Bill C Martin’s Blog

Well I’ve managed somehow to find some time to work some more on my jazz playing and am really starting to notice the difference.

I’ve spent some time practising useful scales - particularly diminished and melodic minor modes - and am becoming a bit less wooden in my use of them when improvising. I’ve done some ’round the circle’ playing of motifs and licks in all keys but need to do more of that. I’ve focussed mostly on a couple of tunes as a playground for trying things out. These include ‘My Foolish Heart’ and McCoy Tyner’s ‘Walk Spirit Talk Spirit’.

I still need to work on faster playing; I still stumble over fingering during faster impro passages but have no trouble if I learn a passage. I guess I just need to get used to either thinking ahead a bit more or to working with a range of different fingering.

Off to the Jazzwise Summer School in just over a week. My erstwhile fear has gone, after a few months of practice, and I’m really looking forward to it.

The whole point of going is to write up my experience in Yamaha’s YES magazine, which I edit, and hopefully inspire teachers to invest some time in their own jazz playing. If they do this they will find, as I’ve done, that their teaching will move up a gear (and not just in jazz) and they will get untold measures of personal satisfaction!

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’.

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!

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

Professionals working in music education can now join the Yamaha Education Community online at www.yamahaeducation.co.uk and following the joining instructions.

This free service allows community members to take part in a broad range of activities and share ideas and information about all things music education.

I’ve launched the first of two Yamaha Music Education websites: www.yamahamusiceducation.co.uk

This site is where you’ll find information about the projects and activities in music education that Yamaha is involved with in the UK. It also presents information about YES magazine and items of relevant news.

Providing information is all very well, but what makes a difference is people. So I’m preparing a second website, to be hosted by the company, Webjam, where groups of people can share ideas, best practice, video clips and various other media, related to the teaching of music and music technology. I hope to launch this later in January (2008) and will announce it in due course.

Hi!

I’m Bill C Martin and this blog will replace my previous one. Watch this space to see it grow during 2008!

Warmest regards

Bill