Do over.

For me, writing is both the easiest thing and the hardest thing. When I have ideas and I know exactly what to write, it'll come out in maybe 10 minutes tops. If not, that blinking thing at the top of the page will stay there for the same amount of time. The hardest part is actually gathering all my thoughts and letting them out cohesively.

Almost everything I've done since the last do over has been college related. I finished my PiG paper, which allows me to graduate, and I've auditioned for Hofstra and just auditioned for Adelphi today, both on classical guitar. Now that auditions are almost over, I want to start focusing on jazz again. I bought a jazz chord book from Berklee, so I want to learn all the altered dominant voicings and inversions in there, then crack open my Real Book and just go through and play every song in there. This may or may not qualify as doing something "amazing," as most professional jazz musicians know pretty much all the songs in any given Real Book. This is just something for me to think about doing.

Again I'm sitting here with that thing just blinking at me from the screen, trying to think of what to write next. I have very little to do this upcoming semester, so my idea presented before should keep me busy for a while. Also, I know I've been neglecting this blog a lot, and I'm going to try to blog at least once or twice a week.

I'm going to end this post with a video of my jazz inspiration Joe Pass. There was a 6 part post on youtube of one of his instructional DVD's that taught me everything about jazz when I was starting it at the end of last year, and unfortunately the only part of it left is the intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFqiDcvRW2Y

wishful drinking?

To end a really lazy vacation that pretty much consisted of me playing guitar every day for a few hours, eating, and going to sleep, me and my family went to see Carrie Fisher on Broadway. For people reading who don't know, she was Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, and daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. The tickets were ten dollars a seat, which was actually a pretty good deal considering all four of us are Carrie Fisher and Star Wars fans.

The production started with her singing, and the rest of it was pretty much just a stand up routine. She detailed her parent's life and affairs, joking that her daughter and one of her friends might actually be related just "by scandal." Other topics covered included her bipolar disorder, addiction to codeine and alcohol, and that's pretty much it. For ten dollars a ticket, it was worth it, but any higher and I wouldn't see it unless I was a die hard Carrie Fisher fan.