All Over the Place!

Wanting to play my soprano sax....trying to learn piano, making music in the trio...recorded this today with me on guitars and some GarageBand strings:

https://soundcloud.com/guitarjazz/midnite

Soprano sax

Worked on the method book today. It’s getting easier to play than when I just got it. Enjoying it.

2020

Sold my Martin guitar. Hardly played it. Bought a soprano saxophone which is supposed to arrive on Thursday. Why not? I used to have one, and I miss it. It’ll be a cool hobby.

Piano to mostly go on hold.

Some Goals for the new year:

1) Continue trio

2) Figure out spirituality

3) Lose weight

4) Write songs and don’t worry about the quality of them

5) Take better physical care of self

Happy 2020 to all reading this!

Christmas, 2019

My dad:

Songs To Learn

Learning how to play Jazz standards on piano. It’d be cool to follow some recent teaching I got on line and go for learning them in steps. I revisited a couple old posts of mind, and here’s some songs that I’d like to learn step by step:

MISTY

AS TIME GOES BY

DANNY BOY

OVER THE RAINBOW

SOMEWHERE

SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

WHAT CHILD IS THIS

I'VE GOT A CRUSH ON YOU

SEND IN THE CLOWNS

YESTERDAY

WICHITA LINEMAN

I LOVES YOU PORGY 

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD

THE CHRISTMAS SONG

THE NEARNESS OF YOU 

JUST THE WAY YOU ARE 

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR 

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

AUTUMN LEAVES

BLACKBIRD 

POLKA DOTS AND MOONBEAMS 

WHEN I FALL IN LOVE

IF

I WILL

SOMETHING

IN MY LIFE

AND SO IT GOES

GEORGIA

MY FUNNY VALENTINE 

CAN YOU FEEL THE LIVE TONIGHT

MY HEART WILL GO ON

GODFATHER THEME

A DREAM IS A WISH UR HEART MAKES

YOU ARE THE SUNSHINE OF MY LIFE

UNFORGETTABLE 

ALL MY LOVIN

TILL THERE WAS YOU

UNCHAINED MELODY 

I’LL BE THERE

NEVER MY LOVE

GOD ONLY KNOWS

GOODNIGHT

BLUE EYES

DON’T LET THE SUN GO DOWN ON ME

I’VE LOVED THESE DAYS

SHE’S GOT A WAY

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

IF I ONLY HAD THE WORDS 2 TELL YOU

IF I FELL

IT NEVER ENTERED MY MIND (George

                    Shearing version)

HERE, THERE, AND EVERYWHERE

HAVE URSELF A VERY MERRY XMAS

WILLOW WEEP FOR ME

MOON RIVER

I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS 

BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER

MUSIC FROM “ROCKY” SOUNDTRACK

SHE’S LEAVING HOME 

WHITE CHRISTMAS 

December

Workin’ along with the Essentials course. Still want to learn piano...

Thanksgiving Eve

Joined Greg O’Rourke’s course titled “Jazz Guitar Improvisation Essentials” and I’m really learning cool stuff. Working on arpeggios is pretty interesting! Not too easy, but not way over my head, either. 

Would still like to do the piano but really doubt my ability to get to where I would like to be on the piano.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING !

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: