Like Someone in Love

Boarding School Syndrome

2010-01-02T21:13:00.001-06:00

I think that Babs has characteristics of this syndrome. http://www.boardingrecovery.com/images/SurvivingthePrivilege.pdf

I am really concerned when he forces Remi to not show his emotions.

bottom line

2010-01-02T11:19:00.002-06:00

So here's the bottom line. I am a person with an anxiety disorder. Should a person in my condition be living with a person who is a control freak, argumentative, super-critical and easily flies off the handle. Should I stay with someone who in general contributes to my sense of anxiety and is a major trigger for panic attacks?

Do I have a right to live free from fear?

Do I have a right to not be constantly put down for my lack of ____, fill in the blank? Any word can fit there.

Texas All-Star Jazz Concert

2009-07-23T20:23:00.000-05:00

I'm attending a jazz concert in lieu of my usual Thursday night combo class. Collin college puts on a jazz camp for high school students in the area. Tonight is the final concert with professional players and special guest Greg Bissonette on drums. Note: my fabulous combo director, Kevin McNerney on bari sax, bottom right-

Jazzyblu

2009-07-10T20:35:00.000-05:00

Jazzyblu

2009-07-10T20:21:00.000-05:00

Jerry Toleson performs with his combo at the new club, Jazzyblu in downtown Louisville, KY. We went to unwind after a week of classes, concerts and performances at the Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop.

Tradition

2009-07-10T10:07:00.001-05:00

Camp always ends with Jamey Aebersold on banjo! Afterwards we write down our goals for the year. Jamey mails it back to us in January. My goals by January:

Learn 6 tunes in depth as prescribed by Harbison.

Learn Blues in 6 Keys.

Learn Rhythm Changes in 6 keys.

The Masters

2009-07-10T10:01:00.000-05:00

David Baker, Dan Haerle, Jerry Coker, Rufus Reid, Ed Soph

Lunch with Bobby and the guys

2009-07-08T12:49:00.000-05:00

Mealtime is not complete without Bobby Floyd on Hammond B3 organ. Today he played with Steve Davis, Fred Hamilton and Jim Snidero. Jim was my combo teacher at SJW two years ago.

Notes from Tuesday

2009-07-07T20:42:00.002-05:00

Today was awesome, I learned a ton as always. This is my third time at Aebersold SJW and I wondered if it would have as much impact on me as the first time. I'd say definitely yes. There is SO MUCH to learn and you are working with several different faculty throughout the day. Each person has something different to offer you in terms of perspectives or techniques. Good stuff.

Today the horns from my combo had a session with a faculty rhythm section. We worked with Lynn Seaton, Steve Davis and Steve Erquiaga. They gave us great feedback. I need to work on my phrasing. Quit starting all of my lines on beat 1 or the "&" of beat one. Instead start in measure 2 leading into 3. Or picking up into the next bar. Also I need to change pitch to the next chord on the "&" of beat 4 rather than on beat "1". Anticipate. Sara worked with me on this last year but I didn't practice it enough.

At master class and combo, we read several tunes that used the half-whole diminished scale pretty heavily. I'm glad I shed on that scale just before camp.

Overall... my take-away from today is that I really need to memorize tunes/changes and use my ear more. There are many things I've invested time practicing that still don't surface in my solos. I need to quit staring at the changes. It's causing me to stop listening, and play things that are disjointed. Making pretty melodies used to be my strong point but I feel like I'm losing that the more I drill changes, patterns etc. I need to get back to that being the girl who loves Bill Evans and Roy Hargrove.

Theory with Harbison

2009-07-07T09:44:00.001-05:00

Pat Harbison taught us how to slow down and go deeper into the sound of just one scale. He recommends doing this for 15-30 minutes a day.

How Insensitive

2009-07-06T20:49:00.000-05:00

Jobim played on accordion? Yes. Beautiful.

Monday night

2009-07-06T20:20:00.000-05:00

Soph, Ketch, Baker open up the Monday evening concert.

I'm learning a ton at camp and it's only the first day. I'm in Jerry Coker's combo with some extremely talented players. He has given me some terrific feedback on my playing. The first thing he noticed was that I tend to cling to my stock patterns on the bebop tunes. He asked if I do this out of "self defense" (a joke). I replied, "yes, absolutely!" I also had some difficulty with my sound equipment so he cut me some slack on that.

