Poseur to Composer

Photo by Nina Childish

Today I was in my home office when I heard some minor chords and an arpeggio from my keyboard in the other room. It sounded like some of the avant garde jazz I've been listening to lately. I rushed in to see my cat walking on the keys. My cat plays better than I do!

I'm trying to change that, so I've been practiced the So What intro with renewed diligence. I noticed how sluggish and inefficient my fingering is (on the part right after Bill Evan's opening chords). I see opportunities to "refactor" the fingering, to make that part flow smoother with less movement of the hand.

If you're unaware of what refactoring is, it's a programming term. It means to improve code by making it more readable and efficient.

Also practiced C Major scales: my max tempo for two hands descending is 82. Hope to earn that checkmark by tomorrow night.

Time bookstanding today: 30 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 5

Image by JazzMemes

I'm still interested in how my fingers easily play the scales when my mind is quiet and not thinking at all, even after a period of eight or more hours away from the piano.

Yesterday I suggested the reason might be because I make sure to perfectly rehearse the scales before I end a practice session. Doing this "preloads" my muscle memory with the exact fingering sequence. Then the next time I go to the piano, provided my mind is quiet and doesn't interfere, I should be able to (re)play that sequence.

So where exactly in the body does the information for the perfect fingering sequence get stored? The parasympathetic system? Some posit it may be in the spinal cord and not in the brain. It seems the information is stored and retrieved somewhere other than the mind.

Speaking of theories, I was reading about George Russell and the Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization in The Making of Kind of Blue today. This theory of Jazz harmony made modal albums like Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme possible. I skimmed a copy of it and it's far outside my understand at present, but I hope in the not-too-distant future I'll be able to read and comprehend it.

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

I earned the checkmark:

But my morning was a trainwreck:

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