John Coltrane | 06/18/04
I got a late start on my day but once I got rolling everything moved smoothly enough. I ran some errands up at school and then did some dishes while listening to some John Coltrane. That said, replace "did some dishes" with "took a cup out of the clean dishwasher and then played with the dog". I watched the Cubs get edged out by Oakland while I worked on a couple "new" arrangements. I got a nice start on Flight of the Bumblebee and listened through the other songs I will be working on in the next few weeks. I don't mind the work, of course, and in an egotistical way I like contributing more and more music to the steel band repertory but at the same time, I'd really like to start selling more original songs. God knows I have enough to start my own publishing company but it seems arranging is the best way to supplement by income at the moment. One of the guys (the guy in Roanoke) is a really interesting guy and, from what I've casually observed over the phone, I would imagine a really phenomenal teacher. Although I don't agree with his musical taste 100% of the time, he knows what he wants and more importantly goes after it, a quality I respect very much. I saw online he took his kids to the VA Arts Festival and placed 2nd--pretty impressive for their first time there. I think of all the lousy teachers I had and maybe if I had more like this gentleman I wouldn't have waded past multiple degrees to get into teaching. Oh well, such is life.
This evening Chris, Michael and Jamie came over to hang out. Kathy and Theory-Chris were supposed to come as well but they bailed because "they're old". I let them preview a couple of my new pieces and Michael played through the widely-accepted "world's greatest bassline" on my guitar and...well, wow. Speaking of the guitar I put Nirvana's All Apologies and Cheap Trick's Surrender under my belt this afternoon. I haven't quite mastered the singing while playing skill yet but I haven't exactly the mastered the singing while doing nothing else part either so I guess I'm in ok shape. Having Jamie around as a private guitar instructor is great. I'm nowhere near her level but I can now read tabs and bar chords without thinking (except for Eb major...damn you Eb major!), a position I never imagined a year ago when Kathy and I were hacking through Supertramp and other three-chord masterpieces. There will be no former-student-email tonight. I did get an interesting and welcomed email today but that'll will have to wait until tomorrow too because I'm tiiiiired.
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