Coen 
After I had been in the rehearsal room with my very first band for about 3 months, it was time for our first show. I was pretty nervous, yet excited to try out my brand new stage piano. Man that thing sounded amazing. Classic vintage sounds and a much more real-to-life piano sound than my … Read more
This weeks LOTW is another bluesy lick stolen from the mighty Rai Thistlethwayte. A few weeks ago I posted a lick of Rai taken from his Roland V presentation gig at the Sydney Conservatory. Great responses means great success, so.. here’s another one! Rai will likely be good for more lick-grab-bag fillers in the future. … Read more
Here’s my first shot at turning the Musician’s Diet into video – like a.. show? Let me know what you think of this format! Any feedback is welcome. Original Musician’s Diet newsletter idea announcement. If you haven’t yet, subscribe to the MD here:
Many -successful- people swear by visualization. They truly believe that if they think hard enough about something they want and envision themselves with every fibre of their bodies already having it – how it feels, looks, smells – that they will get it. And the strange thing is (or is it?) – it works. … Read more
For this week’s CoutCam video – an amazing bassline-loop taken from Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie On Reggae Woman.” This tune might have one of the sickest basslines in history. I didn’t actually play that entire bassline – originally played on an amazing Moog bass-synth – but just extracted the main groove, so that I could turn … Read more
For this week’s CoutCam video – a loop from a tune that I wrote called “Too Far Away.” Taking the chords I shared with you earlier as the Progression Of The Week, here’s my take on adding patterns and groove to that. The progression is very loopable, just steadily played in a groove like … Read more
This week’s lick is a New Orleans Blues style lick. The lick makes nice use of bluesy techniques like thirds-moves, hand rolls and top-root harmonized blue-note phrases. Image in the video splits the lick up in three parts – Thirds walks (G Blues to C) Hand roll (G with blue note, landing on C) Top-root … Read more
You can only perform as good as your body and mind allow for. They are your tools – your instrument. When you regard them as such, taking good care of them makes all the more sense. “A sound mind is in a sound body” “Perfecting the personal regularly leads to success as a professional – … Read more
It’s hard to argue against the fact that we are constantly being influenced by all that we see in the world around us – consciously, but definitely also unconsciously. Being aware of this and on the lookout for the recyclable building blocks that make something -anything- “great,” allows you to extract those building blocks, ideas … Read more
This week’s lick is a tiny adaption on one from Rai Thistlethwayte’s live show at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music at the Roland V Grand Release. In the original (1:26), Rai plays a “d” (as opposed to an e-flat) on the turn (d-flat, d, d-flat, b-flat), which makes the lick a bit more bluesy … Read more