Still Progressing

It's amazing how quickly you can get behind on something that you meant to do frequently. I was thinking today, "I haven't updated my music blog in a few weeks" only to look and realize it had been several months. Despite a little funk I went through where my motivation waned a bit, I'm still making progress though - as usual - not nearly as much or as fast as I'd like. Part of the problem I'm discovering is that it's oddly difficulty to write about music especially given my current state of musical skill isn't especially interesting to anyone but myself and possibly my instructor. And when you spend a lot of the little free time that you do have either practicing or in a class, it makes it hard to get around to updating a blog that no one reads. Still, I started this for myself as a motivational tool, and it will be nothing but a boon to me if I can keep it up a little more regularly with better detail than I've provided previously. My lofty vision of what I was going to do with this page was pretty high up the mountain side compared to what I've actually accomplished.

In my effort to fill all of my spare time with productivity, I think I possibly bit off a little more than I could chew. In addition to piano lessons, I am doing vocal lessons, as previously mention. Pile onto that the fact that I dusted off my guitar and have been trying to get back into that, as well as taking about 3 classes - 'music theory', 'music tech', and 'learning how to learn' - I think it's fair to say I'm a little overwhelmed. That's not even counting the self-study I've been doing for work to try and improve myself so I can progress there as well. All of that said, I'm sure you can see how I have gotten a little over-zealous in what I can accomplish in a given time and have had trouble staying afloat.

I'm going to try and spread myself a little less thin so I can give each thing I'm working on a bit more quality as far as my effort and thought goes. At this point I'm almost doing myself and anyone helping me a disservice by drowning myself in work.

I will do better.

Delving Into Theory

  I believe I've mentioned this before, but the main reason I started piano instead of picking guitar back up right away is because I wanted to use that as a pathway to increasing my knowledge of music theory. I had no idea that I'd enjoy piano as much as I do, so that is a bit of a side bonus. When I dust off the old guitar, I hope to come back to it with a stronger grasp on the makeup of music and for once do more with it than simply play songs someone else has already written. But for now, my classes are what I look forward to most during my week.

  We've been getting into a bit more theory the last two or three classes, which has been making my day. I love how every week I can return and look at old music with new insight and how mysteries are slowly unraveling right in front of me. It's the same feeling I get when reading a good book and some subtle nuance finally snaps into place in my brain. I spend the rest of the day mostly in my head, pondering the new revelation.
  The catch is that learning to play and learning theory at the same time can be a little overwhelming, especially during a busy week when I don't have as much time to devote to practice as I'd wish. I occasionally find myself bumping against a wall when I'm working on new things and for some reason my brain can't seem to function correctly. Even if I KNOW what I need to do and CAN do it, sometimes my mind just refuses to participate and I just stare blankly at the keys, eyes glazed.
  Quite by mistake, I found a way to help myself around those walls. When I'm overwhelmed, I pull out old music that I've already spent a lot of time working on that I feel very confident playing. Or just taking out the book I use to study from, starting from page 1 again, and playing through everything I've already gone over. What seemed so difficult a handful of weeks ago now seems pretty close to natural, and playing through makes me feel like I actually know what I'm doing. This is how I feel like I look when I'm tearing it up on an old song:

But hopefully I have cooler hair.

Flimsy Excuses For Not Writing Lately

  I've decided that trying to blog about every topic we cover in class is a bit too much of an undertaking. I'm already about 7 lesson behind and that is steadily increasing. Often times there's not really a lot to put into words when we have a class that is so focused on just getting through a song. And while I've always thought of myself as a fairly entertaining writer, I've never tried to write on such a focused topic before and I've discovered it's a lot more difficult to make a single topic interesting than it is writing about awkward situations you might find yourself in out in the world, which is typically what I write about. I'm still trying to tackle that problem.
  On the plus side, while I haven't been writing much these last few weeks, I've spent that time instead in practice and I (think) I've made some great strides in that time. Splurging on a better keyboard for myself has made me want to practice all the more and I think it has paid for itself already, figuratively if not literally.

