29/03/2008 by admin.

In preparation for my looming attendance at the Jazzwise Summer School in July (2008) as a piano student, I’ve begun work on my jazz piano playing. And boy, did it need work!

In the late 80s I was fortunate enough to have piano lessons with Lionel Grigson (d 1994) - former jazz professor at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Lionel taught me lots about jazz harmony and got me started on jazz impro.

So I decided to find a good jazz piano teacher again to help me with some useful approaches to practising and developing my skills and confidence. I had my first jazz piano lesson yesterday - excellent! I got all kinds of things from it. Whereas I’ve been focusing almost entirely on cementing my chord-scale knowledge in the past few years, we did almost none of that in my lesson. Instead we looked at how to develop interest and momentum from a simple thematic idea. This was brilliant and, for the first time, I really felt I was making some headway as a jazz pianist.

Lots to work to do in the next few weeks, putting into practice the ideas we covered yesterday. Pieces I’m currently working on include ‘My Foolish Heart’ (à la Bill Evans) and McCoy Tyner’s ‘Island Birdie’.

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20/03/2008 by admin.

I really miss gigging! Don’t get me wrong, I’m having a great time in the work that I do, which couldn’t be more fulfilling. But it’s been years since I’ve done a live gig and I miss it like crazy!

Having just set up my MySpace - using the name m2e2 - I’ve uploaded a couple of original compositions and plan to start writing again in 2008 - the year that I finally dedicate time to get playing the piano properly again. In fact later this year I’m taking myself off the the Jazzwise Summer School, as a piano student. Watch this space and my MySpace site for news of new music from me!

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06/03/2008 by admin.

I’ve recently launched a new Yamaha Education online community site, designed to connect professionals working in music education.

Originally I just wanted a blog that people with something interesting to say could use and attract a community. However just before Christmas I came across Webjam, a social networking company - then not 12 months old - which seemed to focus much more on groups, communities, clubs, etc, and was therefore much better suited to my needs. Simply put, Webjam offered lots of interesting possibilities which the existing social networks just don’t have.

Setting up a Webjam is simply a matter of choosing from an existing design (basically a set of CSS scripts that control the look and feel of the site) then draggng modules on to each page. So you can have a forum, blog, profile, mp3 player, polls, YouTube videos, photos and loads of other neat stuff. Braver souls can then customise the design if they wish, simply using standard CSS.

You can set up the Webjam so that it is entirely public or so that people have to join to see certain modules or pages. It’s very simple to set up and the interface works brilliantly.

If you run a club, community or association, Webjam is a fantastic resource and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

www.webjam.com

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