Metronomes and Hurricanes

My friend Dr. Beat

Sometimes he's there to push me

Sometimes calm me down

Gahhhh my focus sucks tonight!  I got my mind on the approaching hurricane, and a bunch of music I have to and/or want to learn.  Right now the metronome's job is to slow me down.  Sometimes it's there to nudge me faster, bit by bit; sometimes it's the CSI unit to sniff out rhythmic or technical crime scenes; right now it's the old granny lady forcing me to calm the hell down and concentrate.  

(Well, right now I'm taking a break to post this, and am gonna go visit Nat next door.  Concentration may have to wait for another hour.)

I have water, extra batteries, and other important emergency supplies for me and Diesel (you know, like beer, and cookies).  I also have extra 9V batteries for my metronome.  Irene, I think I'm ready for you.  

Incidentally, if you haven't yet, I hope you'll check out my "Lullabye" video (below). 

Gershwin, Take 4,936

My cousin left day before yesterday, so now life is back to normal (define normal) - with an addendum to my usual motto: try to suck down a little less booze each day.  (My night of heavy drinking with my cousin was three glasses of wine over the course of six hours - which I'm proud to admit to my parents and perhaps a little embarrassed to admit to my hard-drinking late-night cabaret friends).  Anyway, it's time to get back with my routine of practicing, Weekly Wishes projects, seeing local friends, and doing the bare minimum of housekeeping and working out.

Things are not going according to plan.  Well, most of life is.  Weekly Wishes - totally expendable in the business sense but important to me with my complete lack of business sense - not so much.  

I tried to record the Gershwin yesterday so I could post a video by the end of the month, but I didn't like any of the takes I did yesterday.  I hadn't practiced for a few days, so I could hang out with my cousin like a normal human being, and nothing was landing right on the recording.  All my bad playing habits - rushing, technical problems, missing the whole musical point of the damn thing - were out in full force.  It's amazing how recording something I intend to show others makes me pickier about my own playing AND makes my playing go in the crapper.  Grrrrrr.  I did kinda like the take where my kitty Diesel jumped up on the piano and made me lose my place, but only for the comedy.  Oh, and I haven't so much as listened to Ben Folds.  Too busy with gig stuff, and catching up on other work, and wanting to get the Gershwin video done without "wasting" another week on it. 

Ok, regroup.  New plan:
1. Give myself a short time slot to record - like a half hour from setting up to cleaning up - when I get home this afternoon. 
2. Pick the take that I like & post it.
3. Forget about Gershwin and all the things I wish I'd been able to do better, and move on to other work.
4. Be annoyed that everything takes so much longer than I want/expect it to.
5. Go out to dinner and forget about all of the above.