  In non-music related news, life has been keeping me on the move lately. Work has been very productive and I feel like I've gotten 2x better at what I do just in the last month or so. The overwhelming project I've been tackling - which I was pretty sure would make my brain explode - is finally winding down and I've gained so much out of working on something that felt out of my league. That's the way I prefer to learn though...trial by fire. The lessons always stick much better though it can be exceptionally frustrating while you're experiencing it.

  Having decided that I'd be staying at my current house for a while, I've spent some time improving it, mostly via landscaping. Cutting a trees worth of overhead branches, weeding, mulching, and trimming bushes made quite a difference.

Previously you couldn't see any part of the house except the bottom 1/4th.

  Walking out of the house feels a little bizarre now with the yard so open to the sky. And who knew how nice it could be to actually see more than tree limbs outside of my upstairs windows? There's still some work needing to be done, such as power washing those grass stains off of the bottom of the fence. Even seeing them in the photo makes me die a little inside.

  Finally, I saved the most adorable dog from being run over the other day. She was munching on something (that I decided I probably didn't want to look too closely at) in the road when some crazy people came flying up to her and laid on the horn. The dog, apparently not all that bright, just sat there chowing down. No other cars, a wide road, yet these people kept honking and yelling out of the window. I snatched the pup up so I could call her owners. Turns out that despite having a collar, she had no tags. I threw up notices in the area and on Facebook but had no luck, so I decided to run her down to the vet to see if they could scan for an ID chip. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and it took a while to find an open one.
  It was halfway through this adventure that I felt my face itching and noticed in the mirror that I had a flea strolling casually down my face. Turns out the dog was completely infested with them and I guess I just didn't notice, so overwhelmed was I by her cute puppy face. I mean, look at her:

Cute face or no, she was covered in parasites. And now so was my car. And so was I.

  I was already in it at that point so I soldiered on, all the while suddenly feeling every square inch of my body start itching. I should point out that I'm the type of person who will walk into a spiderweb and then be convinced for hours that I have spiders all over me, even if someone looks me over and sees none, and even after an exceptionally thorough shower. I'm itching a little just writing this out.
  So later - after nuking my car, nuking myself and my clothes, spraying down everything I own, and getting a close (clearly VERY close) friend to check my hair for fleas and finding nothing - I could still feel them on me. All in my head, I know. But regardless, the next day I went out and had my hair completely chopped off just to try and silence the ridiculous voice inside my head that said I was covered in bugs. Not my manliest of moments.
  Due to her flea problem, the pup had to stay in my fenced in yard because I wouldn't risk her spreading fleas all over my house and especially to my dog. Sadly, she escaped during the night even though it didn't seem she could fit through my fence. I've been on the look out for her since but have not seen any sign of her. I'm hoping someone picked her up and she now has a happy home. If the groomers had been open that Sunday, I'd have gotten hear groomed and then kept her in my house which, in the end, would probably just end up with me having a second dog.

  With all of that said, it's back to practice for me. We started dipping a little deeper into the waters of theory this week and I'm eager to work on that. I'll touch on that when next I write.

Piano Class 4: Hottest Class Ever

  (Class Date: 6/26/13)

 Without a doubt the hottest class I've ever been to, and I don't mean 'sexy' hot. High summer and a dead A/C unit at the studio had the building nice and toasty by the afternoon. And yet while I was sitting there jamming away I couldn't help but feel slightly awesome...like I was really into playing and was just tearing it up so much that sweat was pouring down my face and plastering my hair to my forehead. I was like a guitar player when they are in the middle of a solo under the lights and they make that constipation face. You know the one:

  I like to think I wouldn't make such faces, but I'm pretty confident mine would be even worse.

  I may have even swayed in my seat about. Admittedly that could have been from the onset of heat stroke. It's all a bit fuzzy now...