We read some tough tunes, exposing my weakness on bebop. I limped along at the fast tempos. It was pretty painful. However when we moved to the modal stuff I relaxed and came out of my shell. Some of the players did not seem to make the adjustment and continued to shred changes. Even though there were no changes to shred! It took some coaching from Coker to show us show to correctly approach a modal tune. Thinking more in 4ths and pentatonics rather than tertiary harmony. He reminded us that as players, some of us will be better (or worse) at different styles of jazz. We should work towards mastery, regardless.

Sunday night

2009-07-05T20:08:00.000-05:00

Back at Camp!

2009-07-05T19:57:00.000-05:00

I'm back for another round of Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop! Only been here a few hours and I already feel right at home. My audition went well, I got lots of compliments on my progress from last year. That alone has made this worth the trip. Great to see old friends and working on making some new ones.

Goodbye, Michael

2009-06-28T23:37:00.004-05:00

I find myself deeply affected by the death of Michael Jackson. I've spent the last few days going through a variety of emotions. Laughing at the memories of myself and my siblings...trying to learn the moonwalk... dressing like Michael... running to the TV everytime the Pepsi commercial aired. Sobbing out loud when I hear "Man in the Mirror", "We are the World", "Heal the World". They just don't make songs like that anymore! Does anyone even care about the world today, or are we all just looking out for ourselves??? Michael made us think about that, and I'm not sure anyone will ever take his place.

It's three days after his death, and they have stopped playing the video tributes. Regular programming has resumed and I'm so scared that Michael will begin to slip into obscurity. This morning I actually heard George Stephanopolous, say "do we still need to be talking about this?" I'm not ready to move on. Michael Jackson is a huge part of my childhood, my teenage years, my adulthood. Saying goodbye to him is like, saying goodbye to a big chunk of myself.

For a brief moment I am able to relive the excitement of MJ through my kids. On the day he died, they watched Beat It, Thriller, and Bad for the first time. They were every bit as amazed as I was. They did the dance steps, they puzzled over the proper technique of moonwalking. While we watched Beat It, we talked about gang violence and how Michael stood up for peace. I explained that Michael stopped the fight and helped the gangs get along by dancing. My explanation may sound corny. But my 6 year old son looked me dead in the eye and said, "Mommy, when I grow up, I want to be just like Michael. I'm going to stop the fighting." And so the legacy continues...

Rest in peace Michael. We love you. Thank you.

Recital Fall 2008

2008-11-09T10:43:00.008-06:00

Last night we had our fall recital with Jazz Combo PM. I think I did pretty well. First of all, this is the first time I've actually invited people to come see me. My folks came and also one of my students and her family. Which instantly raised my nervousness. This is something I constantly struggle with. I mean, what is my deal? I am a grown woman but sometimes I feel like I'm 12, playing at solo and ensemble contest. ???

Well anyway, in spite of the nerves I did alright. We opened with Stolen Moments. I got jittery and started my solo too soon, rather than going to page 2 with the horns. Oops! But I caught it after a measure and jumped back in. The sound guys had me up nice and loud. No feedback or other issues with my mike, so I felt very confident and played out on all my solos. I had debated the night before about using my electric. It sends a hotter signal, but I'm not crazy about the tone. Plus I've been having a problem with the G-string notes on the acoustic. They are extremely loud/ringing and no adjustments to the EQ seem to help. It wasn't a problem at the concert, though.

We ran into a couple snags on the vocal tunes, our singer got lost in the form and threw us for a loop. But our instructor jumped in and we managed to end okay. Just one of those things.

***
Tunes I'm working on right now

A Night in Tunisia
One Note Samba
Caravan
Stella by Starlight
Cherokee SLOW. SLOW. Did I mention, SLOW?

Stolen Moments

2008-11-09T10:21:00.005-06:00

It's always a challenge to squeeze in some practice time. In between working, trying to exercise, making kid's lunches, checking homework, doing laundry, all that mom stuff. But I found some spare time during my day which I've managed to parlay into a pretty effective practice routine. Stolen moments, if you will.

