Practice Schedule 2011/09/16

So. Playing a gig on bass tonight for the first time ever. I generally keep my new habit (a few weeks old) of playing the bass a secret from the jazz universe. But if you're this deep into the bowels of my website, you can know whatever you want besides my social security number.

Shedded the charts today. Not so bad, as long as the tempos are under control. Would shed even more, but I'd hate to miss the gig for blister acquired while shedding for it.

Around 430 turned back to the Soprano and experimented with equipment. First tried sticking with the Selmer Session H on soprano and it was awful. Could not keep the fracking instrument in tune.

Switched back to my old C* and while wayyyyy too small, the horn felt downright spectacular. This is great news! (I don't need a new horn, just a new mouthpiece), but still terrifying news - I need to drop some dough on a soprano mouthpiece.

Working for the first time ina while on developing new exercises. I have certain things that I play too often in certain tonalities (certian shapes my hands cling to in whole-tone environments, diminsished sounds I play too often, etc). Hoping to flush a lot of them out of my playing by forcing myself to develop and practice a bunch of new shapes.

Will try to post some of them as mindless etudes when I have a chance.