's been a while since I’ve practiced them like this. Lesson 1 focuses on root-position chords . It also includes the I6 alongside the IMaj7, which I think is a good addition. Here I am playing through the exercise once with the backing track: I haven’t worked much with backing tracks in the past. They make me nervous to keep up with, particularly because of my deafness. It can be hard to distinguish my piano from the backing track, and once I get nervous, I can lose the beat. But when I use the Altec Lansing Mini LifeJacket speaker, I can crank up the backing track volume. Then I can’t hear my own piano all that well, but that’s OK because I already know the keys. Other Variations The next lessons will cover the progression in various inversions, which is how I originally learned t...

I've been working through the Lead Sheet Level 4 courses for a while now, transposing to multiple keys, experimenting with different styles, doing some improvisation (or what might pass for it). But I keep getting stuck on one question: when is it okay to move on to the next lesson? I never feel like what I have is good enough, though I'm aware I tend to hold myself to absurdly high standards when it comes to piano. I just want someone, anyone, to say, "OK, Nina, you've done enough. Move on."  What Jonny Said  I asked Jonny about this at this week's Ask Jonny show. His response was completely valid: when to move on really depends on your goals. Which sent me back to think harder about what my goals actually are and how these courses relate to them.  My Relationship with These Courses  The lead sheet courses focus heavily on jazz ... but jazz really isn't my thing. So these lessons have been kind of like Brussels sprouts: I do them because I know they'r...

Hello, piano friends! I’m back with more updates on my journey to tame Jonny’s arrangement of "America the Beautiful," and it's starting to feel more like a friend than a challenge. In this post, I'll share where I’m at (again, LOL), with a video from three weeks ago and one from early this week. See below! Jazzy Intro: Finding My Flow (and My Voice) Three weeks ago, I shared a video of me working through the jazzy intro —definitely a bit rough. Now, I’ve got it memorized and I’m playing it with more confidence and emotion. Check out this video from two nights ago to hear how it’s coming along: Last night, I started adding some slides to the melody and a few harmony notes. And I loved it! I'd like to add just enough to give it a bluesy feel without losing the smooth jazz vibe. So that's another thing I'll be working on! Ragtime Section: Building Speed This ragtime section is tough, but I'm making progress. Yesterday I focused on fast-twitch exercises...

I haven't had a chance yet to seriously work on Jonny's jazzy intro to his "America the Beautiful" rag. This morning I had about 5 minutes before taking my daughter to driver's ed, so I sight-read through the intro once. It hasn't come together yet, but you can see that some sections are easier than others. None of it is really hard--it's just jazz, which means the usual harmonic rules (at least the ones I'm used to in blues and ragtime, and even classical) don't always apply. One reason I'm not crazy about jazz is the constant reharmonization and the dissonances ... but I really, really love this arrangement. This first take is a bit rough, full starts and stops as I hunt for notes. But stick with me—it will sound great after a few days of practice!

Sunday, April 6, was Don’s celebration of life (funeral). I played “Misty” and “What a Wonderful World.” I was happy with how the music went. I started off on the wrong foot (or the wrong pedal) and managed to stop and start over without any drama or ugly faces. I had come up with a short intro to "Misty" the day before, and I was glad I did; I would have hated to have to re-do the famous first few notes. Here is the version I played, complete with intro: "What a Wonderful World" was lovely, too. I'd gone to the church the day before to practice on their grand piano, and it was time well spent. I'd cut and pasted (literally) the music so that it all fit on two pages, and then taped it into a folder. (I was using a mashup of Jonny May's version and a lead sheet/my own version.) With everything arranged on just two pages (rather than four, which is how I'd learned it), my brain got all mixed up. My eyes would go to where something was supposed to be, a...

Back in the 1990s, I bought Volumes 1, 2, and 3 of The New Real Book . These books are full of anything you could ever want to play in jazz, including all of the standards. I'd also bought Mark Levine's Jazz Piano Book , and I was ready to learn jazz. Alas, a stack of books didn't cut it. I needed a teacher. Someone to show me the ropes. But I didn't know where to look, and besides, I was too shy to ask anyone. I mean, me? Middle-class, shy, cerebral little me, wanting to become a jazzer? Laughable. I didn't even smoke, and I looked silly in sunglasses. Still, I Could Play Pretty Broken Chords Every few years, I would dig out the Levine book and try to make progress, and I would dig out the New Real Book volumes and attempt to play songs. Whenever I saw the chord change, I would go to the root of the chord and proceed to arpeggiate, usually with the 1 and the 5. Thanks to my Mark Levine book, I did learn how to play the 3 and the 7 in the right hand with the melody,...

 I am in my fourth and final week of learning "Misty." The goal for this week? Hands together. There are some jazz solo options available, but I'm kinda feeling ready to move on to something new. This piece has been difficult, partly because the whole jazz language is unfamiliar to me. But I want to finish it, and I'm getting close. This rendition is far from perfect, and you'll hear plenty of flubs and pauses before you get to the end. I'll post a "final version" soon, probably this weekend, where (hopefully) all of those will be ironed out. (It is freezing in my house, hence the long-sleeves-halfway-down-my-hand look.)