I noticed that when I get to work, there's a good 15-20 minutes wasted on checking my inbox, sifting through junk mail, piddling around the classroom, getting coffee, chatting, shuffling paperwork. I decided to forgo this nonsense. I started taking my instrument out and running some turnarounds instead. Then I go on with the rest of my day. It's amazing, my brain feels alive and I am in a much better mood. Encouraged by this, I started dropping my kids off to school 15 minutes earlier, thus increasing my stolen practice time to 30 minutes. I can get through 4 exercises and 2 tunes in that span of time. I'm excited to see what progress I can make over the long haul.

Jazz Camp 2008

2008-10-18T20:48:00.007-05:00

OMG where do I start. Well, I had a fantastic summer at Aebersold this year. A different experience from last year, some of my dear friends were missing in action. Rog, Terry, LT!!! Nevertheless I had a great time meeting new people. This year I had guitarist Dave Stryker as my combo teacher. My combo was amazing, big shout out to STRYKEFORCE. I actually got a sneak preview of Dave on Saturday night at Seelbach lounge. I fell in love with his playing and immediately began considering the possibilities of what I could borrow, what could be applicable to the violin. Turns out quite a bit.

Fate would have it, I ended up in Dave's combo. Since I got back from camp I've been working from his method book and it's nothing short of genius. It draws heavily on the minor substitution method of improvising which apparently my friends knew about but your girl had no clue. Makes a lot of sense on violin because you can improvise with stepwise motion rather arpeggiating. It lies better under the fingers and eliminates aggravating string crossings.

I also worked with my two heroes again, David Baker and Sara Caswell. At my audition they both were very complementary and remarked on my progress. It made my day, made my whole YEAR, let me tell you.

All of the concerts were amazing as always. I kept track of the tunes I can't live without:

Armaggedon
Beatrice
February 14th (Aebersold)
Moments Notice
Alone Together
The Night has a Thousand Eyes
Samba de Stacy
Desolate Shores
Affair D'Amour
Piccadilly
Seven Steps to Heavan

Words of wisdom from David Baker: Focus on one thing at a time. Start gigging. Play less with playalongs and more with recordings. Play more with real people, work on interacting with people. Get a list of ten tunes you are comfortable with and work from that.

My one year goal is to 1) learn more tunes, 2) meet and play with more local players.

Recital Fall 2007

2007-11-27T19:27:00.001-06:00

My combo class had our first recital of the semester. We opened for the Texas Instruments (TI) jazz band. They are pretty awesome, by the way. I've always wondered about the connection between engineers and music? Anyway, we played Dat Dere, Road Song, Moondance and Night and Day.

I soloed over Road Song and Night and Day. I felt strangely disconnected from my instrument as I was playing. It was most likely due to fatigue. Or have I finally entered that elusive state of calm detachment that I am striving for? Whatever the reason, I wasn't nervous once I got into it and started exploring ideas. I know it wasn't perfect. There were a few moments on Road Song. I forgot what key I was in and struggled for a few bars. I blame that on my lack of preparation, practice. I like the ideas that were coming out though. I especially like what I did on Night and Day. The changes were a stretch for me and so was the key (flats!) But I got a lot of compliments. The crowd was great, really into the whole performance. It was the perfect size stage for a jazz concert. Intimate.

out becomes in

2007-10-24T20:59:00.000-05:00

Where did October go? Seems like I barely blinked and it's almost over.

I've averaged 1 or 2 days per week of personal practice per week. SLACKING, ugh! I feel like I'm doing just barely enough to get by. I am making measurable progress on my third transcription, so that's cool. One measure at a time. I was excited the other night, I managed to take down some stuff that was really fast and outside the key. Which was a stretch. It didn't sound "out" once I played it on my own instrument, however. It felt "right". Is that what happens? "Out" becomes "in"?

Well anyways, tonight I practiced:

September Song
Speak Low
Vol 16 turnarounds 1, 2, 3
Jean de Fleur from class
worked on transcription

Confession. As much as I want to practice, some days I don't even take out the instrument because I am overwhelmed with how much there is to work on. I need to discipline myself to just practice for a short time, say 30 minutes. If there isn't time to put in two hours. Why am I not able to do that?

sounds like jazz

2007-10-04T22:43:00.000-05:00

Had combo tonight. I made it to class on time and stayed awake. That's saying something. Work is killing my energy these days. A millon fires to put out and seems like there's no mental juice left for music. I am already counting the days till my Christmas break so I can practice, uninterrupted.

