Volunteering

On Thursday I played a volunteer piano gig at Rosemont retirement home I really did not want to do it, but it was contrary action which payed off.  In terms of pure therapy it was almost as good as burning down a set of twisties on the R.  I played standard solo piano jazz for an hour.  The residents seemed most receptive, and it was a good chance to try out in the real world what I had been practicing at home for some time now.

In terms of self analysis I did the best I could to objectively assess what level of progress had been made.  I know I have mentioned it many times in my blog before I am sticking as close as possible to the Kenny Werner method of making progress very slowly but completely.

From a spiritual sense I still have a long way to go to be able to slip into "the zone" under pressure.

After the gig I got the grand tour of the the Rosemont facility and had a very fine lunch with a resident who is a big jazz fan.  Oscar Peterson is his favorite artist - no pressure there.  His story seemed alarmingly sad and had a  certain amount of bizarre randomness to it.  It is so hard to know though because these elderly situations often involve another point of view.  Having an elderly parent myself who is showing signs of dementia I am very interested in these kinds of cases.

Anyway, I will be going back next week to do it again.

Thanks for reading this and I do my best to keep my friends and family informed.

Sitting around doing nothing...

In the early 2000's I had the opportunity to study privately for a short time with jazz piano master Kenny Werner.  Previous to meeting him I had begun reading his book "effortless mastery"  Since that time I have continued to work on and off with his book and the exercises we worked on during our lessons.  I am starting from the beginning and working my way through the material again from the beginning to continue to clean up flaws which are reveled in my playing.  Part of "the work" of attaining a higher level of mastery is a commitment to meditation.  For a high-strung person like myself the "sitting around doing nothingness" of meditation can be torture.  Yet, there are measurable improvements in my playing!

I'll have to meditate on that.