This morning got off to a good start because a couple of weeks ago I threw out all of the scale and chord books that I used to use for harmonic practice and now I just do tunes and improvisation and go over any of the chords and scales from memory because I know most of them anyway. There are thousands of them but they are easy to remember because they are all related to each other.

Finally, I have found a way to practice that I really enjoy, a mixture of keeping my reading music skills up by improvising on the chords on paper, spontaneous improvisation of any tune that comes into my head both melody and jazzing it up and going over scales and chords that relate to the two things above so the scales and chords are done within a context rather than just on their own as I used to do. Hours of it in fact in the 90s when I was very keen on harmonica.

I am going to get the folk harmonica going as well and relearn all the Irish and country tunes that I used to know. The York session at the Maltings will be graced by me by the end of the month. Watch out there is a harmonica about!

I would like to thank The Button Hole Jam band as well as the Butterknowle bunch of people up there for giving me a role model prod in the direction of taking music a bit less seriously and having more fun with it. They certainly do!