Someone should bop me on the head

You know, although lately I’ve been all about serendipity and spontaneity, my decision to work on my piano playing by focusing exclusively on one book, one that caught my eye for a completely illogical reason, turned out to be, although inspired, entirely misdirected. I did start my post-bop piano project.

I did begin to read and play from the book. It wasn’t bad. Here’s the problem:

I reached chapter four and still hadn’t had to play a single exercise. One of the chapters was a complete rehashing of stuff I learned in college. And without any structure, or anything constructive to play, or any “newness”, I began to realize I was wasting my time. So, of course, I skipped to the Bill Evans chapter, and of course, that was too hard for me. So I went back to try to find something to build on to make it easier, but I couldn’t find much. So, I stopped playing from that book, worked on tunes, and pretty soon was right back where I started: unmotivated, not playing, not improving, nothing.

Here's a spring robin on our crepe myrtle. Nothing jazzy, just thought you might enjoy it.

Fortunately, I continued to plonk about most days, working kind of hard on chord progressions from “standard” jazz standards (you know, songs with LOTS of typical jazz sounds and motifs). Eventually, I took one more stab at the Post-Bop book, but again, I was wandering in the wilderness. I really just wanted some stuff to play. Mechanical stuff. Stuff I didn’t need my brain for and could just do a limited amount of brain work which would allow my fingers and muscles to work. Somehow (no particular serendipity here), I remembered my Solo Jazz Piano book, the one that’s three times the thickness of the post-bop book. 

I opened it, and the first playing exercise is on page 7, and the exercises leading up to that one, are manageable. In fact, I played through them last night in about forty minutes.

Sure nothing’s perfect yet, and I have a long (long) way to go, but at least I have direction again.

And for those of you who’ve checked out my amazon reviews and lists and noticed the post-bop book on my recommended piano books list, that still holds true. It’s a great book. It’s just not for me at this stage, you know, right now.

Today’s project: Complete the piano project, by putting it all back together and putting my booze on top of it. Got to recover the dining room, even if we’re not going to use it.

Oh, and I’m going to open a jazz bar, so start sending me money. (No, really. Lots and lots of money. For my jazz bar. Seriously.)