I practiced just a couple days this week and mostly on my personal stuff, no class tunes. I'm noticing that I'm repeating myself a lot when I solo in class. I think I sound dull. I'm sure that would be improved if I spent more time delving into each tune. I'm playing good ideas, creative stuff on the tunes I've spent the most time researching, like Road Song. It's time consuming, though. The best I can do right now is listen to the songs in my car and try to mentally transcribe while I'm driving to work. I want to turn each tune inside out and feel like I really know it. I also want to practice my personal stuff, my David Baker stuff to improve my overall chops and understanding. I want to transcribe more, because I am *finally* getting good at it. I'm frustrated that I don't have more time.

Well, I've got to end on a positive. A different guitar player sat in with the combo tonight and after rehearsal we chatted. He asked me how I learned to play jazz, we talked about approaching jazz from a classical standpoint. He said "what you're playing, it really sounds like jazz." Whoa. That was music to my ears.

Fighting Fatigue

2007-09-27T22:45:00.001-05:00

Had combo tonight. I am really fighting to stay awake and make it to class. Something about having it on thursday is really tough. It's the end of the week and I am running on empty. I am there but I'm yawning the whole time and I know that mentally I'm not giving it my best. Some nights this state of mind has actually helped my playing...I'm too tired to worry about my choice of notes and I go with my instincts. This happened a couple weeks ago and I really let loose on Road Song. But not tonight. Tonight I just sounded tired.

The Professional

2007-09-22T22:09:00.000-05:00

Last night I played a gig with my teacher's band. It was a benefit concert and I sat in on a couple of tunes. I did Road Song, which I just learned, and St Thomas. Road Song was a little slower and more chilled out than the way I practiced it. Things like that still throw me for a loop. I practice a certain way when I'm alone, but the feel is totally different when I'm in a live situation. I guess you get better the more you do it? Yet another reason for me to keeping sitting in. Whether I'm ready or not! Overall, I'm not too enthused with what I did on that tune.

I am definitely motivated to start learning double-time licks, so I can be prepared for those medium/slower tempos. I started tonight by learning the one Mr. Baker gave us at camp. I've been avoiding it because it looked too hard. There's something psychological about seeing 16th notes on a page. My mind shuts down. So I memorized it and started staring at my fingers instead. I analyzed how the pattern was put together and suddenly it seemed pretty easy. I can do it slowly in all keys now. Next step is to get it faster and start using with tunes.

St Thomas went pretty well, I'd say. It had a nice feel and the guys have a lot of fun with it. My teacher tends to clown so he was cracking me up, dancing and whatnot. St Thomas is such a happy goofy tune, you can't help but smile. We took turns trading fours, and I tried to do some interesting things on the bow, with rhythm. I also used alot of the iii-vi-ii-V ideas I worked out. I've been doing my homework and it paid off!

Pleasant surprise at the end of the night. I was offered a little something for playing the concert. I guess I am a Professional Jazz Violinist now! And it gets better...this afternoon I got a call to do some studio work. Look out world, here I come...

Songs I'm diggin'

2007-09-12T21:23:00.000-05:00

Songs I'm really diggin' right now...

Dat Dere, the B section is totally hot and I have no idea how to solo over it

Karita, tough changes but I likes

Moanin', I like the attitude of this tune

I AM ON FIRE

2007-09-04T21:37:00.000-05:00

So check it out...I have just completed my second transcription. I completed the first one about a month ago. I'm talking complete transcription...I can play an entire solo by ear on my instrument. This has never happened before, I usually will tool around and learn bits and pieces. Then I get discouraged and give up. I AM ON FIRE, do you hear me?

What has made the difference this time? I think number one is not obsessing over writing it down. That can take forever, and if you're a perfectionist like me, more time is spent agonizing over the notation rather than studying what the artist is doing. Which is the whole purpose of transcribing! Besides, jazz should be memorized. Eventually I might write it out, but not to the detriment of progress.

Number two reason is my recent study of bebop patterns a la David Baker. It's like I've got the Rosetta Stone of jazz or something. Everything now makes sense. When I'm listening I don't hear random notes anymore. I hear familiar patterns.

A practical note...it helps to have an aid for slow-down. I'm using Windows Media and so far it's worked like a charm. Someday I will shell out bucks for one of those fancy-pants Superscope recorders. Not today.

