Blind and dumb in both ears

I always loved that episode of The Little Rascals where Buckwheat, who can't believe what he's seeing, exclaims: "I thought I was deaf and dumb in both eyes!" That's how I felt Monday night in jazz theory class - blind and dumb in both ears - as the three music majors, the music graduate student, and me tried to determine intervals just by listening. It seemed everybody could do it, except me. Same for naming the intervals of chords, types of chords, everything. It is true that I do know and understand my chords, and I actually hear them pretty well too, but when it comes time to actually name the chords in their proper, non-enharmonic form, I struggle a bit.

Then again, that's what I took this course for. That's where I'm weak. That's where I need to improve, where I need to be stronger. Get the technical stuff down, hopefully the music will follow.

Really, I don't see how a jazz theory course would not help me, if for no other reason than I have to write, listen, read, and think about music, purely in an intellectual fashion. It forces me to spend time on music. I have music homework. Application follows but is irrelevant, at least for the time being. It's bound to have a positive effect.

My presence on Facebook will be scarce for the next thirteen weeks. I'm going to be sitting at the piano playing various exercises, sitting at the computer doing ear training, and sitting at the sunroom table writing out chords and intervals.

Providing no links to a bunch of losers

As the title suggests, I will be providing no links in this post, because I'm going to be complaining about a group that would benefit the jazz community, and probably the entire world, by just going away. They deserve no customers, and I shall not provide them any.

Sometime back, I wrote about the inefficiences of the Jazz Heritage Society. Their antiquated ordering scheme, their profligate fee structure, their amateurish letters and forms. At the time I wrote about them, however, I continued to be a member, because I felt they were still a decent option for obtaining good jazz music CD's at a reasonable cost, provided one worked within their limited and restrictive system.

Well, not anymore. You are not going to believe this story, but I assure you, it is true.

I recently went to the JHS web-site to decline the monthly offer (which you have to do if you are a member, unless you want the stuff shipped to you automatically), and I happened across their $3 and $4 CD offer. They had a couple of titles in there that I'd been wanting to buy cheap for some time, and a couple more that I was willing to buy if they were cheap, and still more that, though marginal, would be worth a couple bucks. Now, the thing you have to keep in mind is that they charge a shipping and handling fee PER SHIPMENT, plus handling charge PER CD. If you think of the per CD handling charge being included in the price, then all you have to do is order a decent quantity of CD's to amortize the per shipment fee down to a manageable amount, thereby saving you money on brand new jazz CD's.

So, I ordered 13 CD's, one a three CD set, and I was going to get them all for about $80, or just a little over $5 a CD.

NOT!

One week after placing my order, I received seven individual letters telling me that "Unfortunately, this item is unavailable and we are cancelling your order". That's right. They generated one letter for each CD they couldn't deliver. Well, that's $2.64 wasted right there, mailing seven letters instead of one. No wonder they have to charge so much above the cost of CD's to make ends meet. Dumbasses.

Then the next day (here it comes), a box arrived containing (guess how many...) a, as in one, CD and an itemized list. Amazingly, all of the CDs I received letters for were listed as "backordered" (not "cancelled"), and the remaining five undelivered CD's were listed as no longer available. Huh! So in the end, I ordered thirteen CDs, received only one, which I paid $4.98 for (because it was the only one that was not part of the $3-4 offer), and guess what? I paid $5.94 for shipping and processing for the $4.98 CD. Damn near $11 for one CD, that you can get for less than a third of that if you shop around on e-bay or Amazon.

I was beside myself with anger. Livid. I started to think of all the names I could call those idiots at JHS. But, I composed myself and wrote a terse, vaguely polite, extremely demanding email - containing no swear words - to the JHS demanding all of my money back and demanding that they pay return shipping. I told them I'm going to report them to the attorney general of the state of Alabama for their borderline fraudulent bait and switch tactic, as well as to the Consumer Protection Agency (which, in fact, I will do). I'm still waiting for a reply to my email as I write this.

Whatever you do, stay the hell away from the Jazz Heritage Society. They are little more than a poorly operated, not so thinly disguised scam operation, and you can do better elsewhere to add to your music collection without also having to deal with their poorman's form of extortion. They are a bunch of simple-minded dumbasses, and you'll be no better a dumbass than I if you do business with them.

Saving jazz

There was an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal yesterday, about how jazz appears to be dying and what might be needed to “save” it. The basic crux of the argument is that the clientele which listens to live jazz is not only shrinking, but also growing older, the presumption being, jazz is now akin to classical music in that it is pursued more as an art form and less as a type of music.

I’m not sure I get the distinction, because when I’m playing the piano, I don’t really feel like I’m “doing” art. Maybe somebody passing by my window might be struck by my “art”, but I doubt it. As for jazz passing into the realm of classical music with an aged, presumably affluent, fan base, well so be it. Hell, this entire blog is about the fact that I got to jazz late and now I’m trying to make up for lost time. I can’t help it if I’m in the “old” demographic. Give me a break!

For what it’s worth, I think it is way too early to push the panic button. If I can “discover” and enjoy an entirely different type of music that I never enjoyed before, it could happen to anybody at any time. Who knows? Maybe when the younger generation reaches my age, they won’t be nostalgic for the rappers and grunge and whatnot that clutters their music sphere now. And even if they are, a person’s passion is their own. I’ll not question that.

Jazz does not need to be saved, because it will never die. Trust me on that.

Practice regimen

I’ve been thinking about my practice regimen lately. (As opposed to actually practicing, which would require that I sit at the piano and work, which I just haven’t been in the mood for lately.) Back in March, I developed a sort of plan, a list made up of things that I thought might be useful to practice on a regular basis. I put it in a spreadsheet so that I could print out a sort of tracking grid to actually be able to see what I was practicing and when and how often and sometimes (if I noted it), for how long. It was an excellent idea and I kept at it for one whole month before it got shunted to the wayside. Since I’ve been working on some new things in my lessons, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit it, add to it, and start using it again.

Here it is:


Obviously, there is far too much here to practice it all every day, unless you maybe do so for just a few minutes on each exercise or practice for at least two hours – which is out of my reach at the moment due to a lack of discipline. I would think that a minimum of ten minutes per area is required to realize any sort of advancement, but I find I have to spend more than that on most things before I feel I’m doing any better on it (like scales and stride work.).

One of the important things missing from the sheet is tunes. I feel that after practicing, one must make time for playing. That can be playing just to play, or playing to implement what was practiced. More often than not, for me, it’s the latter, because I think that’s what makes me sound better, but I also an not entirely against the idea of just playing a few songs to make me feel good in general and forget about the burn in my knuckles.

And so, having written all I can write for the moment about practice, I think I will go and actually do some. School starts pretty soon and if I’m going to take some classes, I’m going to have to audition, so, I’d better practice.