Lots of practice - March 2

Practiced a lot today. Went through Falling Grace, Gloria’s Step, Girl from Ipanema, and I Love You, looking at the chords, making sure I picked out the right notes, making sure everything was correct as far as the notation was concerned. I still can’t figure out I Love You, however. I’ve got some messed up chords here and there, like, I don’t know, maybe a C7b9 with two sharps and a flat, or some crap like that. I’m going to have to get Newt to help me with it, because I just can’t make it work on my own.

After a short break, I worked on scales and arpeggios some more, as well as some four note voicings from the Jazz Chord Hanon book. I’m going to keep working from the Berklee book for now, because I feel that is more necessary at this point. They want everything played in all twelve keys (just like Levine), and I’ve been working on doing that. I only have trouble with a few keys (E, Gb, B, C#, such as those), but I’ve noticed I’m getting better, slowly, at actually finding and hitting the right notes depending on the key. It’s tedious, but important, I feel. I listened to Ella Fitzgerald last night, but I’m going to listen to something strictly piano tonight, probably Wynton Kelly.