Good week of practice, but I've settled into a new groove, quite different from the previous months. The overall goal remains multiple accordion sessions a day, in morning, evening, and night. But instead of working on discrete pieces now I'm working on songs as an example of feel... instead of playing three rags I might play one song for the same amount of time. Big listens this week were Hank Williams and midwest gospel... Jessie Mae Renfro from Oklahoma knocks me out.

My left hand has changed deeply this past month... there's more of a spectrum between a straight two-beat, and a shuffle, and four-to-the-bar chords with bass syncopations, and a funkier bass-oriented style. It's feeling more like there's an independent guitarist in the left hand. Meanwhile the right hand is using those country and gospel tunes to work things out pentatonically and conversationally.... right now it's hard to throttle back the gospel phrasing to get back to a starker Hank Williams sound, but that's a problem for another day. The big thing is that there has been a lot of progress in making both hands independently more fun and less rote.

I've still been tossing some rags, musette and choro in there, but even they're transformed, and the rhythm's importance relative to the linear melody line is greater than it was in the past. A lot of this is probably due to the frequency of work with brushes on hi-hat along with bass drum... I'm getting lots of little 3-5 minute sessions through the day with these. (I'm also vocalizing more, but in the apartment I'm not able to work on tone and projection, mostly just pitch, lyrics, independence and phrasing.)
posted by macromed5 at 11:34 AM