On to transcription number three...

back to school

2007-09-03T12:18:00.000-05:00

I went to my first jazz combo rehearsal, yay me. I'm taking a class at a local community college. It's pretty cool, about half college kids and half "community members" (grown-ups). My teacher seems very knowledgeable. It sounds like everyone is at different levels as far as playing ability. So I'm really interested to see how he's going to pull this all together. I think I did "okay" the first night. Reading changes is a big weakness for me, so I'll be getting lots of practice with that. Week 1 we read:

Silver's Serenade
Cedar's Blues
Walkin'
Trail Dust by Jim Rotondi
Dat Dere
Z's Blues by Eric Alexander

More than anything, I am happy to have one night a week that is exclusively for jazz. It's tough, I work lots of nights and weekends. But there has to be a limit. My new motto is, "Don't let other people determine what your priorities should be." David Baker said that, regarding work and getting your practice time. Amen.

This one time, at jazz camp...

2007-08-15T14:06:00.001-05:00

Funny reading my last entry, I have made HUGE progress since then, and I owe it all to jazz camp. Last month I attended Jamey Aebersold's Summer Jazz Workshop at the University of Louisville. I am so glad I invested my time and money to go to this!

Since I got home, I've been practicing nonstop, with a clearer vision of where I'm headed musically. Also I have a better grasp of the bebop language. I was blessed and fortunate to take David Baker's theory and improvisation class. This man is a national treasure. I recorded my classes and I've been slowly digesting everything he covered. On the first day I sat next to a bari sax player from California. He told me it's been two years since he last attended camp. I asked, why? Didn't you enjoy it? He said he learned so much, he's been practicing one week's worth of material for the last two years!

I was lucky to get a double dose of Baker because he taught the string masterclass, along with Sara Caswell. Sara is my new violin-jazz-hero-chick, btw. She is amazing. In a nutshell, I came away from his class with a better understanding of how bebop works, from his How to Play Bebop books 1 and 2. There are a thousand "How to Play Jazz" books out there. I ignore most of them, mainly because it's too overwhelming to choose one. And because it all comes down to practicing and listening anyway. I don't believe you can learn jazz from a book. Too cerebral! But having heard him explain everything, using numerous anecdotes and examples, I know enough to go through the book on my own. Or at least until I can get back to class.

What I learned about myself at camp:

Strengths: I have a good ear. I struggled to keep up, playing-wise, but I always understood what was happening harmonically, melodically, with form and between everyone's parts. Very cool. Other strengths are good tone, intonation, memory and pattern recognition. Also one of my instructors said I had good sense of rhythm, timing.

Weaknesses: Reading through changes. I spent a lot of time prior to camp reviewing scales, chords and a few basic patterns. And playing by ear, which I thought I did well? But in combo class I found myself folding. Over and over and over again! It seems like I couldn't remember a single scale, lick, pattern, NOTHING on the spot. My teacher said, "play what you hear." I was hearing nothing! It was very embarrassing. I wanted to scream, "I don't suck! Really!" I tend to practice very methodically on just a few tunes and exercises. But I need to break out and sightread. I also need to commit more tunes to memory. The techniques I learned from Baker will help with both of these issues.

My new and improved practice routine:
1. short warmup on scales. choices: bebop, pentatonic, blues, diminished, whole tone
2. work a couple patterns in all keys. II-V, II-V-I, III-VI-II-V, etc
3. repertoire: new song, work on memorizing the head and changes. use the patterns that I just warmed up on, exhaustively until they come automatically
4. review an old song, try playing in a couple different keys with Band in a Box
5. sightread a random song from the realbook, incorporating patterns I am working
6. transcribe a couple measures. work towards learning the whole solo on my violin

My goal for January is to have 50 tunes learned.

I have to mention a very useful session I attended late at night (11pm?). It was about performance anxiety, with pianist Harry Pickens. He made a lot good points. One that stuck in my mind was: remember that much of jazz is dance music and you really need to feel it in your body. Put your mind, body, emotions in that mood when you approach the instrument. It should be fun, not nerve-wracking! I do play better when I'm standing, moving around to the music.

