Scales and Tunes

Today I spent almost 2 hours on Scales and about 2 hours on Tunes. Hense the title.

But for starters there was almost a full hour of long tones, with about a 10 minute break for a chat with Ax, thanks man. The Altissimo is coming a long as normal, sounding good and healthy strong tone on all notes. The G and Ab still aren't the easiest to produce, but when I get them, they have a very strong tone.

I spent an hour playing the major modes (at 130, 132, 135 bpm and varying between these tempos). I played them in my natural range, and then in the altissimo range as it is much slower. Then in 3rds, and altenating 3rds and I attempted 4ths and 5ths again, but my god I struggle to do that, I always get mixed up. I'll get there though, it just needs persistence. I played the pentatonic scales in 3 note cells as triplets, 4 note cells as quavers and 5 note cells as quintuplets. I found them easy to play in the altissimo however.

I spent about an hour transcribing some parts out of Oh Babe by Adderley. Nat Adderley's lines are hard, they are so bent!!! its awesome.

I then spent 2 hours playing confirmation and learning that Cannonball Adderley played it on a TV appearance on NBC in the late 50's, I'm tracking it down now. I spent a bit of time working on the melody of confirmation around 20 mins, then about 15 minutes playing one note with the metronome set on 2 and 4 at 200. I spent about 25 minutes playing the changes with the metronome set on 200, 198, 196, 202, 205bpm's, hard going, but I feel my time is coming together. Then half an hour playing some of the changes with the piano and improvising over the chords and half an hour with an aebersold.

I have also composed an awesome song. 7/4 Bossa song, with a melody inspired by an Adderley lick.