Poseur to Composer

As I refactor the fingering for So What, I see similarities to coaching a football team.

For example, I see that finger two has been overworked and under-performing as a result. Finger three should be carrying the play, not finger two. Finger four is also slacking.

Yet finger two keeps sneaking in. I tell finger three, more emphatically now, to step it up. It's your show buddy! Hit that A note, and you better be on that D note like white-on-rice!

Finger five needs to play with more confidence too. It hits the A note like a sissy, and not even square on. I'd cut it off the team but that would hurt.

We practice the play several more times. Finger three is trying, the effort is there, but needs more work. This'll take time. It's getting late.

While in bed, I close my eyes and envision every finger executing their part perfectly. I rewind, zoom in, slow down and speed up the mental footage... until I drift off to sleep.

On to my pathetic meditation report for today:

Time bookstanding today: 0 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 0

Note: I checked my email first thing this morning. Big mistake. Lesson learned!

I went through Phase 3 of C Major Scales. It is tedious, time-consuming and totally not fun. Completion requires playing four octaves with both hands, ascending and descending at a 90 bpm. The fingering is different in the middle octaves, adding to the difficulty.

Can I accomplish this? Yes, eventually. It will take longer than a week though, and I wonder if doing scales across four octaves is the skill to have right now when there's so much else to learn.

I've decided to tweak Phase 3. Instead of four octaves, I only need to ace two. Then I move on the the next scale.

There's something else I should mention but too tired to remember.

Time bookstanding today: 40 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 6

I could do C Major both hands descending at 90 bpm twice in a row before fumbling. Then I did it twice more before the wheels came off (again). I think it should count though.

On to Phase 3.

Time bookstanding today: 40 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 5

Note: I had some trouble filtering out a song called Emperor during meditation this morning. It's a piano piece from Ian Ring, a composer and solo pianist who apparently lives only a few miles from me. The song is beautiful and calming, spreading outwards, but it doesn't seem to resolve into a final, stable chord. This sense of neverending expansion made it an earworm that stayed with me most of the day. I didn't mind at all.