The Routine

2007-07-07T18:10:00.000-05:00

I have been on summer break for a full month now. Seriously focusing on practicing for the first time in weeks. I have developed what I think is an effective practice routine for the time being. Last summer I would practice little bits and pieces of things, but not really sure if I was on the right track. Also I found myself getting good at the exercises I was working on, but not necessarily translating into soloing/improvising better. To further aggravate things...I have a lot of distractions going on around here. I get interupted. By the time I pick up my violin again, I forget what page I'm on, what I'm supposed to be doing...

I am practicing mostly from Aebersold books but also exercises, ideas, routines from various sources. As well as tunes. I found it very frustrating to constantly be flipping from page to page, book to book and stay focused. So I created DAWN'S PRACTICE BINDER...a handy-dandy notebook that contains everything I'm practicing, xeroxed, hole punched, labeled and tabbed. This notebook was a stroke of genius. I start at the beginning of the notebook each morning and practice my way through it throughout the day. Sometimes I get finished, sometimes I don't. Many times I'll do half one day and half the following day. Or I'll do II-V-I's and then skip to Tunes. But I will leave the notebook open to the page I'm working on, so if I have to stop, I know exactly where I am. So without any further ado, here's are the contents of my binder at this time. I plan to adjust it, add more stuff when I feel that I've mastered these.

Section 1-Warmups
2. Blues
3. Pentonic Scales
4. Cycles
5. Digital Patterns
6. II-V-I exercises
7. V7#9-I
8. II half dim-V7#9-I
9. Tunes
10. Transcriptions

I'm practicing out of Vol 3 II-V-I's, and Vol 21 Getting it Together. I'm learning tunes from Maiden Voyage, Duke Ellington, Shoutin' Out (Horace Silver). Also learning scales from "The Source".

Sittin' In

2007-06-17T20:06:00.000-05:00

Alright so...friday night I had my first "sitting in" of the summer. My teacher, who is a sax player and *awesome* I might add, invited me to sit in with the band. It was an outdoor "jazz under the stars" type gig. Did I mention his band is frikin' *amazing*? I haven't sat in for several months, you know...really busy with the school year and all. It's barely enough for me to squeeze out a few minutes of personal practice. But I figured, hey, I've been really shedding for the past couple of weeks...maybe I should give it a shot.

I had an extreme attack of performance anxiety and I almost didn't call him to accept. It's really hard to break out of the classical music mindset that everything must be note-perfect before you get in front of an audience. What if I'm not ready and I totally fold? But after a little nudging from a friend, and hearing the details about the gig, I somehow calmed down. This is an opportunity for me to measure my progress, right? This is why we shed. To play. So what if everything doesn't turn out perfectly? The point is to put myself out there and just go for it. I have been working on a bunch of Duke Ellington tunes (vol 48). I decided to go with "Don't Get Around Much Anymore". It was a smooth jazz gig, but my teacher assured me that an "old school" tune would fit in just fine.

I arrived at the gig, and at first was a little concerned about the weather. Very dark clouds, and I am really squeamish about water touching my violin. But the weather held, so yay for that. He introduced me to the band, an all-star lineup from the area. And a drummer that looked like Andre 3000 from Outkast, btw. (LOL) Anyhow...did the sound check and everything was a go. This is the first time I would be trying out my new fiddle mike as well. After an extensive amount of research, I went with an AMT mike. I have heard that they are the best for a high-quality acoustic sound. It didn't disappoint me.

Overall, I think it went really well. At first I wasn't too enthused about my performance. I didn't play alot of the licks, vocabulary that I had practiced and I thought my solo was pretty boring. I listened to the recording the next day though, and it actually sounded decent to me. I think once I let go of my expectations, I could appreciate it.

Time

2007-06-01T16:19:00.001-05:00

School let out last week and I find myself with a lot of time on my hands. Time that could be used for practicing. I am suddenly overwhelmed with everything I'd like to practice, need to practice. Where do I start? I'm overthinking, I'm paralyzed with indecision. I haven't practiced much of anything yet.

Well, on the positive tip, I "prepared" for practicing. I swept my office, threw away trash, secured a comfortable chair. I brought in a bookcase and organized all my CDs, Aebersolds, method books. No more wasting time hunting for something. Today's job is to really identify what I want to work on and write down my plan. I read somewhere that Bird used to practice something like 11 hours a day? Dang yo, that's hard core. On the real, I think I could do four hours a day during the summer. Broken up into sessions. But first thing is to identify what exactly do I need to be doing. I don't want to waste my time.

