Trecking to Tesuque to Teach the Tykes.

One of the most rewarding experiences professionally for this year was my Thursday job at Tesuque Elementary School.  Although Tesuque is truly located only three miles north of Santa Fe proper, it always seems like it is in the middle of nowhere, no matter how many times I go out there.

When I first got the call to hang out with these little troopers on a semi long-term basis I thought. cool, and I immediately began downloading fun music lesson plans from one of my favorite music teaching sites..The Fun Music Company

The first lesson I tried with the 6th graders failed utterly, much to my surprise.  It was an interactive lesson on the history of rock and roll with lots of fun music and handouts and activities and all that drill.  What bewildered me greatly was the sixth graders complete lack of respect for the term "rock and roll."  Whoa, where did that disrespect  for the "holy of holies," come from?

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Cell Phone Photo 12.15.11, Tesuque, NM

5:30 Snowing and they keep coming and coming!  (Parents that is)

Mr. W. does Kinder...

Mr. Chrisman conducts while Mr. W. Conducts.

Turns out, as much as it hurts, Rock and Roll is out and Justin B. is in!  Ack

Borderline at Borders.

In this post I mean no disrespect to the venue, the patrons or myself.  It was just one of those days when the planetary alignment, or whatever just sucks everything into a sort of negative downward spiral that once it reaches a certain point there is no recovery.  Case in point,  look carefully at the photo below and notice how everything has this odd slant to it.   The only thing I can compare it too is Wolf's drum set at the bowling alley wayyy back in the day.  (Certain people will know what that means, if you don't worry not about it.)

It was just one of those days, not anybody's fault

Working on sensual forms on LA time

Some of you who follow my music may wonder why nothing new has come out in the last couple of weeks.  What have I been up to.  For one thing some of my tracks are in LA getting guitar tracks put on.

The other project that has been taking my attention is a long-from composition commissioned by Patti (Dagni Rose) Weckerley. She is looking for a very specific type of sensual music to market at part of her website.

The piece of music presented as is on Reverb Nation is a shortened version of the full 20 minute piece.  The purpose of the piece, as previously stated, is to groove, but be non-obtrusive during sensual activities.  You can stream the piece and others here.  I would be most interested in feedback if anybody tries it out.  Thanks.

Cameron

Music and the Buddhist Mind

I have, for many weeks now,been following the path to practice outlined in Kenny Werners book,  "Effortless Mastery."  The hardest part for me has been getting into what is basically a Buddhist mind set.  I don not pretend to be an expert on Buddhism - but the basic tenet of emptying ones mind and working on he exercices until mastery is acheived holds.  The stickiest part, at least for me, is not holding expecations and doing he work free of desire.

Related to the above thought I wanted to put he latest recording I posted on Reverb Nation.  I was playing a volunteer piano gig at he retirement home and on a whim I brought my MP3 recorder along.  I was actually rather pleased when I played the tracks back.  Some of my bad playing habits are still apparent, but not nearly as bad as they were before I started down this new path.

Thanks again for listening,

Best,

Cameron

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.