A weird hour

but it still counts. i mainly just worked on figuring out a bunch of christmas songs. i got a hold of ariel, and so i should have the chance to play We Three Kings for her some time this week. i'm excited for that!

the reason it was a weird hour was because it was split in two between a conversation with my folks. that's okay though. always a pleasure chatting with them.

i need to finish some laundry and such before i leave for merge tonight. i'm so glad tuesday is december!!

Let's start at the very beginning.

a very good place to start.

that is, i've finished book one and moved on to the second! and in the transition time, i figured out part of Do-Re-Mi from the sound of music. that's why the title is so appropriate :)

working on the ska song for christmas spectacular. not easy, but not too hard either. gotta be very persistent with that sucker!

in other news, i was able to get book three for free from kendra's place, because her sister used to play. i hear kaci won't miss it. so hooray for that.

1.5 hours. 1000 hours seems far away, and yet i feel so accomplished so far. praise God for helping me with all of this!

Back home

it feels good to play in my room again. i know i was only gone for a few days, felt like i was intruding a little, playing in their house. it also meant that i got to practice the song for christmas spectacular. woot!

another hour of good scales and songs. hooray. 44.25 total hours.

Kenny G

so i just practiced another hour at the hansen's place. aka, the hansion. i was wondering how rory their cat would respond, and sure enough, she ran away. but thankfully, to my rescue was both cody and liz saying that i was pretty good. in fact, they called me kenny g. i laughed, but i'll take a compliment when i can get one.

decent practice. highly distracted, but i enjoyed playing for my friends very much!

Eine kleine nachtmusik

another hour is added to my total time. i have so many things to do before heading out to michigan tomorrow morning, so i needed to practice and do laundry at the same time. but northwestern is pretty savvy at teaching us to multitask, so all i have left is one load to go into the drier and folding.

neither here nor there..

i went through almost the entire book! i felt like reviewing what i've learned so as not to forget it. like with languages, sometimes you gotta get back to the basics and return to memorizing vocabulary.

any who, i ended on Mozart's piece, and it is sounding better and better. although, because i ended on it, i know that i was getting out of breath faster, and i was a little airy. more to work on!

Done with book one?

not quite. but ever ever so closer to finishing! i can taste it.

again, i worked on scales for the first twenty minutes and then proceeded to the final pages of the book. when i was done with those for the evening, i decided to work more on figuring out some songs:

1.) more of Somewhere over the Rainbow
2.) perfecting Come Thou Fount
3.) a new one--O Come All Ye Faithful

now i know for that final one that it's not yet thanksgiving. christmas music is technically illegal. but i figure it sounds so sweet on this instrument that you're bound to forgive me. am i right?

1.25 additional practice time.

Scales and arpeggio

i chose to focus on scales (G, C, D and F) for the first twenty minutes of practice today, and i swear it made such a difference. even the next time i played Hatikva, it sounded so much better! i can see how scales affect range and tone so much. it's like when i go to play basketball, i usually spend about fifteen minutes on the short bank shots before i shoot anything else. if i don't do that, i often struggle with making the threes.

note to self: small steps before taking on bigger projects!

1 more hour. Die Stunde.

More review

today's hour and a half was again just going over the final pieces in the book. to tell the truth, i snuck a peak at book two, but then decided i'd rather play some of the older songs some more. again, i'm at a point where i just have to go over the music until i'm sick of it. but i hear that's usually a good sign for a musician.

i did get the tab for the song i'm playing for christmas spectacular. i worked on it for a few minutes. it's very repetitive, so i think i can get it. i have a feeling i'll struggle with the chorus section, however..

39 hours. hot dog!

Hatikva and the A

here is your glimpse of me sorta getting that high A i keep complaining about.

a pretty great practice over all. i really am practically done with the book, but am determined to get the pieces down even better. it made me think though, do you think they make it so you finish book one quickly and are thus encouraged to continue on? they're pretty sneaky if that's true!!

nonetheless, 1.25 hours.

and.. so there have been a couple moments of me tilting the saxophone, or whilst i'm cleaning the mouthpiece and spit drops on me. it's funny that i get grossed out by this, considering that it's my spit in the first place. just a thought.

Teacher discount

so today i went to the music store to get book 2. you know, as something to look forward to. any way, over at music and arts (you would think they were sponsoring me for how much i mention them here), i perused the store for all sorts of future hard core saxophone solos.

when i finally just landed on book 2, i was asked whether i was a student or a teacher.