Another benefit of time...I've made a committment to go see more live music, here locally. Last night I saw Shelley Carrol on tenor sax, in concert with D'Drum at the Dallas Museum of Art. That was a real treat. Shelley is more of a straightahead cat so it was great to see him play with a world music ensemble. The best part is when they played Giant Steps. Brazilian style. Hot hot hot. All it needed was some violin...

Keep moving forward

2007-05-14T14:30:00.000-05:00

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

-Walt Disney

5/6

2007-05-06T21:37:00.000-05:00

Practicing: Working on Moon Rays and Tokyo Blues tonight. Two great tunes. Did I mention that I love me some Horace Silver? Pretty Eyes is my all time favorite Silver tune. But anyway...Moon Rays. I started by figuring out how many II-V or II-V-I patterns occur in that tune. It's basically a string of them one right after another. Lots of songs are like this, actually. Ok, cool. I also practiced II-V-I patterns in all keys. Tokyo Blues is one of those vamp kinda songs. Goes from Db7 to C-7 and back and forth, with this little II-V-I cementing the end of the form.

Listening: I've got a Modern Jazz Quartet fetish right now. All day every day, MJQ. I'm particularly fixated on All the Things You Are, I'll Remember April and Almost Like Being in Love. All the Things You Are is so overplayed but somehow their version sounds fresh.

Effortless Mastery Begins...

2007-05-01T12:50:00.000-05:00

Over the past few months I've been reading Effortless Mastery, by jazz pianist Kenny Werner. I have always had a serious problem with performance anxiety on the the violin. EM proposes ways of conquering these issues through behavior modification, meditation, and positive affirmation. It also helps you see yourself as a musician through a spiritual context in relation to the universe as a whole. Very heady stuff. I've read and re-read several passages, highlighted and made some copious notes. I'm now ready to put this stuff into action.

The first exercise is to simply "be with the instrument" in a relaxed manner. Not playing, but holding, touching the instrument in a calm state. Then put it away. You are to do this several times before moving on to the next step.

I've done it two days now. First time I thought gee this is really dumb. But after a few minutes it was nice. I felt myself unwinding from some stressful events earlier at work. I didn't expect that...you go into the practice room to practice, not to unwind! TV is for unwinding, right?

It's starting to dawn on me, perhaps playing the violin could possibly become more than a vocation or hobby.Maybe it could become my spiritual practice, like meditating, praying or going to church. Werner says that the piano bench should be the best seat in the house, the place that makes you feel good. Better than anywhere else. But for many musicians it's like the torture seat. Where you grab your self esteem on a meat hook and drag it around the room. What a possibility if that could change...

Hmm. Just thoughts. I'll keep doing it this week and see what happens.

Haiku

2007-04-23T19:55:00.000-05:00

Miss my violin
We can't be together now
Summer's coming soon

4/19

2007-04-19T21:58:00.000-05:00

hey, whadya know I practiced tonight. Had the worst day at work but managed to put in an hour. Typical situation...I stalled, stalled, stalled but finally got out my instrument and whoa had a great time. My tiredness vanished...got this great burst of energy. You know, I think it helped I didn't start with scales. Went straight to the repertoire and had fun first.

practiced juicy lucy
attempted shoutin' out but realized I need to hear a recording
II-V-I patterns from the book then made up my own patterns
one irish tune

The Breakthrough

2007-04-15T22:23:00.000-05:00

Lately I have been thinking about how personal drama in my life affects my playing. For example if I'm upset, angry, tired. How can some people channel this into productive practicing and performing? While I on the other hand become withdrawn, tired, depressed? The last thing I want to do is take my instrument out. I'm still working on that one...

Well, on the positive tip, I had a terrific Easter gig at church last Sunday. The breakthrough actually came during the rehearsal the night before. I had a lot on my mind when I showed up for practice. But one of the tunes we practiced really touched my heart. It was a three-part harmony. The female vocalist had the bottom part, the male sang the top part, and I played the middle on violin. It was stunningly beautiful. We were gathered around the piano going over the tune and suddenly the words, music, all of it came together in a very magical way. I've never experienced that at practice. I'm usually obsessing over getting all the notes right. It affected the way I played the next day. I felt calm, peaceful, "open" while I was onstage. Several people commented about it. All I know is that something was different about me. I want to play like that every time.