361st day sober. Last night I not only listed 20 things on Ebay, but I put into action a ton of re-arranging I had in mind. I had things I'd listed stacked up here in the office and had told Ken of my plans for each type of stuff to go, and he said something like I should put my plans into action and I agreed.
So last night I did it. I moved things around and re-assigned areas and drawers for different things to make things fit, and after a few hours had it all done except for putting a bunch of small stuff away. I "ran out of gas" and called it enough.
Practice was ... a bit discouraging. I had trouble playing at the top of the staff at all. I put in more than an hour anyway, telling myself I'm preparing myself for better playing in the future which is how it works.
My new "Flow Studies" book is neat, not only for the exercises and little essays in it but also there are links to online video and audio. There are a couple of first chair symphony guys playing the exercises, so of the ones that are recorded (not all but a nice selection) can be heard being played by two different guys.
I listened to some by one guy. I dunno .... the guy sure doesn't play it like I do. I mean, you can play it following what the composer has written and still have it sound nice, but this guy stretches it too far, I think. I like to stick to the note values written because I need so much help reading music anyway, and in my experience if I do it right it can still have "swing" and sound good. But at least I can hear others playing the exercises and that's a huge help. I'm glad I got the book.
It being Easter Sunday, this would have been a great day to go out and busk. But instead I have to stay in and do taxes. Maybe if I had planned things better, I could have done so. "Ave Maria" is very non-demanding and requires going nowhere near the top of the staff.
I decided some shopping is in order, so I rode up to H Mart and bought a bunch of stuff. I didn't see any zombies but ... (eerie music) that doesn't mean zombies didn't see me. On my way back I stopped at the place where Crazy Chrissie confronted me, and the dumpster enclosure was unlocked so I was able to go in there and clean things up some more. I was also able to pick up some packing stuff by the tire place. Right around the corner on Old Bayshore where there's a parking lot, there was a car with one door open parked angled across the spaces, next to a likewise parked truck, and I think there were zombies in there. I sped up and raced away along the sidewalk, going the "wrong way". A zombie won't run that far from their vehicle, and I know how to make it hard for a vehicle to catch me.
I'm $14 over my goal of spending only half of each week's paycheck, but am pretty stocked up now. I portioned out and froze some pork I got and made a nice pork curry for dinner.
Before getting into my taxes, I wanted to "clear the decks" by having all the things that sold gathered and ready to pack and ship. I also packed two things that had to go ASAP. And I put things I'd listed away; I had quite a bit of that stuff stacked up.
I tried practicing and it went awful. I can only play to C in the staff. I don't know what's going on. My lips aren't cracked or chapped or anything. I played at least an hour and it did not improve. I have no idea what's going on but I'm not very happy about it. If I'm going to be a busker as my "retirement career", how much am I going to enjoy it if I never improve? It can't be that I'm practicing too much, at only an hour a day.
I feel like I have some time to play with, as the actual busking season probably doesn't start around here until May or maybe it won't be warm enough out until June. This isn't Hawaii, after all, where the weather's nice all year. Or even Southern California, where the weather's at least not so wintry in the winter.
In frustration I got the flute out and did some octave exercises. Maybe those would go terribly also? But they didn't, they went fine. So I put the thing together and went over the first three notes in the Trevor Wye book. I can do 'em fine, and do them an octave up just fine too. The notes are B-A-G in the staff, and being able to do the octave higher on the B means doing the note just below "high C" like it's nothing.
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