The technical drill

In my last year at York University, where I did my undergrad, I spent a year doing an I dependent study on jazz piano pre-1930. I studied with and was mentored by a phenomenal pianist/composer named Bill Westcott. In addition to being an expert on ragtime, stride and boogie woogie, he also got the occasional gig playing as a soloist with orchestras. He showed me how he prepared to do these gigs, explaining how much more chops one needs to play on a 10 foot grand piano versus his own 5 foot.

He had a drill of scales, solid and broken chords, arpeggios, 8ves, three Hanon exercises and a few neat little finger busters that he did in 12 keys.  He told me it took him about an hour and got him into great shape.  He had connections at a couple of churches in Toronto (where I was living) who had 10 foot grands and he would go there, run the drill and work on his piece a few times a week to prepare for whatever concert he was doing.  The way that he had it laid out in such an organized way was such a revelation to me!

Over the course of weeks, months and finally a year, I took Bill's drill and worked on it, often 2 hours a day.  Once I could do all of the exercises in major, then I did harmonic minor, melodic minor, harmonic major and then all of the diatonic modes.  I then did the diatonic minor modes, the whole tone scale and the diminished scale, and added all versions of four note chords.  I then showed Bill what I had done.  He thought it was an amazing idea, and also a little nuts.  The good news was that my chops had never been better.  His little drill that helped get him into shape before a show afforded me the chops that I had never had before.

I was thinking of this lately, as I have been getting back into practicing regularly again after my two year hiatus from regular and structured practice.  While my hands are surprisingly supple considering how little I've been playing/practicing over the last long while, I still want to get back into shape again.  My usual go to is the Goldberg Variations, which I have been hacking through for the last 7 or 8 years, but now I have returned again to Bill Westcott's drill.  It is helping a lot and is giving me a way to measure my progress.  How clean the scales sound, at what point my hand or hands get tired (always the left before the right) and how briskly I can play each exercise.  I hope to be in markedly better shape by my NYC gig on June 1st.  We'll see...