This is my second post for the day. After writing it I will use my phone as a hotspot so I can up load the post to my blog. It’s interesting to me that I am still writing this blog. I lost the other blog because I can no longer afford to pay for it. This blog, however, gets hosted for free on GitHub Pages. I should see if I can somehow upload all of these posts to a Wordpress.com site, which, if I’m not mistaken, should be free.

I should also think about changing all my online accounts to my gmail account, though I still have a year left on my pulamusic email. As much as possible I need to shift my online activity to free services just in case my depressed financial position keeps carrying on as it has. I’m really in a bad state right now, and it would be best if I can look for ways to cut out expenses.

But fuck all this, I need to write some more about musical practice. I have been trying to outline a practice schedule on Microsoft Excel, but it really doesn’t produce the kind of graphic I want to create in order to upload it online. Maybe if I create a table using MS Word I should be able to export the table as a graphic. In fact, I think I’ll try that after I finish writing this post.

In the meantime, here are some thoughts on the main areas of musical practice I have been using to organize my thoughts.

  • Guitar: This is where I need to spend most of my effort, at least for now. If I can’t play the guitar I have no cause to call myself a musician. All decent musicians I know have at least some virtuosic ability on one instrument. The real key, in fact, is repertoire. I need to have not only a pre-planned performance repertoire, but also the ability to learn new tunes and play multiple parts. I also need to be able to improvise. As such, I need to put as much effort into transcribing tunes as I do learning pre-planned arrangements.
  • Composition: In the past, I’ve put a lot of effort into learning how to compose music, and then I just stopped. I need to not only pick it up again, but also move forward. To this end I need to get back to working on Schoenberg’s Theory of Harmony and Wuorinen’s Simple Composition as well as works by Piston, Hindemith, Perle, Straus, etc. But mostly, I just need to compose music. I need to have a performance repertoire that I can bring to groups of musicians and say, “Here’s some original shit we can play.” I have some tunes already, but everything I have is 10-15 years old at this point. I need to have some stuff that is much more current. I need to do and improve.
  • Musicianship: Most of this should be done at the piano, either working on my functional piano skills or doing ear training exercises. I had some halfway decent piano proficiency at one point, but I let it slide. All I need to do is work a bit to get it back. In addition, I need to get back in the habit of working with Arnold’s ear training CDs. Those CDs have been greatly helpful in moving forward, especially the Fanatic’s Guide and the Key Note Recognition CDs.

With all of this stuff I know what the fuck I need to do - I just need to do it.