Jazz harmony tutorial

All sorts of possibilities are emerging with my new toy (laptop)! Here's a tutorial for tritone substitution harmony which I did with the inking tools in word (superimposed on a screenshot of manuscript paper).

You get real reflective practice by doing this sort of thing. There are mistakes (at the end I talk of the 'proper dominant', where instead it should be 'proper tonic'...) But from one recording to the next, it should get better...

Video on Organisation and the VSM

Here's my video on the organisation and the VSM, using the new inking features on my laptop... Lots of potential here!

Open Position

I'm playing around with open position chords. Bearing in mind the stuff that I've done on 'grounding', the presence of so many open 5th, 6ths is not new... but this is approaching it from a different perspective. Open position chords have a richness is covering the broad spectrum of sound... there is a completeness, a feeling of 'many voices' with different characters, rather than more homogeneous closed position sounds... Will experiment with this more

Isobel passed her first piano exam today!

new improv with laptop

here's my first post created with my new laptop. I'm very tired ... it's been a long week!

new laptop

it arrived a day later than I anticipated, but the new laptop is here. very good. but I'm too tired to do an improvisation tonight.

Last post from this computer!

I'm getting a new laptop tomorrow! (I desperately need it... this one's got no battery and the screen's falling off).

This improvisation is inspired by the Burgundian Cadence found in Machaut and other 14th century music. Interesting how 'oriental' it sounds.. is that just that my fabrication?

The bitonal bits are also interesting. How do the different tunes maintain their consistency against each other. Astrid organised my teenage philosophy last week where I theorised about the consistency of tunes. Why can't you develop a tune? (Percy Grainger said you could only repeat them..) What gives a tune 'completeness'? What makes them memorable? And when two are played against one another in different keys, how do we hear 'two tunes'?

Strategy passed!

My strategy got over its biggest hurdle yesterday. Feels like a great weight lifted from me. This improvisation was done very late with the volume very low and recorded on the piano. Suddenly got me thinking about other things that can be done using this technique.