  As my impatience to learn the musical building blocks increases, it feels like I get to learn it less and less. That isn't actually the case at all, I just perceive it that way. Well, that and the fact I lost my music theory book that I like to read at home. This class we finally dipped the tiniest bit of our toes into the waters of music theory. A little discussion on chord building, which wasn't really in the itinerary but Ariel is great about filling us in on things when we have questions. It was short but sweet.
  Our new-to-reading-music minds were introduced (finally) to the grand staff. Up until now our book had, for some reason, not put notes on ledger lines but instead had them floating in space. I don't know if you've tried to read music like that, but when notes start jumping around and you don't have any lines for guidance, things get a bit confusing.
  And then finally onward to glorious Middle C.

*Angel chorus sound effect*

  Middle C (or, well, C in general) had become my lifeline and guide to finding everything on the piano at this point, before the location of the keys had become more firmly implanted into my brain. It's also how I quickly discovered that my practice keyboard at home wasn't cutting it.
  I have an old 61 key Yamaha from when I was a teenager and failed to learn (or even start to learn) playing the instrument. Thanks to the shortened length of the keyboard, practicing on it had gotten me used to thinking of Middle C as "Slightly to the Left of the Middle C" since it's about half a foot to the left of where it should be. This would throw me off when I'd learn a song, go to class to play on the piano, and then continually mess up because my eyes and hands were used to looking for the notes/chords I wanted at different locations. It was a good instrument to start with but I've quickly arrived at the point where I want something a bit better. Something full size, weighted, and with normal width keys. The Yamaha's keys are slightly more narrow than a regular piano and playing chords where I need to press between two sharp/flats always causes my finger to accidentally play one of them. As such I've had to come up with some really strange hand poses to play the chords. It looks like I'm trying to do shadow puppets. The way I'm having to play them is a bit of a bad habit born out of necessity but in my short time playing, it's already become exceptionally hard to break those habits and I don't want to wait so long that they are too deeply embedded into my muscle memory that I cannot get them out.

  The (seemingly impossible) hunt for a quality yet not ridiculously expensive 88 key device has begun, and my luck thus far as been exceptionally poor.

Song Writing and Running Out of New Music

  Seeing local live music is a blessing and a curse for me. The regular, everyday version of myself enjoys the break in the normal flow of a week by hearing some music I've never experienced before. The dreamer part of me that still fantasizes about doing music for a living starts feeling negative with thoughts of, "if these people can't do it for a living, how would I?"

  The other night I watched two friends perform at a small singer/songwriter sort of venue. Both of them are talented songwriters with outstanding voices and quite pretty. What else could the world want from their musicians? Yet they both have been doing their thing for many years now, they still have to work regular full-time office hours to get by (acknowledging here that there is also more than a little luck involved in getting anywhere). Granted, that may be all they want to do. I've never asked them since it seemed like a slightly offensive question if they did want to do only music as a living and had been unable.
  While I listened, I was thinking about what it must take to write a song with the power to live in people's memories forever. Here were some songs written from the heart, about love and pain and desires and so much more, yet potentially only a handful of people will ever know them. This further progressed in my mind to the thought that maybe we're running out of new music that can be written, which seems mathematically improbable. In the same way I often think there are no new stories that can be told but I still manage to find new books that entertain me.

  I couldn't really get the idea out of my head and when I got home I started researching it. I found a great video discussing the topic that covers it better than I ever could:

  The part about how we tend to gravitate towards certain sounds especially rang true and goes to show how pop writers keep pulling in the money by making songs that are so similar. And that's not me being snobby towards that type of music as I'm certainly not above getting a pop song stuck in my head for days at a time...or weeks at a time. I'm looking at you, "Call Me Maybe." It's simply not the type of music I would want to make myself, though I honestly have no idea what type I would want to create. Most of my writing experience comes from telling stories of the many ridiculous situations I find myself in anytime I venture out of my front door, or poetry. As such, it's hard to wrap my head around the concepts just yet of what would make a powerful, moving, and memorable song. It's probably one of those things you can't fully grasp until you try it yourself, and I feel like that is still a ways down the road. Still, the thought is often on my mind and I'm eager to try and unravel the mystery when I have more experience to draw upon.

