Poseur to Composer

This weekend I pondered the words for Martin Luther's hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God and made some annotations on Genius.

I used the version by Chris Rice because it's my favorite of the 22+ versions I've listened to.

Meditation Time bookstanding today: 40 Quality of meditation (out of 10): 6

Practice Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 10 minutes Quality of practice (out of 10): 5


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Meditation is most important, now that I'm dealing with so much emotional volatility and mental illness at the workplace. Music practice takes a back seat, but I'm still practicing the left right hand independence exercises in a quiet moment.

Not many of them though.

Meditation Time bookstanding today: 25 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 7

Practice Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 2 minutes Quality of practice (out of 10): 3


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This'll be a short one, as I'm busy and sleep deprived. The new job is intense. There's never a dull moment at the homeless shelter. Not sure how I'll squeeze meaningful practice in between back-to-back 12 hour shifts though.

Right now I'm flipping my circadian rhythm to be awake during the night and sleepy during the day. It takes at least five days to do it, five days before I sleep properly. Once I'm sleeping properly my focus and memory retention will return to normal.

How does one switch from days to nights in only five days? The trick isn't when you go to bed, it's when you wake up. You must awaken at the same time every day for five days straight, and not take a nap during those days either. Works like a charm.

I'm still doing Joff's left right hand exercises, even as I nod off. Will practice Jump too.

Meditation Time bookstanding today: 40 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 6

Practice Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 10 minutes Quality of practice (out of 10): 4


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Tonight I start my new job. I hope it goes better than when I started my last job. Let me tell you about it.

When I started my last job, my employer almost immediately took me from the role I was hired for and put me in a manager training program. This irked some employees (understandably enough) and they scrutinized everything I did.

Eventually, things smoothed over and I earned their friendships, but never had I felt so under a microscope.

Another employee said that from the first moment he saw me he knew he wouldn't like me. He didn't like my face, I guess. I thanked him for his candidness and we never spoke since.

Despite the rocky start, most of my co-workers there were great, and I made the best of a situation I didn't really want to be in. Yesterday I left on favourable conditions.

Today I start my new job, and hope no one hates me simply because of my (very ordinary) looks. I'm probably a touch paranoid.

As for my quest to becoming a composer, I've been practicing those left right hand exercises I mentioned yesterday. The trick, as Joff shows, is to break the task into smaller parts and go slowly at first. It's the fastest way to learn almost anything. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast as the Navy SEALs say.

I also ran through the C Minor Blues Scale and the intro to So What. My fingers fumbled a lot today, and for some reason thought of when my daughter took piano lessons. I was a young father back then, preoccupied with other things, and wasn't supportive like I should have been.

Learning from mistakes. Becoming better. That's a big part of life and what Poseur to Composer is about.

Meditation Time bookstanding today: 40 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 6

Practice Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 20 minutes Quality of practice (out of 10): 6


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Yesterday I mentioned a few reasons why I haven't learned a song in its entirety, even after 18+ weeks of practice. However I failed to recognise the biggest one. It's the brick wall that's stopped me cold every. single. time.

It's the lack of hand independence.

Specifically, my left hand can't play independently of my right hand. Today I tried to get further with Jump by Van Halen but my left can't comp while the right hand plays those iconic chords.

After searching the web I see lack of hand independence is common, even for people who played for years. I think the problem can be avoided and masked over. Looking back through this blog, you can see how I avoided facing the issue head-on by switching around, moving away from So What, improvisations, practicing scales and project Dhymn. I didn't finish any of them.

It's like I'm doing a slight-of-hand trick on myself.

Okay, now I've sussed out the real problem, what's the fix? How does one develop hand independence?

There's plenty of advice and piano exercises one can do, but with the limited amount of time I spend on the keyboard it would take eons. This is urgent, and hand independence isn't necessarily a piano skill to learn but the rewiring of the brain. I need exercises I can do away from the keyboard, during a break at work or waiting in line.

I found several videos that fit this criteria by professional juggler Joff J-K. He has instructional videos for left/right independence exercises, a few are inconspicuous enough they can be done in public.

Here's the first exercise I'm going to tackle:

Meditation Time meditating today: 0 Quality of meditation (out of 10): 0

Practice Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 20 minutes Quality of practice (out of 10): 5


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Someone donated a (piano) keyboard to the thrift store today. I decided to “test it out” amidst the bustle of customers. I tried to play the opening chords for So What but it sounded off. I'm sure it wasn't recognizable to anyone within earshot. It dawned on me I've been learning and practicing music for 18 weeks and still can't play an entire song.

My scattered approach is partly to blame: I've split my limited free time between studying music theory, reading biographies, watching videos and hands-on practice.

Then there's the journalling part. The time I spend writing about a day's practice session is sometimes more than the practice itself!

So today my lack of focused hands-on practice of a single song really showed.

To boost my confidence, I sat down and learned the first part of Jump by Van Halen. I've never liked Van Halen or even the song strangely enough, but the keyboard intro is instantly recognizable and dirt simple to play.

The song is also good for practicing comping with the left hand, too.

Here's the sheet music if you want to learn it:

Jump Van Halen by Jesdrums

Meditation Time bookstanding today: 40 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 6

Practice Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 21 Quality of practice (out of 10): 6


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I uploaded an unfinished draft of “A Mighty Dhymn For Our God” to MuseScore this evening. It isn't much, but it's something.

If you're confused, A Mighty Dhymn For Our God is what I cheekily named my first arrangement of Martin Luther's most popular composition A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.

Martin Luther brought disruptive innovation not only to religion, but to music. It's an idea I hope to advance in future posts, time permitting.

