So musical

..or something.

i practiced the piano for an hour before i came to the sax. i already notice a difference in my ability to sight read.

this time, i worked on the israeli national anthem, Hatikva, as well as some of the pieces that come before it. seriously. i am pages away from finishing book one which is cool. but i'm determined to take things slow. in part, i'll have to, because i'm not good enough. in part, i want to get the music down as perfect as possible.

today's hour(ish) was very fun!

Snow day 2

yolanda had surgery this morning, which led to just noah and i chillin in the house as it continued (and continues) to snow. that put me in charge of making sure he did his school work, as he is homeschooled, and chores.

so i decided to practice upstairs this time. the accoustics in the living room are so different from in my room, but i still sounded pretty good. for an amateur. i walked through a lot of my old, but more challenging songs, and even learned Auld Lang Syne in the meantime. that song is boss on the saxophone (pardon me for watching too much "Juno." jk). i'm planning on playing it to bring in the new year!!

que mas? an hour and ten today. very minimal squeaking, so that was nice.

Snow day

i just got word that it was a snow day at work in the middle of my practice time this morning. that allowed for me to practice for an hour and 20, as opposed to just an hour this morning. and who knows? maybe i'll practice s'more later.

my only problem is i have a little somethin-somethin in my throat, and i feel it's affecting my playing. oh well. New World Symphony is sounding pretty good. and i figured out Amazing Grace.

O can a duh

that's right. i continued to perfect the canadian nat'l anthem. i still need help, but as the pieces get longer i realize so will my amount of practice time for them. that's life. (wow, so many lessons realized from the metaphor of learning an instrument!)

i recorded this for you, and it's all right. my struggle comes from breathing, which i really need to work on if i'm supposed to play for christmas spectacular in less than fifty days. which reminds me, we've picked out the song--Gotta Get Up by five iron frenzy. it's the ska version of rich mullins' song. you can look it up!

so yes. breathing. my flat and sharp notes. and i need to work on my tone. what else? this is so fun! um.. i've learned two scales! now i'm just rambling.

1.5 more hours.

duhn-na-na-na-na-na-duhn-na-duhn-na-na-na-na-na-na...

not every day that you see batman playing the sax. say hello to my less than 10 dollar find at the thrift store. thank God for little boy costumes--lol! i just practiced for 20 min. i got lots more to do today before the all-nighter starts!

oh, and i squeaked a lot. which is a bummer. the suit made up for it ;)

21.5 hours have been reached.

Good company

i practiced for 1.5 hours. from perfecting Scarborough Fair, to learning the beginning of O Canada, i just kept working on everything in order to get it down. near the end i think my lungs were getting tired, because i was running out of breath faster. and since i was squeaking on certain notes again, i made sure to thoroughly clean my instrument in the end.

at the end of practice i was working on my low notes when i realized i was playing a familiar song. it's called You and Me, and comes from Disney's "Oliver and Company." that was one of my favorites growing up. so i youtubed (new verb) the song and figured out the chorus. kinda cute.

definitely have surpassed the 20 hour mark!! ole!

5 intentional hours

no, i didn't practice for 5 hours. but i did practice for one. it's just that i didn't get started on my day till 12 (spent 2 hours blogging before that--yikes), and my goal was to get things done till dinnertime at the nelson's. so far so good:

• dishes. done
• letter to Lexi. done.
• laundry. done.
• car. clean.
• room. clean.
• practice sax. done.
• beat rojas at scrabble. done and done. :P

to go:

• return and re-check out german audio cds at the library.
• go for a walk.
• start a new book ("your God is too small").
• put together ideas for fusion tomorrow night.

so let me go take care of those things now! oh, and i think i'm at 19ish hours. saweeeeeet!!

For bajanna

i got in a quick thirty minute practice. i need to get food before i leave for merge, but i just wanted to mention that i did play today! it was fun, mainly just going over the stuff that i worked really hard on yesterday, as well as a couple older pieces.

janna got on skype and i played for her real quick. she also showed me her apartment and we chatted a little about life. she's the best!