Piano Class 2: The Alphabet is Hard

  (Class Date: 6/12/13)

  I was anticipating having to learn some sort of mnemonic device for the piano tuning, such as my favorite one (despite the cringe-worthy grammar) for standard guitar tuning, Elephants And Dogs Got Big Ears. Somehow I've made it all these years without realizing that the keys just went in order from A to G. It seems obvious now that I know, but I suppose I never gave it any thought until recently. It makes all those keyboards I've seen with stickers with the notes all along the keys seem slightly silly, though it's still probably a quicker way to learn than my current method, which I'll cover shortly.

  Sadly the most notable thing I learned this class was how hard it was for my brain to instantly recognize what letters are adjacent to one another without running through the song we all learn as children. I don't know if that speaks to the Alphabet Song not being the best method to learn in the long run, or just a failure with my mind, but I can tell you my brain has a miniature meltdown anytime I need to instantly remember "what comes before G?" without singing to myself.

  The book that I am studying from groups keys in two sections. The C-D-E group and the F-G-A-B group. It didn't really come up in class if that was a common method to think of them to help with memorization, but it's probably a lot more efficient than my ridiculous method where I ended up using mnemonic devices after all.
  C is my go-to key which I use to find all other keys. This has made me start thinking of it as the 'first' key.  Going up the piano, D is next which I think of as "D for 'divide'" as it divides the two black keys from each other. And then E for 'ends' because it ends the group of three keys. That's semi-logical, but then next group, all I have is F for 'first' because it is the first key before the group of three black keys. After that, I'm just "uh...and then comes... *sings Alphabet Song*.. G! And H...wait no, it starts over so A...B..."
  This can't be efficient. You'd think I would simply think, "D is after C, E is after D" and so on since I've been doing that my whole life, but no.

  An interesting thing I noticed during this week of practice is that, as I was working on learning a song that was not yet skilled enough to play, I had a moment of clarity where I could just 'see' all the keys without issue. I knew where all the keys were without thinking about it. I felt like a genius...and then just as quickly, that was gone and I almost couldn't make sense of any of the keys even when finding them from C. And I suddenly became completely unable to play even the smallest part of the song I'd been trying to learn all night which I'd been doing decently well on prior to my brain shutting down. I think I was at the point where I'd been messing around so much I sort of went cross-eyed. It felt like those time when you're looking at a word and it suddenly seems foreign to you.
  I decided to call it a night.

Canon in D

  When I signed up for my piano class, there was a single spot left which I tried to get various friends to sign up for with me but it turns out that evidently everyone I know is already piano masters because each person I asked said they'd been playing for years. I had no idea. You'd think that would have come up in conversation at some point. My suggestion of going anyway and then busting out a complex song in the second class like some sort of virtuoso wasn't an idea anyone was interested in entertaining.

  A friend at work was telling me about her history playing after I brought up the subject and she mentioned how the first song she ever learned was "Canon in D". Knowing what I know now, I find this claim unlikely. Chances are she learned "Ode to Joy" and such like the rest of us, but that perhaps this was the first song she sought out on her own to learn. Then again, maybe she's dynamite on the keys and I just don't know it. Regardless, at the time my brain took this as a challenge, and I resolved to learn it that night and rock her socks off the following day, and anyone else's socks who might be in the vicinity at the time. That was me flying a little too close to the sun.

  Keep in mind that at this point I had yet to even use two hands at once on the piano.  So when I tried for the first time while learning this song, my brain almost exploded and I may have blacked out a few times.
My hands work pretty well in unison and I would have thought my years of guitar playing would have made transitioning to piano pretty easy. I mean, the keys are equidistant apart, how hard could it be? Such was not the case.

