Happy Halloween !!

Brothers

Working on the whole Oh Christmas Tree tune. My son and I are both reading “The Brothers Karamazov.”

Susman

On lesson 3 (of 4) of Susman’s arrangement of Oh Christmas Tree. Sounding good.

On practicing.....

Interesting thing happened tonight. I’m back working on the Bill Susman piano stuff...starting a few days ago. I wasn’t in the mood to practice today...perfects felt some ‘I’m not getting it so quit the piano’ stuff. But then it happened....I sat down at the piano and practiced anyway. And it went well. 

As I sat down to play I had some thoughts...included was: It’s not that I fear success.....it’s that I fear the confrontation of possibly failing ..... a later thought was it’s also that I fear the hard work also because I doubt that I’m getting it, so why keep trying so hard to learn the piano? But.....

ALL THOSE QUESTIONS!!!!!

ALL THAT THINKING!!!!!!!

Wouldn’t it be great to just refuse to give in to dopey questions and dopey thoughts and dopey self criticism and dopey score keeping about progress and just:

PRACTICE FOR EVEN A LITTLE EACH DAY LIKE I’M TEACHING MYSELF (with weekly goals as if I saw a teacher weekly) AND JUST TRUST THE PROCESS???? 

Bruce Springsteen

Leaving the Band

Today was my last gig with the five piece band. Told them a little while ago, and today was it. I’ll continue to play in the trio, though. 

I’m not sure if  the five piece band was really getting anywhere. It is kind of like I had enough.

I had a good time at the gig, though; I played around with settings on my guitar amp, and I was getting some really nice tones. Was playing with more gusto than usual....I knew this was the last gig for me with this band and perhaps with this music, and I wanted to really have a chance to let loose with some rock & roll. Won’t be playing anymore Christmas gigs with them either. 

Here’s a picture from the gig today. My guitar is the one that is mostly white: