Yesterday at jazz combo we played a few new songs to start getting ready for when we play on the 20th. We started off with some Charlie Parker- Confirmation and Moose the Mooche. Since I’m playing tenor, Moose the Moose feels a little better at this point. I do have the Charlie Parker omnibook in both B flat and E flat. After that we played Chick Corea’s Spain, which is a cool tune. I had played it a last year, so it’s somewhat familiar.
The Joe Viola chords book I have been using to practice site reading has helped me get better reading crazy keys, ie the exercise I’m on is C flat diminished, so the chord starts on C flat and each chord tone has a double flat.
I was thinking about the chords in Spain as A flat instead of G sharp and E flat instead of D sharp. I’ve heard people say that most horn players like flats more than sharps. I played in orchestra on clarinet for a few years, which helped me get used to sharps though. Really I ought to be able to read them both without any problem, so I need to keep working on that. After Spain we played Someday My Prince Will Come which is a cool song as a jazz walz.
