Long Day

Today started with a half hour of Long Tones and a half hour of Major, Harmonic and Melodic minor scales at 185bpm (and varying the bpm by very small percentile).

I then had a 2 hour rehearsal with a band that went pretty well.

I then had the first lesson in about a month with my teacher. It went ok and the determined factor that I need to look toward is to get fluidity in my improvised lines and to improve the phrasing as well. In order to achieve this he wrote out a solo over Have You Met Miss Jones and it was using a lot of chromatic movements and long flowing lines. As opposed to the intervalic and appegiatic solos I had been working on in the past weeks.

I then had a brief rehearsal with another horn player and we jammed on a single unison phrase that we are playing together in my end of year recital. It was very successful.

I have since spent some time on my transcriptions and have Dexter's Confirmation at 132bpm, Kenny Garrett's Miss Jones at 110bpm, and Cannonball's Hi-Fly at speed, in the key of Eb at 110bpm, in the key of F at 100bpm, in the key of G at 90bpm, and the keys of A and Bb they are still sitting around 80bpm. More needs to be done on those keys over the next week.

I'm now taking a break from music before going and teaching for 3 and a half hours.