Just started learning the Friedman Etude No. 1. I need to work on getting more legato (dampen simultaneously with hitting the next note), dynamics and bringing the speed up.

Ahhh, welcome to the first etude of the Friedman book. You're about to embark on a really great journey!

On the last day of the workshop here in Ireland, we took Donna Lee and Analyzed it over 2 hours. Everybody was really into it and we barely scratched the surface so I'm thinking of doing a weekly lesson when I get back and we can all just tear apart that tune. Bar by bar.

We took each lick and worked on it, studied the harmony and tried to worked on the chords.

So I'm thinking of spending a few months studying that!

All the English accents! Pretty funny to hear all the accents in one room and all the slang and all the curses! I had a student who was from London and it was very hard to understand him.

The 3 musicians I'm playing with are real pros and sound great. You know you're always worried about that when you're far away. That is how is the band going to sound. It can be a disaster, but this worked out well. The trick is to bring really good charts with everything laid out well. I didn't but it didn't matter cause these guys were great players.

The workshop in Ireland is great. I have some footage i'll upload probably when I get back. I do have audio from the workshop that I'll post when I get back. I'll have to edit some of the mp3s to make them more concise.

Ways to practice scales.
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Chinese translation for Chinese students
第一件事，如果你要打8度上行，可以試著打到第九音在下行，這樣聽起來比較悅耳。

再來可以練習小調，Dorian（大調降3,7）, 旋律小音階Melodic minor scale。

等到你熟了一點後，可以打在不同的調上，可以用半音轉調練各種不同調，或是用四度轉調。