The greats

i feel like since i've started learning the sax, i've come to appreciate more music. i've always enjoyed classical music, but i've never really known of what that consisted. i know the famous names: mozart (even been to his home town!), tchaikovsky, rachmaninoff, etc.

i mention this because i just learned Minuet by Bach, and i'm working on March Militaire by Schubert (hehe, that rhymes). as i turned the page to see what was ahead, other than learning Scarborough Fair :), there was a piece from Antonin Dvorak's New World Symphony. i checked it out on youtube, and you should click here to hear it for yourself. beautiful, no?

any way, today i practiced for an hour and it was really good. in general, i'm on a music kick or something because yesterday i played my guitar, and the day before that, i learned four notes on kendra's trumpet. it's hard for me not to want to become a jill of all trades with musical instruments once i get started. that's kind of like me and languages. hmmm...

Patience and endurance

this video took several takes (and still is far from perfect), as i was struggling with the B flat. it's okay though, i'm slowly learning that lesson that i just gotta keep practicing. i have every motivation to keep at this instrument, which is comforting. the thousand hour challenge really makes me desire discipline.

discipline just so happens to be a funny thing though. because sometimes it means that when i practice, i only play a few measures over and over and over and over. the hope is the payoff. for me that means not only hitting my notes with great tone, but hitting those little half and eighth notes with ease. it's tough stuff!

40 more minutes.

Una mas

i just completed another hour of practice. i learned the B flat (hmm.. i should figure out how to type the flat and sharp signs), and took time practicing the different simple songs that includes said note. i am struggling with it because it is so similar to the A, so sometimes i confuse B, A, and B flat. if that makes sense.

any way, i'm also coming along slowly now, as i was mainly on two pages, just working to get the different songs down pat. patience is a virtue after all!

now to grab some dinner before church!

Day off

i got a text saying they wouldn't need me at work today after all. i was rather bummed, but i suppose i can do my best to have a day of rest that doesn't have to do with sickness recovery.

i practiced for an hour, starting again from the beginning of the book and working my way close to where i actually am. it was good to work on tone even more (i don't think that can be worked on enough), as well as breathing technique. i noticed during my practice the other day that a lot of air was escaping, so obviously i'm doing something wrong. right now i think it has to do with the chap-ness of my lips, but i'll keep working to figure it out.

nonetheless, still a decent practice. it's exciting to know that i'm nearing hour number twenty!

15.5 hours total.

Still got it

i just practiced for an hour. it wasn't so amazing, because it's very apparent that i have a long way to go. but it is also a lot of fun. it's relaxing for me to play and to goof off, as i did today. after all, why should anyone play a simple version of Ode to Joy? exactly. so i worked for about half an hour spicing it up a little. i still gotta perfect it, but it's so jazzy and cool!!

as i looked ahead to the next pages i noticed that there is more music theory for me to focus on. while i'm not excited about that, i know it's necessary, so i pray for patience.

i also have added the Pink Panther Theme Song to my list that i would like to learn someday.

Sick

in case you were wondering about my lack of practice time, it's cause i'm sick. if i were at my house, i would include pictures or something, but i'm also house-sitting for the week at a student's place.

so.. i got nothin'. but i'm not too sorry because i'm much more concerned about getting better. as well as not putting germs into my beautiful instrument!

All right

yeah, today was all right. i actually went in thinking, 'you know, not every day is going to be as fun as yesterday, but that's part of the growth right?' the point of this blog is to recognize that there are good days as much as there are bad, but sometimes you just got to pull through them.

any way. it was average. i squeaked a bit more than usual, but still played a majority of my songs well. i noticed places where i need to focus more on the notes, or tone.. and i've circled a particular song that i'm struggling with and hope to get nailed down by next week. goals goals goals.

so yeah. 40 minutes before a meeting at the church. ole!