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Fewer Goals, Fewer Projects

I've really been struggling with priorities in my piano life. I currently have about eight things going on:

  • Bare Necessities
  • Blues Learning Track
  • Rondo alla Turca
  • The Lead Sheets Course
  • Ear Training (mostly for when I'm on road trips, which seems to be often these days)
  • Scales, octaves, and other technique work
  • Maintenance Pieces (Maple Leaf Rag, Chopin)
  • Composition/Arranging

Of all of those items, Bare Necessities and Blues have definitely gotten the brunt of my attention for the past couple of months. Rondo alla Turca, not so much. And everything else? Not much at all.

Something's gotta give.

About the Lead Sheets Course

A week or two ago, I wrote about my struggle with the lead sheets course. I can see the value, but it doesn't feel relevant to what I want to focus on right now: learning, arranging, and composing in the blues/gospel/ragtime styles, with a bit of stride and boogie-woogie styles thrown in. And the songs I want to arrange are primarily hymns, not jazz standards.

(I used to have a giant fake book of hymns, but I gave it away during a suicidal depression a while back. Oh, how I wish I'd kept it ...)

Anyway, I have decided to set the lead sheets course aside for now.

Looking Ahead

I'm also going to consider myself "graduated" from Rondo alla Turca by the time we leave for Europe. It will go into my maintenance bag of pieces that I pull out a couple of times a week.

Come August, I'm going to have fewer short-term goals, and fewer projects. They'll primarily be finishing up Bare Necessities, continuing with the blues, getting the F minor nocturne back up to speed for a September masterclass, and taking time to work on improvisation and arranging. And that's it.

It will feel good to have a less crowded plate. It feels good now. Just deciding to drop the lead sheets course has already helped me to feel less overwhelmed.

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