piano geek

so the musical is going well,

just hitting it's stride with tonight's performance, the 5th, although we've got a long break before the next show...

i'm still making tiny mistakes and it irritates me, so i've set myself quite a grueling practice regime in which i do 2 handed scales just like i get my students to do, but while i get them to do a major, natural minor & harmonic minor scale on each note (gradually, throughout the year),

i'm getting myself to play all the modes of the major scale on each note...

i've been doing it for some time now (tonight) and i'm not quite half way through,

i do it in the order suggested by W A Mathieu in "harmonic experience", where each change of mode adds one more flat, staring with lydian:

lydian,
ionian (major),
mixolydian,
dorian,
aeolian (natural minor),
phrygian,
locrian,

i'm working on a tune at the moment and i've got my gigging keyboard out with the GEM module being the piano, insane, what with the piano right there, but that's the weird place i'm in right now...

i was just playing through the same list of modes, but improvising while holding down notes with my left hand, not to sound the notes but in order to free those (imaginary - digital) strings and let that strange reverb ring out... as in this section of this improvisation...

the tune is currently called hay fever, but that'll probably change, i can't decide if it's right yet, or whether a certain section needs changing, but i love it, i play it whenever i can...