"It's better to do something simple that is real!"

Unreal iRealBook!

Thanks to Jazzwee, whose blog I discovered today, I have just downloaded iRealBook, an incredibly useful app for the aspiring jazz player. It is brilliant as it plays chord charts (no melody or lyrics thereby avoiding copyright issues) in a number of different styles. More charts are being added all the time but there is a core group of 1200 jazz tunes plus heaps of Latin, Brazilian and a good selection of Pop too to boot. You can also create your own charts and iRealBook will create a backing track for you. Another brilliant feature is that it copes with transposing instruments so all you trumpeters, saxophonists and clarinetists can get in on the act too.
Get it now for your Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android phone.

Dave Frank on Bill Evans

I discovered the seemingly unknown, but quite remarkably knowledgeable and talented jazz pianist and teacher Dave Frank by accident recently. It did not take me long before I ordered both of his Joy of Improv books which I really like the look of as they are set out in graded curriculum style using 26 lessons. Each lesson contains a technical exercise, hip jazz voicings, a solo pattern for transposition, an original blues tune and a jazz line based on a standard. Dave has also done a great series of video lessons and the one I have watched took apart Bill Evans playing and technique using the tune "A Time For Love". About the best explanation I have come across to date of how these great jazz players but together their real-time compositions. Here is the first in the series of 8 videos Dave has put together for this lesson alone. Enjoy!

Clavier Companion

I really like the Pianist magazine which I have posted about here. Yesterday, I did a little google search for other keyboard/piano magazines and discovered Clavier Companion which I think has only been in existence for a little while as there are only 9 issues dating back to 2010. It is perhaps aimed at the more experienced pianist being a little more erudite than Pianist with some great in depth analysis articles. Like Pianist it is published every 2 months and they also offer an iPad app. Although, their website offers a digital edition to subscribe to it appears that if you use the iPad app you can download the issues for free as I have done just that. with 8 of them. Do check it out as I think you will find it is well worth it.

While I was away, the U3 arrived, the...........

.................police and the state power company and I owe Michelle big time! The furniture removalist engaged to pick up the U3 from Perth and deliver it here to Denmark had driven up our street in his truck many times. This time unfortunately, he managed to knock down a power line 2 doors up just before he got to my place.





Despite all this, the U3 is now ensconced happily in it's new home. It will wait patiently for the piano tuner to arrive for a touch up tune, some hammer pricking and damper unsticking too I would think. It is such a privilege to have a real piano to play on and I look forward to the difference that I know it will make for me as a player.

Yamaha U3

Now I have had a term of piano lessons, it has become evident that if I am serious about learning to play, then  using a digital piano to do so is not going to do the job. My teacher Franz is constantly telling me to play more softly and I have had further confirmation recently that overplaying is a typical fault of players who have only used a digital piano. So, I have been researching the possibility of getting an acoustic piano and this had led me to the conclusion that a grey market Yamaha U3 is probably the best option providing a great combination of quality and value. I started off thinking that a U2 would do the job as any piano I might purchase, had to have a practice pedal, but quickly discovered that there was a wider availability of U3s. As I knew I would be in Perth this week, I googled for private sales of Yamaha pianos and up popped a U3 for $4300.00 which was within my price range. After a 5 hour trip to Perth and multiple txt messages, I arrived at the owner Amelia's home to view and play the piano. Her baby was asleep, but fortunately it was time for him to get up anyway, so I got stuck into this U3 which sounded very well, played nicely and I was able to confirm that the pedals did their job. It was clearly in need of a tune and a couple of the lower keys were obviously suffering from lack of use but came good with a bit of massaging. Amelia mentioned that her father had originally purchased the U3 for her from a Peter Hudson at Piano World in Bentley. After I had done a bit of playing, some further conversation about the piano revealed that Amelia was a jazz singer and pianist who had probably been appalled with what she had just heard. Coincidentally, she had studied at WAAPA also as I had back in the early 1980s. I never buy anything on the spot but told Amelia what I was likely to offer and that I would get back to her either way once I had reflected further and checked out what Piano World had to offer. That turned out to be an experience in itself eventually resulting in my confirming an offer of $4000.00 to Amelia and ultimately agreeing on $4100.00.

Peter Hudson's Piano World was a complete and utter eyeopener with not one but two showrooms absolutely chockablock with pianos and most of them were U3s!  Apart from supplying many other brands, Peter told me all about the quality Yamaha grey market pianos he specialises in importing and how they are stripped and brought up to scratch before being sold. I had the pleasure of playing about 6 U3s and all of them displayed a quite unexpected character, touch and tone of their own.  I would have loved to purchase one of them particularly, but it was going to cost me $7000.00 including freight. The fact that Amelia's U3 was purchased from Peter only 4 years earlier meant it was a no brainer that it would be worth purchasing the one she was offering for nearly $3000 less. It is going to cost me a very reasonable $350 to get the U3 to Denmark and, as soon as Amelia confirms the funds have appeared in her account, I will engage Albany furniture removalist Gary Sweetnam to do so. I can barely wait!

How are the lessons going Robin?

Well, I thought you would never ask! Great, really great. I am spending far more time at the piano each day now as I have so much to work on.

1. Scale of C two octaves each hand and both hands in contrary and similar motion.
2. Duvernoy studies 1 & 2.
3. A one page arrangement of the beautiful main theme of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.
4. The 3 canons from the beginning of The Children's Bach.
5. The Henry Purcell Minuet from the Easy Classics to Moderns series
6. Various technique exercises from The Joy of First Year Piano Technique.
7. I am still working on a couple of my own pieces Edison's Tune and Yungup and continuing to play Andy's Song and keeping up with my improvising.

Has my playing improved you ask? Hell yeh! I am bedding the notes to the key bed now and even on my digital piano the tone is better and I am actually hearing some new qualities to the sound of the notes.
I have also made a little discovery which has really helped thumb under crossing on a white key scale. I have not heard of this anywhere but I am placing my fingers closer to the ends of the black keys and particularly so on the note held by the finger immediately before the note the thumb needs to cross under to play. Probably common knowledge but sometimes it is worthwhile discovering this sort of thing for oneself.