Puny Musician :-(
Ever since last night, I started thinking of myself as a puny musician. Today I'm trying not to feel that way... I have a lot to be thankful for to God concerning my music. I'm thankful that I even know how to read music in the first place. I can sight read fairly well. I have the ability to learn new songs with some time and effort. I have at least some experience on the violin. I can solo on the piano just fine. I've had a junior college education in music. These are all things to be thankful for. I need to think on these things when I start feeling afraid of being a failure as a musician. :-( Two of my siblings and I performed music for a church party last night, and my brother and sister know how to play all these cool jazzy songs that I hardly have a clue how to play. I hardly played anything. I played one classicallly inspired song from an anime. I sang along with my sister for the "Bugle Boy of Company B Song." And I did two piano solos for some jazz that my sister was playing. But other than that, I didn't do much to contribute to the performance. Why? Because I'm limited. I don't know how to play jazz. I suck at improvising. Any chords beyond major, minor, and major/minor/dominant 7ths are foreign to me. I can do augmented and diminished 7ths but I have to analyze them before I can know what notes to play for those chords. Even in classical music I'm limited. I used to play classical a LOT. It was my passion and still is now. Even now I feel more of an inclination to classical over jazz. Although I love jazz, classical is the kind of music that truly inspires me and "gets me high." I know how to play basic classical music. But there are many popular classical songs that I have yet to learn. At the same time I want to learn classical pieces that not everyone plays because I want to be different. My main problem is that I don't practice enough, because I am a lazy bum who won't get very far in this world if I don't work harder. Every day I need to set aside some time to practice. I heard that 2 hours a day is plenty. But for now I will stick with an hour and see where that takes me. So... I will try my best to work harder as a musician. Maybe then I shall become an accomplished musician and not be a failure as a musician after all? :'-) I've already decided what to play for my school's student music recital in the fall! It's Brahm's "Ballade in G Minor, Op. 118, No. 3." Next I want to learn "Intermezzo in A major, Op. 118, No. 2," also by Brahms, and I found a cool arrangement of Brahms's Hungarian Dance no. 5 in ragtime style. XD I've also started learning the ending theme of the Ouran High School Host Club anime. Hopefully I can finish up that one soon. I've kinda mastered the first page and need to work on the rest especially. Well, gonna go now and practice. I hope I can get back into the good habit of practicing the piano regularly!