Today Charles and I had a lesson with Anders for our duo repertoire, as we did our ensemble pieces last night. We played Chromatic Foxtrot, Cross Corners, and Log Cabin Blues from the G. H. Green ragtime book, and A Foggy Day and Stardust as standards.
One great thing about Anders is that he has played everything. Usually in 1983 and in some hilarious circumstance. So he knows a lot about styles of playing and improvisation. He also talks a lot about movement and enjoyment of the music. Charles got some great tips on 'comping' in the ragtime style while not sounding the same all the time. I got s some advice on improvising in a ragtime style in the non-ragtime standards. And we both went from being average-good players a bit tired in the morning, to hot confident players with a real joy for the music.
Tomorrow we're heading out to Framnäs on a bit of an emergency morale-boosting mission. I will have to try to give the students as much confidence as Anders gave me!
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