Mixed bag this week. Early on I was back to three sessions a day, and there were some good tunes at the Plough jam Wednesday. But I hurt my left heel that day, and didn't have the emotion to play much since then. This morning I got back, with pieces like "Someday You'll Call My Name (and I won't answer)", "Arkansas Traveller" at moderate tempo contest-style, "Stack of Barley/Wheat", musette "Jeanette", "Original Rags" and "Sunflower Slow Drag".

It's strange to bounce back and forth between loosening up and tightening up, maybe even doing both simultaneously. In that "Stack of Barley" set I'm definitely getting more flexibility in phrasing and accenting and feel, and both hands are freer. Does that mean I'm getting looser, or tighter? Heck, I dunno. For taste, it's going to sound like me. I love what Joe Derrane does, and sometimes I can go in that directioni, but it sounds best when it sounds like me. At the Wednesday session I had a conversational phrasing on "Ashokan Farewell", but I lost the melody in the B section -- I don't recall hearing others getting that same conversational affect in such a place.

Other tunes of note: "Someday You'll Call My Name" today had almost a Quebecois feel, with arpeggios, suspension, and occasional triplets, and the bass was more boom-a-chuck-a than boom-chuck. A number of tunes Wednesday had root-and-fifth dyads like a mandolin or banjo, and "Okie from Muskogee" got into that Tom Brumley style of backup steel. "Travelin' Blues", "Houston", "Busted", "Honky Tonk Blues", "My Heart Would Know" all pulled time.

Listening this week was mostly bossa nova and Hank Williams. (Go figure. ;-)

Percussion is coming along. Bones are very slow to make progress, but progress is being made. With sticks I have to learn to control my bounces and get all the rudiments down as written. Brushes on cymbals are starting to sound right too. I've been reading through and mentally practicing on that "Brazilian for kit" book... seems like it would be very useful for accenting and independence.
posted by macromed5 at 8:33 AM

Still in an altered schedule, often only one accordion session a day... instead of staying up late, am waking up early, a lot of time following the news. I'm sloppy on box, but some things have changed for the better... a lot more looseness on rags, a lot more control over phrasing changes on fiddletunes. I pulled back "Temptation Rag" from memory after about a two-month lapse, also read out "Stars & Stripes Forever" and "That's a-Plenty". The latter is better when played by ear, although I still need to refer to the score for the trio.

I see what I need to do with percussion. It took awhile to get to first base on the hi-hat, but that tip of keeping the ball of the foot forward and down and to hit the beat on the release changed things around. I've got a lot of work to do to get four-to-the-bar swing on both feet, with the left syncopating fills, but I can see it now. There's a continuum, from using shoes to using jingle stick and pedal to using bass drum and hi-hat and snare. My goal is to get the principles and the basic independence so that I can use each of these combos at will, as they blend best with the other sound.
posted by macromed5 at 8:31 AM