"well, i'm teaching myself?" i shrugged.

the man responded, "ahh, so you're the teacher AND the student."

i chuckled.

"in that case," he said. "you get the teacher discount."

aww shucks!

Phew

this was a hard practice as these pieces get complicated. funny enough though, i enjoy the 3/4 better than the 4/4 time, even if i mess up on it more. i don't really know why, it's just my preference.

particularly with Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien. a.) that guy is a stud (maybe because he's russian, but mostly because he is the reason for the amazing soundtrack in disney's "sleeping beauty") and b.) it reminds me of floating down a river. maybe this is me recalling Barcarolle, i dunno. it's just the way i roll.

additionally, the band arrangements are hard because they do not always allow me to play the melody. while every inkling of my heart desires to figure it out any way (and sometimes do :P), i have to really force myself to play what's written out for me.

and finally, there are many moments where i understand what Adolphe Sax was talking about when having this instrument be a go between of the brass and woodwinds--there are definitely moments it sounds like a flute!!

1.5 hours + 34.75 = 36.25 hours.

Final touches

right now i'm just going through the final pieces. i end up marking the places i need to work on, but don't linger too long on something because i don't want to get sick of it. there are several pieces and a great variety at that--from America the Beautiful, to La Cucaracha to Theme from 1812 Overture. let's just say i've got my work cut out for me, but it's exciting to be working on more complicated pieces!

i also went through almost every other song i've learned thus far in the book. it's weird to remember how hard these earlier pieces were for me, and yet now i get them just fine. in other words, God is good.

another 1.25 hours added to my total. hip hip..

Nearly done

a little practice.. a little phone call to germany.. a little more practice.

i'm seriously almost done with the book now. i have gotten to the end which just has pieces of all sorts. the bummer is that they are band arrangements, so i don't get the full effect. and i miss out on some of the melody, so i think i'll work to figure those out on my own. nonetheless, it also feels pretty sweet to get this far.

1.5 hours and i'm getting sleepy. quick nap before merge?

Stupid high A

yeah. worked on that note a lot. mainly transferring high to low, high to low, low to high, low to high and so on and so forth. i can imagine it was just as annoying to my host family as it was for me. :P i'm trying though. and i'll keep doing so. (when you write things down it makes them more real after all!)

got interrupted by an invitation to dinner. so peace out folks!

1.25 hours!

Just an hour

i've learned to bring a cup of water with me while i play, so my mouth doesn't dry out. i've noticed that i squeak a lot less when this is the case.

just reviewed some of my stuff, and practiced my Eflat/Dsharp and Bflat/Asharp notes. i'm still struggling with high A though. mainly when it comes to hitting a low note before it and transferring to the high one. kind of a bummer when i'm trying to play Hatikva. keep truckin!

peace.

Have you ever thought..?

..about how complicated musical instruments are? as i learn alternative ways to play the same note, i can't help but think of the maker of this instrument. how did he (Aldophe Sax) know? why arrange the keys the way he did? and the creator of the french horn? wow!!

the piccolo.. the trumpet.. or going to the stringed instruments, the mandolin!!!

it's insane. and crazy cool. crazy cool that God has given the gift of music to people (see the sons of Korah), simply to help people bring praise to God in another way.

i practiced another 1.5 hours today. fully figured out the main riff in Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and worked on O Canada even more. my only real cause of stress (though not much at that) was playing high A. sometimes i've got it, and then it's like it just disappears. weird, but something i look forward to working on!

Parched

i have found myself parched after this past hour of practice. i turned the pages further back and worked on each piece until it was perfect (twice) before moving on. what was encouraging is that it didn't take to long to do so for most of the songs!

when i got closer to where i really am in the book though, i was definitely having a harder time. mainly with breathing. and then the instrument would squeak seemingly out of nowhere. that was frustrating. and so i turned my instrument upside down only to have a bunch of spit come out. my frustrations quickly turned to laughter. as well as, "gross!" lol

any way, my total thus far is 28.75 hours! not bad for just barely three months.

2:30-4:15 minus 30 min..

how long is that? that's how long i practiced.

i just can't do the math (and/or refuse to :P). i'll figure it out later.

the point is i played a few for my parents via skype as they are in germany now (talked with pops for a little afterward). then i played some of the songs i'm learning, and then i just messed around. i figured out most of Somewhere Over the Rainbow which also sounds pretty sweet on the sax. then i worked on tone, since the stupid D kept squeaking on me. argggg.

twas an average practice. i was distracted by a conversation on gchat with a friend from college, so i don't think i played as well as i could have.