it has been a uh... rough... couple of months. practice has certainly been less-focused, shall we say. regardless, i still do practice daily. sometimes it's relatively light consisting of maybe a few exercises to keep material fresh and then maybe i run through a couple of songs i'm either working on or know well enough i don't have to relearn any parts.
i've come to terms with everyday not being a heavy-lifting day. it would be nice if i could do that, it would probably mean decent progress, but let's be serious, it's just not possible. if i'm not currently working on any goals, turned upside-down, feeling burned-out, or just in a rut, i still like to play. if sitting down with my instrument and just playing tom petty tunes for 20 minutes is all i can manage to do, well, i have fun for that time spent in fantasy land.
that, having been said, i'm looking forward to my lesson tonight. i've been hitting the walking bass lines pretty hard for the past few months and getting another piece of the puzzle to chew on is something that i find exciting. jazz has been such a departure from how i have played in the past that it's ridiculously hard yet within reach. it has been a complete shift in how to approach the music at hand that i constantly have to keep my mind on track and it takes a lot of CPU to work through even a 12-bar blues. however, it is thrilling to have learned enough vocabulary to be able to set up said 12-bar blues on a loop for 5-10 minutes and have the freedom to just play my way though it... improvisationally. that's just not an experience i've had in the past playing in bands or whatever.
