JazzWriter

I'm a freelance writer by day and a working jazz musician by night, and often I am able to combine my two lines of work. This blog is for posting gigs & various rants about music and life in general.

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Location: Central Illinois, United States
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Tuesday, April 26, 2005

I'm back. Didja miss me?

Seems like I did a gazillion things today, yet I don't feel as if I really accomplished anything. I ran around all morning to meetings, attended a ribbon cutting, made a delivery, and finally headed back home. By then it was lunchtime and I had a few hours to work on some web content for a client before going to the store to teach lessons. Here's the frustrating thing. I've got 4 students now, supposedly. The first is relatively new. Before today he was 2 for 4...showed up for 2 lessons on time, with horn in hand, ready to go. There were excuses for the other 2 times, but at least he came by to deliver them in person. Today he didn't bother to show up at all. So I sat around for a half an hour. Student #2 is reliable as can be and since she actally started practicing, we're making strides so things were a-ok. Student #3 was supposed to start last week, turned out to be a no-show, and decided this week that she didn't want to take lessons after all. This is a pain because we moved student #4 to a later time slot to make room for new student #3. Oh, and student #4 couldn't make it today at all (but at least I already knew about this). Out of four scheduled lessons, I taught only one.

I hate wasting time. But at least I got home early enough to trim up the lawn before my Tuesday night show (Gilmore Girls) came on. Been working on the Jazzscope newsletter ever since, tho I did take a bit of time out to visit the drumset downstairs that continues to call my name. Been working on a few bossa nova grooves from one of Kevin's teaching sheets, playing along to a few piano trio (drummerless) CDS, and trying to figure out how to coordinate all four limbs when playing in general. My right hand (ride cymbal) and left foot (hi-hat) are decent. The left hand (snare) is coming along better. My biggest deficiency is the right foot (kick), although this particular appendage is certainly responding better than it used to. I'm just not sure what else I'm supposed to do with it, other than slam it when I hit the crash or drop a bomb of sorts, which I don't really know how to do yet in a non-awkward and timeless, groove-busting-but-not-in-a-good-way fashion. Maybe it's time for a real lesson.

The eyes are getting heavy thanks to this morning's 5.30 am wakeup call, so that's about it for now. Stay tuned for new, ramblings, and whatever else have you. I'll update the gig list soon to include new performances.

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