Sunday, June 28, 2009

Virtuoso? More like "lazy so-and-so"

It is said that in order to be a virtuoso in something, you have to practice whatever it is for 10,000 hours. That would make you “world class” or put you into the top 1% in that field, or something like that. In other words, make you a virtuoso. As of this August, I will have been formally studying jazz piano for two years, and while I have not tried to keep track of every single minute that I play the piano, I have tracked the majority of the time that I spend practicing, playing, taking lessons, rehearsing with bands, etc.

Now understand, I have no delusions here. 10,000 hours is a long, long time. To put it into perspective, if I were practicing piano as a full time job - that is eight hours a day, five days a week - it would still take five years to become a virtuoso. If (for example) I worked at it full time, and worked twenty hours every weekend as well, it would still take three years, four months to reach 10,000 hours.

Folks, I can’t even SIT at a piano that long, much less sit at it and play something. (I’m ashamed to admit it, but since school ended, I’m pretty sure I haven’t played ten hours all together. I just haven’t felt like it.)

Given that, the fact that I’m pretty close to having five hundred hours under my belt is actually pretty amazing. If you throw in my plonking around time, plus some of the time I had as a kid learning to play the organ, I’m probably up around two, maybe three thousand hours total. Still, a long stretch to the 10,000 total.

It is entirely possible that I won’t play ten thousand hours of jazz piano in my life. If I do somehow stick to it and play, say, five hundred hours a year (two hours a day, five days a week for the entire year ... yeah right, not likely), I’ll be 65 when I reach the virtuoso total.

What’s the point? I’m not sure, but I think the point is that I need to set manageable, near-term goals, or the title of “virtuoso jazz pianist” is going to fairly and completely elude me.

Only 9500 more hours to go. Let's shoot for two hours today, anyway.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Critical listening project update

Well, in the face of a two week furlough from my regular job, things are looking up for my various jazz related projects, in more ways than one.

Regular readers of this blog will recall my critical listening project. Knowing that I am going to be off for two weeks, I've spent the better part of the last three weeks acquiring some new recordings, so I was only a little surprised when I revisited my CLP notebook and found I hadn't listened critically to a recording in over two weeks. I was happy that I chose to revisit the CLP with The Amazing Bud Powell Volume Two. It's a wonderful record that suffers a little from technological limitations, but not as many as Volume One, and not enough to detract from the enjoyment of the music. I also think the song selection is better on this recording. Bud seems to have more fun with the songs. Anyway, this was a good one to kick start the project again.

It will be important that I fire on all cylinders in the project during the first week of the furlough, because the second week of the furlough I'm going to be in New Orleans with Mrs. S., soaking up the live jazz scene. I might even do some remote blogging and if I win enough money at the poker tables when I'm not in the jazz clubs or out picking up some fresh gris-gris at the voodoo shop, I might stay even longer. Hell, my company doesn't care if I take time off (saves them money), so maybe I just need to oblige.

Folks, jazz is where it's at, and I'm there!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Halfway There


With the recent acquisition of the recording Air Time by Air, I have officially managed to obtain 93 of the 185 recordings of the "core collection" as set out in the eighth edition of the Penguin guide to jazz recordings. (And yes, I know there is a ninth edition, but I started the eighth edition and that is the list I'm working to.) When I started my jazz recordings collection almost two years ago, it was a relatively easy task to find recordings in the core collection that I didn't have and to learn about the stars and great recordings over the history of jazz. Having progressed this far, however, now I am encountering certain "issues":

1) Most of the low hanging fruit has been picked. Of the 185 albums on the list, some are obvious classics, multi-million sellers, and are sort of like "Witness" T-shirts in Cleveland: they're everywhere. Now that I've got those, I'm left with fruit that is well up in the tree. Hard to find, yes, but in some cases, even impossible.

2) The higher-up hanging fruit is not only harder to find, but more expensive. Remaining single CD's on the list mostly go for $12-17, even used, and sets for anywhere from $20 to $77, and higher. One example: early last week, I found a copy of The Art Ensemble of Chicago 1967-68 on e-bay. The seller wanted $150 for it. It normally sells for between $125 - 180 on various music websites. Since I don't much care for the avant-garde work of Roscoe Mitchell, I certainly wasn't going to shell out that kind of money for a set I wasn't going to get much play out of, so I offered $35. One other buyer offered $78, which is what it eventually sold for. But with $5 CD's pretty easy to find and less than $10 the norm, I find I like my jazz music the same as my wine: Why pay $35 for one you might not like when you can get three for $30 that you will probably like at least as much, if not more?

3) The remainder of the list is pretty esoteric and often, not even enjoyable. Even jazz musicians and fans I talk to don't always know what I'm talking about when I ask them "What does Alexander von Schlippenbach sound like?" and, "Where can I pick up Tomasz Stanko's latest CD?" I mean, I once went to great lengths to track down a boring record by Evan Parker - The Snake Decides - buying it from the UK for about $20. I listened to it once. I even found Stanko's Leosia at a decent price last week. (Haven't got it yet, so don't know if that's going to work out.) Nothing sucks more than spending two months and $25 to get a recording that you just don't like. It's one of the perils of jazz music collecting, however, so I'm putting up with it, but that won't stop me from griping about it here.

So, why do it?

Well, the thrill of the chase, and all that. But really, you only have to look at the Yoity Tot list to find a number of records you may or may not have heard of (at least 95% of them were completely unknown to me two years ago) that really are worth hearing and will more than make up for the money and time spent ending up with duds. It is a collection, after all, and it's mine.

But let's not forget: I might as well keep going, because...

I'm halfway there.