Life. Play loud and pretend you know what you're doing.
Thusday is one of my more busy days in the week. There's always quite a bit to do but it winds down nicely with Jazz. Because I've lost my touch for music, it's probably the second most cognitively strenous thing I do. The first is driving and not getting my passengers killed. I like that challenge and I like thinking in an entirely different way. For me, music is a way to clear thoughts completely because at my peaks I wont think in words. Music becomes virtually fully encompassing, I do everything but smell music. Taste isn't as obivous of a sense but trust me when you move your lips enough you can taste it in your mouth. So I'm playing in class and we get a new song, I'm trying to keep up with the tempo and hit the right notes yada, yada. Now there isn't much for about twelve measures of the song and it's repeated. My music has some "on cue" notes that typically come in as little punches to fluff up a soloist or soli. So the 2nd chair tenor starts playing a solo (first chair's in Jazz typically sit in the middle with surrounded by the others, with the highest playing instruments in a group. Example: 2nd chair tenor sax - 2nd chair alto sax - 1st alto - 1st tenor - barry sax. Or in the case of the trombones theres an exception 2nd chair Me, 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th. The fourth chair was supossed to sit next to me but there are not 5 parts in most trombone music. So he prefers to sit next to 5th and share the 4th part. I digress) The saxs start playing 12 measure solos one by one down the line. I'm still not getting my cue and my mind starts to wander. My guess is that our professor wants to see their improv abilities because he wants to find the best soloist of the saxes. Oh but then he cues the 5th tombonist. I don't even remember what I said but my face told it all because Daniel looks at me and says with a big butt munching smile, "nope, we've all got to do it." We're already down to 3rd chair and that means there's less than 24 measures in 160 time before it's my turn. My brain thought of a few things.
1. Freeze.....
2.CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP
3. Play in the key of F. Play in the key of F. Think of the F scale. Wait this is jazz. Oh just think of the F scale.
4. Well I'm just going to play loud and pretend I know what I'm doing.
Ands thats the first step to improv. By the second time around I'd written down the jazz scale next to it and just picked from the notes.
1. Freeze.....
2.CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP
3. Play in the key of F. Play in the key of F. Think of the F scale. Wait this is jazz. Oh just think of the F scale.
4. Well I'm just going to play loud and pretend I know what I'm doing.
Ands thats the first step to improv. By the second time around I'd written down the jazz scale next to it and just picked from the notes.