Covid got me to do what I've always wanted to do.

For so many years, I’ve been training as a musician. I’ve gained so much experience from the practice room, the rehearsal sessions and the stage. I’ve been interested in home recording for years and wanted to get into doing it more regularly. But life happens, or more importantly, I develop and get connected to distractions in my life that won’t necessarily make me a better musician or human, in my opinion…. youtube binges, netflix distractions, or just whatever other ways I waste time.

I’m not necessarily a deep believer in striving to be productive all the time, literally every moment that I am awake. I’ve been trying to learn to just be more often than before, but I do feel that since my time on this earth is finite that I do have a desire to be fairly productive most of the time. I’ve always wanted to get more into home recording and since we’ve been home from in-person teaching experiences for the last several months, I’ve actually taken on a project that I was not expecting to be such a large undertaking once I started it.

I began with doing some play-alongs that were based on the 12-bar blues and at first, it felt like I had to go with the Major blues since this was how I introduced the blues to my students. At first, I thought I would probably just make a few tracks and leave it at that. Then I realized that it would be a good opportunity to take video of the performances and put them into a multi-panel video. So I made a few at first, but then realized that if I want this to be an effective resource, there should be tracks/videos in all 12 keys. So okay, I’ll be doing 12 videos of these. Not a big deal. Then I started getting into bass lines that were based in minor keys, so then I decided I should do in minor keys also. So just like that, the project became an undertaking of 24 tracks and videos. I’ve been working on them all summer long, well after my obligation to my teaching position ended. But I also just really enjoy that this is how I contribute to my body of work regarding music. This is how I want to spend my time. The video editing in not so fun, but then again, I enjoy a lot of so much of this process, especially learning about getting into music styles that I’m not so good at and have to learn to do in general.

If you want to see any videos about getting into playing over the blues or access these blues tracks/videos, go my page “12 Bar Blues” on my website here and you can find the links there.

Teaching in a different time....

During this time where I am not physically in the same room with my students, it brings an interesting challenge. I’ve been telling the people I’ve been able to come in contact with about this regularly. It’s something that I have realized for a time but is even more apparent at this time.

I’m in charge of a really unique and awesome music program at a public High School in Nashville. In this class, we focus on theory, song writing, arranging, digital programming, instrumental performance and grouping situations. But since we have all been at home due to the current state of affairs with the world-wide pandemic, the schools are currently closed and all students and teachers are asked to stay at home.

During this time, I feel that it is necessary to be as available as possible for my students because anything they do at home is purely for personal enrichment and cannot be graded. The hard part, though, is that we ARE separated.

When we are at the school, I get to have my time with my students for 10 hours a week. We have time to get a lot of stuff done during that time. It’s great, really. While we are at the school, because we have all that time together, it’s a lot easier to say to a student, “Hey there…. There’s a guitar! Pick it up and work on this.” There’s a keyboard! Sit down at it and work on this song or scale. There’s a drum set! Sit down at it and work on this feel or groove.” While we are at home, it requires a lot more individual motivation. And I have to constantly remind myself that I do not fully understand what my students have to deal with when they are at home. Everyone’s home life is different from everyone else so I do not necessarily fully understand how that is for every one. Sometimes, there are other factors that make it difficult to study or work on this stuff while at home. My main hope is that I remember that and when my students are ready to connect with me regarding their studies at home, I’m ready for that, and I try to remind them of that whenever I can.