Facing the Wall

My instructor gave me a “learn jazz” project that, so far, is not going well. I’ve been working on Someday My Prince Will Come. I tried writing out some interesting chord inversions, but that didn’t do much for me, so when I was about to ask him to help me with the chords, he goes, “Here’s what you do: make a Bach fugue using those chords.” Since I’m already trying to play a couple of Bach preludes as lead-ins to certain songs (like a prelude in G-minor prior to breaking into It Don’t Mean A Thing…), I didn’t think anything of it, but he appeared to be joking. Then, just as I realized he was probably joking, he realized I thought he was serious, and that was enough for him to decide it was a good idea and he said, yeah, do that. I worked on it quite a bit yesterday. I got a few of the chords moving around nicely, but nothing spectacular. I just can’t do much with the left hand other than comp right on the beat. It’s highly uninteresting, but not completely unsatisfying to listen to. As luck would have it, without consciously thinking about it, I put on Bill Evans’ Portrait in Jazz when I was out running errands Sunday, and of course, SMPWC came on. And of course, I realized how far away from accomplishing much of anything I am. Since I’m not doing well being creative on my own, I’m thinking I might start trying to work from my books of transcriptions, to see if I can’t gain some insight from them. I glanced at Bill Evans again yesterday, and it was really hard, but I think it is probably the way to go because Oscar Peterson is way out there and I don’t have many of his recordings. If I learn just a few of Bill’s chords and get used to some of the funkier inversions and variations, things will probably go more smoothly when I try to play something on my own.

I probably could also do with working on some drills. Oftentimes for me, working on mechanics actually brings the music back around to sounding good so that I feel like trying to do something with it. I could try that, I suppose.

The other problem all this presents is: I’m running out of time to prepare for an audition, or to prepare a recording of music to get considered as a pavement performer. It is starting to look like all that is going to go to the wayside.

Even jazz musicians run into walls.