However, time does not permit me to do anything more tonight.

Meditation Time bookstanding today: 25 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 4

Practice Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 30 Quality of practice (out of 10): 5


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The iconic tortured expression of Frédéric Chopin

I need a long stretch of time to mess around on the keyboard, to experiment. Arrangement and composition require that, along with blood, sweat and tears. I haven't made a significant investment in either time or bodily fluids. Instead it's been 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there. No wonder I've gotten nowhere.

For Polish Composer Frédéric Chopin, writing music was anguish-inducing, as described in the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey:

His creation was spontaneous and miraculous. He found it without seeking it, without foreseeing it. It came on his piano suddenly, complete, sublime, or it sang in his head during a walk, and he was impatient to play it to himself. But then began the most heart-rending labour I ever saw. It was a series of efforts, of irresolutions, and of frettings to seize again certain details of the theme he had heard; what he had conceived as a whole he analysed too much when wishing to write it, and his regret at not finding it again, in his opinion, clearly defined, threw him into a kind of despair. He shut himself up in his room for whole days, weeping, walking, breaking his pens, repeating and altering a bar a hundred times, writing and effacing it as many times, and recommencing the next day with a minute and desperate perseverance. He spent six weeks over a single page to write it at last as he had noted it down at the very first.

I'm not comparing myself to Chopin in any way. He was a maniacally hard worker and musical genius. I have no innate abilities in music and my work ethic is inconsistent. I could go on with how basic my skills are in playing the keyboard and reading music, but I must stay positive and look forward. To me, Chopin is an exemplar of what it takes to make art.

I start my new job next Thursday. It's night shift at a local homeless shelter. A “dream job” for me. Because of the weird work schedule, it should free up longer stretches of free time for me to experiment. Then I can give project Dhymn an honest chance.

Meditation Time meditating today: 0 ... “Sleep is the best meditation” says the Dalai Lama. I needed it and slept in. Quality of meditation (out of 10): 0

Practice Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 15 minutes Quality of practice (out of 10): 5


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My interest in project Dhymn is waning. I probably should have kept the idea quiet. Blabbing about it expended valuable energy I could have channelled into making it real.

It can still happen though. I intend to produce a proof of concept, at the very least, but another shiny object caught my eye. It's Opera, weirdly enough. Here's a few passages in How to Listen to Music by Henry Edward Krehbiel that piqued my interest in this genre of music and theatre:

The people of to-day are as blithely indifferent to the fact that their operas are all presented in a foreign tongue as they were two centuries ago in England... The devotees of the Latin exotic, whether it blend French or Italian (or both, as is the rule in New York and London) with its melodic perfume, enjoy the music and ignore the words... For the present, the charm of music is still supreme, and we can sit out an opera without giving a thought to the words uttered by the singers.

and also:

When seeing the Italian performers "chattering in the vehemence of action," that they were calling the audience names and abusing them among themselves. I do not know how to measure the morals and manners of our Italian singers against those of Addison's time, but I do know that many of the things which they say before our very faces for their own diversion are not complementary to our intelligence.

I guess those passages triggered my imagination because a) I'm fascinated with languages and even attempted to construct a new one called 7erb and b) Opera and its enthusiasts are a compellingly strange bunch!

Anyway, I have an exciting idea to ruminate on. And I'll try not to blab about it too soon.

Meditation Time bookstanding today: 30 Quality of meditation (out of 10): 4

Practice Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 15 minutes Quality of practice (out of 10): 4


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Today I did a fun experiment with piano chords. I played all the notes of the octave with the following list of chord types and wrote down any feelings or mental associations I had.

Here's the list:

Major: Typical, normal, “according to spec” Minor: The Buddhist word dukkha fits perfectly here Diminished: Bad surprise, misfortune Augmented: B-Movie weirdness just happened Dominant Seventh: Uncomfortable family reunion, a crowded room Major Seventh: Intelligent conversational, thoughtful, Wednesday afternoon off work, “We can figure this out” Minor Seventh: Metro, slightly upscale, Volkswagen Beetle, shopping uptown on an overcast day Diminished Seventh: Caught in a conspiracy Ninth: Public transportation, public services Major Ninth: A crush, the part in the book when the plot thickens Minor Ninth: Fighting back tears (of joy or sorrow), the results came in but there are still questions Eleventh: Thicket of thorns, tangled Minor Eleventh: Reading the todo list of a wedding or other big event Thirteenth: Collapse of civilization, something magnificent is going to happen Major Thirteenth: Weighty negotiations, legal documentation Minor Thirteenth: Even more so the law Sixth: A polite conversation Six-Nine: When an unexpected disclosure is made during the conversation Minor Six-Nine: The disclosure is not received in good faith Fifth: Definitive, resolute Suspended Second: “Don't be alarmed” Suspended Forth: “I think I understand now” Add Forth: Parental guidance, Ikea assembly instructions Add Ninth: Disappointment, mixed results

Analysis:

A few of my answers uncovered some repressions regarding relationships (dating and marriage) and the responses as a whole indicate a general sense of uncertainty. If you've read this blog lately you can probably figure out why.

Anyway, give this experiment a try using these chord formulas and abbreviations and Note Kitchen. You'll learn about yourself and the various chord types, if you haven't already.

P.S. If you like this kind of stuff, check out Critical Stimulus, a psychoanalytical tool I designed based on Carl Jung's Association Method.

Meditation Time meditating today: 0 ... It was my day off, so there's really no excuse Quality of meditation (out of 10): 0

Practice Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 20 minutes Quality of practice (out of 10): 5


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