A few scales always work up an appetite before breakfast. Today I focused on the diminished scales – nine-note scales, sometimes known as half-whole scales. Like the diminished chords, there are only three on your keyboard. I tend to play a favourite chord (usually a diminished or a 13th/b9), play the scale a few times and try out a couple of nice fun phrases around the scale. Woah.. Gimme some caffeine!

During my past years as, “Yer local town pianist”, I have been playing a lot of my songs in keys that my fingers were used to – so today I have been grabbing the Real Book and playing them in their original keys. Today – that wonderful song, Misty by Errol Garner. You can find it played in different styles here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ7v7mdzK08. I have downloaded the PDF – but it’s rubbish – so I am transcribing bits of it into Musescore. Let me know if you would like a copy! (and the preferred format. It’s FOC!)

It’s not in the Real Book – at least not in my 6th edition – but that old WW2 classic, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, was crying out to be transposed into Eb – so I did and enjoyed the refrain when it changed to G. Joy!