So now it’s later in the day. Let me see if I have more energy for writing now. Earlier I seemed to be blocked. Let’s hope I have an easier time this time around.

At some point in my career I need to pay more attention to improvisation. This could be part of my transcription and ear training practice. It would be good if I can re-start the Wes Montgomery transcription project I started at one point. In fact, I should learn Montgomery tunes without writing down the transcription at first. In the past I have gotten so wrapped up in notating a transcription that I didn’t bother to learn the tune in question. That can’t happen again. I would rather be able to play along with a tune than have the transcription written out.

That being said, I also need to transcribe Fela’s and Sun Ra’s compositions as scores. I did a transcription of “Mr. Follow Follow” that I included in the dissertation, but really I should do more. I have a collection of Fela’s lyrics that I can post online, and it would be good to include musical transcriptions as well. There is a really interesting guy on YouTube who runs through the Sibelius scores of a number of Fela transcriptions he has done. He even transcribed the alto say improv at the beginning of “Gentleman.” I can easily do the same. Or rather, once having transcribed the tunes I can easily create a screen-cast of my commentary. I like the way the guy was able to solo instruments as well as play smaller groups of tracks to get the sense of the instruments’ interplay. Fela’s music is all about rhythm and counterpoint.

So my writing is much smoother now. Earlier this afternoon I couldn’t get my head clear enough to write anything of consequence. The benefits of chilling out a bit.

I just had a thought with regard to the benefits of freewriting to my overall development as a writer. Kenny Werner’s book Effortless Mastery runs down a bunch of thoughts on how to chill out and practice music for fluency. The same principles can easily be applied to writing. Essentially, Werner contends that the ego gets in our way, tripping us up and adding anxiety to the process of playing music. I haven’t read the whole book, but it includes a CD for meditation, which should give me some idea as to his approach. I’m not big on the idea of meditation, but if it helps I will try it.

Additionally, I need to figure out a way to move beyond simple freewriting within my writing practice. I would like to be able to maintain this blog for at least a year, but at some point I also need to practice revising freewritten text. As I have written before, it may be best for me to draft these posts in MS Word, making them more accessible to me when time for revision comes. I think for now, though, I will stick to the procedure I have: draft and publish blog posts using a text editor. Atom doesn’t have the writer-friendly functionality of MS Word, but it is a simple thing to bang out a post and upload it to GitHub. Let me not mess with a system that works well for me now. I simply need to stay focused on moving ahead.