That's a nice picture!

If you're going to try out the online class this weekend here's a way to prepare.

Learn the melody and the chords. Don't worry about a chord melody or anything like that if you don't want to.

Be able to play through the tune EVEN if you read the music. The point is to get from the beginning to the end whether you memorize or read.

Play the the tune a little each day so it's working it's way in your mind.

Print out a lead sheet to the tune, so you can look along with us as we play through the tune.

Let me announce our new TOTM. How Deep Is the Ocean.

I talked with Behn and we will attempt to keep this TOTM at about a month. Behn's idea! Hence we will live up to it's description.

HOWEVER, and in addition. Next Saturday at 2 pm we will have an online class where we will talk about the tune and take questions. Behn and I want to really experiment with the class idea. We're going to be trying out (beta) two things. One is using Livestream for classes and the other is Skype.

Glen Dalrymple makes the quietest instrument I own. Well, not entirely true, but he rebuilt my M48 and it is now a beautiful instrument.

Behn and I were messing around with the m55 and m48*GD (Glenn Dalrymple). We found some things that made the m55 quieter but my rebuilt instrument was very very quiet.

If you have a new m55 don't just tighten the big nut above the pedal, tighten the one below it. As I found out. That did make my instrument quieter.

Inspired by Ted's version, I started learning Serenata by Leroy Anderson. I couldn't find Serenata in any of the Real Books that I have so I listened to a few versions and decided to learn it from the Nat King Cole/George Shearing version.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001AL06DO

I tried to get some of Nat's phrasing in the melody. I am having trouble getting all of the changes, so I lay out playing the accompaniment and just play melody. The Cole/Shearing arrangement also has a modulation for an instrumental section. In that section, I just play the melody in octaves.

Just kidding!!!

Did post this one yet?

i found a cool and fun thing to do which is a good lesson i think. on this video at about 4 minutes chick plays some blues licks which gary instantly repeats together with the audience singing. the blues is in Bb flat and he uses mostly the Bb blues scale on his licks. can you play all the phrases like gary on the fly just by hearing the once you heard them?

i tried and it was not easy and i failed on most of them when i tried the first time. to me it prooves i still can´t play what i can sing. singing like the audience is no problem for every of us i think :)

Here's a little something to get away from our TOTM for a minute!

I've been working on the 2013 workshop for about three hours now. It sucks doing all the administrative stuff or something like this, I want to shoot myself.