Skip to main content

Day Twenty Two (Year Four)

Got the second of those Richard Lloyd PDFs printed off today.  The Mrs. had me email it to her, and she printed it off at work.  So yeah, that's going into the binder tonight.

You know what, though?  Some of the greatest lessons that #START has taught me had less to do with the binder tonight than they did about music in general.  Here's what I mean.  I taught tonight, one of my last lessons with my first ever student up here in Northwest Iowa.  In her last lesson, she finally conquered a song she has wanted to learn since she began taking lessons last fall.  So, knowing that we were running out of lessons (there's maybe one more), I asked her what she wanted to work on for the last couple of lessons.  "Jason Mraz," she says.  So we did.  She really likes "I'm Yours," off of We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things.  The original version is in B.  We capoed at 4, which made the chords G,D,Em, and C. 

I had to egg her on a little bit, but the chords were easy, which she liked, and I discovered something about myself too.  I'm getting more comfortable with my voice.  As soon as we were done with the lesson, she and her sister ran off to bed singing Taylor Swift's "22," so I started playing that, and singing along quietly while my wife chatted with my student's Mom (and our really good friend) in the other room.

I was going to sort out the music instruction DVDs tonight, but I think that and the genre studies will have to wait until tomorrow.  I'm exhausted.  Tomorrow, however, is the last day of work, and so after that, the rest of the packing (and the music work) is going to pick up in earnest.

Good day today.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Day Two Hundred Six (Year Four)

Today was the first official day of the second half of my "album-in-a-month" challenge. As for today's goals, I wanted to see what I could get done in regards to track order, and get at least a little bit of a start on the lyric writing process. I spent more time working on the track order question than I did on the lyrics today, but as a result of that, I ended up with something that I think will work in terms of order. I did sit with the notebook for a few minutes at the very end of the day, and got a solid starting line of lyric and some other ideas that I hope will be jumping off points for lyrics. What I'm thinking I might do, however, is switch my focus from the lyric writing part of the process directly to the recording part of the process.  That way, if I can get the music recorded and burned onto a CD, I can take the music with me in the car, and listen and try to see what images and thoughts the music brings up.  It's a tactic that has worked for...

Day Two Hundred Ninety Two (Year Five)

Today was the last seminary village cookout of the year. While we were all sitting around the picnic tables eating dinner, I got a chance to talk with a few of the Mrs.'s classmates about guitar related stuff. As it turns out, more than one of them wants to be more proficient on guitar. I'm not saying that this will lead to more teaching opportunities, but I told one of them that I would throw a folder together for them. Essentially, anytime I get a chance to talk shop is a great chance for me to reinforce some of the things I have been focusing on. If nothing else, it gets me thinking ahead to tomorrow's day off and a chance to get into the studio for a decent amount of time.

Day Three Hundred Nine (Year Seven)

Well, it happened.  We came, we saw, and we (sort of) conquered.  I'm not sure how great we played all the way through, but there were definite moments that went really well, and all things considered (from my side anyway), it was an absolute blast and I hope we get to play again for something that's not church related. The set list, as it was, went like this: 1.  I'll Fly Away 2.  From This Valley 3.  Crazy 4.  My Church 5.  Jolene 6.  Long December 7.  You & I 8.  Can't Help Falling In Love 9.  Hey Jude It was an interestingly eclectic group of songs, with more bluegrass and country than I would have expected. It definitely took us a little while to get our feet under us, and on some level I felt like we were just getting warmed up by the time "Hey Jude" ended, but it was a start, and I'll take that any day.