  When I made it home, I found some sheet music and then I sank my teeth into it. The intro to the song seemed simple enough. It's not until around 0:33 seconds in that all hell breaks loose which is why, after 2 hours of intense effort, I learned to play exactly 0:32 seconds of the song. I use "learned to play" in the most loose of ways. I know what keys to hit in what order, let's say it that way.

  I mentioned my woes with the song on Facebook and my amazing musician friend and piano extraordinaire Kate Klim told me I should have learned it in C first "with the simple arpeggios" and called me a crazy person. With her comments in mind, I didn't feel too bad about floundering at the task.

  Next time, I'll bite off a little less and chew a little more thoroughly. It's not that I don't think I can consume anything I sink my teeth into, I just want to take more manageable bites.  "Mary Had a Little Lamb" is probably enough to fill my plate for now.

Piano Class 1: Notes, Measures, and Rhythm

  (Class Date: 6/5/13)

  After making a New Years resolution to start back with music, it has only taken me half a year to actually follow through with it. Unless you count my haunting renditions of pop songs while in the car, in which case I never really stopped. Not that I'd ever admit to knowing or liking such songs.

  While guitar has historically been my instrument of choice, I decided I wanted a fresh start and to reintroduce myself to playing music by learning piano. When I left off previously, I felt like I was stuck on a plateau that I could not traverse, and I didn't want to begin anew only to feel like I was stuck from the onset. Plus I figured so much music is based off of piano that it would help me with the theory aspect. Thus I dusted off my old Casio keyboard, made sure it could still play the midi version of "Green Sleeves", then signed up via The Skillery for a seven-week group class.

  I didn't think I'd enjoy a group class, but right away I took to it. Looking back, my love for playing diminished when I stopped being social about it. I may not get as much practice time in a group setting but I feel the collaborative atmosphere really energizes me about what I'm doing. Watching other's success and failures teaches me a lot more than I would have expected. Everyone seems to get charged up by each other's little victories. Besides, if I was alone, who would appreciate the fact that each time I use the keyboard I somehow switch it into a mode where each note sounds like a tugboat horn?
  Being forced to play in front of others when I KNOW I'm bad will be good practice for playing in front of others - be it other musicians or simply observers - when I'm less bad. If I ever get to such a point. And while I'm not especially competitive, if someone does better than me, I think to myself, "well I can at least do it as good as that," and I feel motivated to try a little harder.

  Much of what makes the class so great is our instructor, Ariel. I've never before seen anyone as excited to teach a subject as she is to teach piano. Super energetic and positive, she somehow makes mundane things like practicing scales seem exciting. Almost. Her positive reinforcement reaches heights I didn't know existed. Even when you completely botch something she finds a way to be positive about it. A direct quote from her that I loved was, after one student finished a piece that they had struggled playing):

"Fantastic! That was beautiful. Your posture was wonderful and I loved the curve of your fingers and your timing was excellent. All I would say is next time try and hit the right notes."

  If we had more teachers out there who loved to share their knowledge even half as much as she does, we'd be in much better shape.

  As far as topics go, there not a lot to discuss yet, as far as class one goes (of which I have completed 4 as of this entry). I don't even think we hit a single note that class. It was the five of us (4 students, 1 teacher) introducing ourselves, sharing our history, and goals. After that, we covered some beginner stuff. Basic note values (quarter, half, dotted half, whole), measures and timing, then rhythm reading. Then we all clapped along to notes in the book to see how well everyone could keep time and read. I felt a little silly because timing seems very natural to me but I thought that, while this part may be basic to me, it won't take long before I'm in deeper waters trying to keep afloat. Most things I've learned over the years I've studied on my own and I always find that there are key areas of knowledge I end up missing. It will be nice to start from the very bottom and learn in a more structured manner for once. And if I have to clap until my hands are bleeding to get the foundation laid right, that's what I'll do.