 Here is my video from week 3 of the "Misty" challenge from Piano With Jonny . It's right-hand only, and I'm a little nervous about putting the right and left hands together. The right hand/melody part wasn't too hard (though some parts were tricky), but I'm still trying to get the left hand to feel smooth and natural.

 A few days ago, I wrote about how I'm learning "Misty" as part of a challenge group on Facebook. Week 1 focused on learning the melody only. The notes weren't hard at all, but the challenge was in memorizing it. Week 2's challenge--the stride-style left hand (LH)--was harder. Not only was I dealing with rootless voicings (something relatively new to me), but there were things like 13th chords with flatted ninths, and such. I studied and understood the theory (to a point), but mostly I just memorized hand shapes/positions. Yes. I have memorized the LH section. I can't believe it, really. I mean, I can't remember why I walk into a room most days. Or where my keys are, or what I did with my phone, which was in my hand not two minutes ago. But I memorized the LH to "Misty." In this video, you might notice that my hand gets to the chords a fraction of a second before I actually have to play them. This is because (1) it's good practice to get int...

About three weeks ago (has it only been three weeks?), I posted The Rusty Lock and Key , about how there seems to be a locked door between where I am and where I want to be with regards to the piano. I wrote with a sense of hope, but, at the same time, I knew it would take time for me to break out of that dark little room. And it would take dedication and perseverance—two things I’ve been lacking. Yes, it would be a while before the key started to turn. Months, most likely. Or years. Well. It’s been three weeks, and the key is starting to turn. I’m not there yet, but I have a whole new sense of hope. This is due to several things: Quentin – This is the guy I’ll be meeting monthly for jazz piano lessons. We’ve only met once so far, but he gave me some valuable exercises that I’ve been doing assiduously every morning before work. The Mark Levine Book  – I’ve had this book for years and never got past the third chapter because I couldn’t understand it. I went ahead and skipped that ch...

I have always loved ragtime music. When I was a kid in the 1970s, our family had the soundtrack to "The Sting" on LP, and I remember listening to it over and over again. I remember seeing the movie in the theater, too. I don't remember a thing about the movie, but ... that music! It seems that every kid who takes piano lessons can play some version of "The Entertainer," but, oddly enough, I didn't learn it until I was an adult and taught it to myself. I can also play the last two sections of "Solace" and the first two sections of "Maple Leaf Rag." I never studied these with a teacher; I just loved Scott Joplin's ragtime music and wanted to be able to play it myself. None of it is easy, or I probably would have taught myself more over the years. With my years-long sabbatical from piano-playing, my ragtime pieces don't sound as good as they once did, so I've decided to go back to them. This weekend, I opened up "Maple Leaf ...

In Mark Levine's Jazz Piano Book , one of the first exercises is to learn a ii-V-I pattern, with the ii a minor seventh (-7), the V a dominant seventh (7), and the I a major seventh (Δ). In this exercise, you play the root in the bass and the third and the seventh in the treble. (The fifth isn't necessary because it's the third and seventh that determine the quality of the chord.) He says to practice these, going around the circle of fifths, and in both inversions (fifth on top, third on top), until it's all second nature. So when I was about 28, shortly after I bought the book, I started working on these. They weren't easy. I wasn't very good at music theory (or even reading music) at the time, so it was a real strain on my mind. This was about the time I signed up for jazz piano lessons with a musician in Baton Rouge. At the first lesson, I showed him the little progress I'd made on the progressions, and he suggested that, instead of going around the circl...

I'm in a room. There's a door in front of me. On the other side of that door is a whole world of adventure and imagination and joy and delight, but for the moment, I'm locked in this gray little room. The door itself has a lock that is all rusted. I've tried to open it in the past, but I've never gotten very far. Sometimes I try to scrape the rust off the lock. I also have a rusty old key that I occasionally try to polish. Each time, after I've made a little progress, I'll put it into the keyhole in hopes of opening the door. It turns a half a millimeter or so, but the brief excitement at my progress dies quickly when I realize, once again, the lock isn't opening. I set the old key aside, and from there I can forget about the door, the lock, and the world outside, for months—years, even. But then something happens—I hear birdsong, or I catch a glimpse of color—and I pick up the key and start picking away at the stubborn rust. That dark little room is my ...

 I'm going to write a little more about "my usual patterns" (or "my signature sound") soon. For now, I want to put this up here. It's an improvisation of "Over the Rainbow" that I came up with one night. It's such a beautiful song that it's hard to play an ugly arrangement, even with the few missed notes and overly long pauses I have here. Enjoy!

(Written yesterday) I recently ordered a book titled Playing Solo Jazz Piano by Jeremy Siskind . And then last night, I watched his video on playing solo jazz piano ... and I learned some things that I can do with my left hand! Better yet, none of the information, even in the "Advanced" section, was over my head! The rusty old key is starting to turn. I didn't have much of a chance to play after finishing the video, but I'm looking forward to playing some tonight. I should be getting the book in the mail soon, too, so ... I'm kind of excited! (Written today) I couldn't help myself. I had to do it. I had to sit down at the piano and see if I could put some of these ideas into action. I picked a song at random -- Jerome Kern's "All the Things You Are" and proceeded to try playing just the root in the bass and embellish the melody as much as I wanted to. Of course, I ended up falling into a few patterns: 1) Adding chords to the melody 2) Playing s...