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Published On: Feb 08, 2004 09:32 AM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Feb 08, 2004 09:32 AM
Trying to reach a balance
I feel guilty about not being able to return to my
fairly consistent once-a-day blog posting rate. But rather than blame it on
disorganization or lack of motivation, I think it's more appropriate to blame it
on a principle success: my 2004 goal of balancing my life.
I feel guilty about not being able to return to my
fairly consistent once-a-day blog posting rate. But rather than blame it on
disorganization or lack of motivation, I think it's more appropriate to blame it
on a principle success: my 2004 goal of balancing my
life.
A few days after the New Year arrived, my friend Alley and I got together to discuss setting some goals and resolutions for 2004. In fact, I typed up a 2-page (in very small print) list of goals, to-dos, resolutions, and the like. Actually, why don't I just list them here:
Resolved to...
1. Reject the idea that I cannot maintain all major categories (esp. Work, Acting and Body) at the same time, that I have to shelve one to focus on another.
2. Establish a reward system for significant accomplishments and follow through on the rewards.
3. Have home & car clean, laundry washed, and Quicken current every Sunday.
4. Review, revise and reprint goals on the first Sunday of every month.
5. Try and budget a number of hours each week for a different project/item that usually gets neglected. (variation/adjunct) Spend a real amount of dedicated time each week for a purely artistic pursuit. (That should be a major understatement.)
6. Strive to forge bigger, more ambitious goals as they get revised and updated.
7. Ask myself what I'm going to get done at the beginning of each day, and ask myself what I got accomplished at the end of the day. (variation/adjunct) At least for a while, make a point of listing the accomplishments for every day, week, month, regardless of whether they were on any original to-do list.
8. Ask myself once a week "What items am I procrastinating taking the first frightening step on?" and resolve to take that first step.
9. Keep the personal web site ever-changing and growing, and never let it go stale or show signs of neglect.
10. Get a good start to the day.
a. "Dress for Success" and don't walk around in pajamas throughout the day. (Get dressed, showered, etc. by 9.)
b. It's called an alarm clock. Use it
Alley and I have been trying to get together once a week to go over our goals, talk about where we are and what we're going to try to do for the next week. So far we've been able to do this about once every two weeks, but the results are palpable.
Granted, I haven't succeeded at fully accomplishing any of these items, but changing my life is a gradual process. The point is that I think since Alley and I started on this project, we've been getting some real results.
One thing I don't have listed up there (but it's in the longer "goals and to-do" section) is the need to get out and be social. Last year I spent way too much of my time being holed up in my apartment in total "hermit mode" writing about my life and not really living it. I did have some accomplishments last year—getting a pretty decent body put together in the gym, creating a pretty kick-ass website, earning my SAG card and finishing my master's degree—but in many categories—work, finance and social/relationships—if I were to grade myself I would have to give myself a "C-".
Already I'm spending a lot of time with work (the cool new contract programming for a London-based company) and social stuff (getting involved with the local Dean campaign and helping to create the Stonewall Young Democrats) and music (over the last few days I've been spending maybe an hour a day on the guitar).
The guitar stuff has been so cool. Once of the reasons I chose to start learning in (two years ago) was that I wanted to find an instrument that complimented the way I think about music, meaning the way my brain processes music. I've been trained as a [classical] pianist, and although I have a good understanding of theory and ear-training, I had a tendency to see a piece as a collection of individual notes. I was very visual; I saw notes printed on a page and I played them, eventually memorizing what my hands did when, but I never really focused on the sound of the notes. I didn't listen to the chord progressions throughout a piece. I was horrible about playing something "by ear" or recreating a melody that I heard instead of read.
In contrast, the guitar is an instrument based on chords, and there's something about the strings that makes it a very "by ear" instrument. I can play a melody without even being aware of what exact notes I'm playing. The ear just connects to the strings and the frets. Granted, being a lifelong student and an academic purist, I've been spending time learning to read music on the guitar. There's this horrible tendency for written guitar music to be written in something called "tableture" where they write down numbers (which fret) on a six-lined staff that represents the six strings on the guitar. It makes it easy for a beginner to "read music" and sight-read something that's written down, but it creates an inability to actually read real music, and the player has really no idea what notes, scales, chords or arpeggios he or she is ever playing.
Something neat happened yesterday. I was doodling around on my brother's electric guitar that he loaned me (I had it plugged into my Apple PowerBook and GarageBand was simulating a guitar amp with a nice rich sound and a little echo.) and I kind of found this sequence of notes (a scale) that sounded really good. As long as I stayed on this particular scale the melody had this really cool sound to it. I knew it wasn't a standard major or minor scale (primarily because it jumped straight from the tonic to a minor 3rd interval) and it wasn't one of the standard modes (mixolydian, frigian, locrian, etc.) and really I felt like it was something I'd invented; my "ear" had just put it together.
I wrote down the sequence of notes because I didn't want to forget them the next day: E G A (B-flat) D E. I wrote B-flat in parentheses because it kind of sounded like an "added" or "optional" note to the scale.
The, on a hunch, I looked up on the Internet the search words "Blues Scale". You see, I've heard of something called the Blues Scale. Alley's roommate who once tried jamming with me on guitar (I was awful) told me as long as I stayed on this Blues Scale, any solo would sound cool. Well, guess what? Those notes were the exact Blues Scale, and the "added" B-flat was the note that you add to a Minor Pentatonic scale to make it a Blues Scale.
Looks like my ear knew something my brain didn't. That might sound pretty geeky, but I was really psyched when I discovered that.
Well, enough writing. That resolution of having the car and apartment clean every week needs to be tended to. Actually, I've been just trying to get it down to once a month. I took Hedwig (my car) to the carwash yesterday for the February Cleaning, and I've been trying to make some progress with the apartment. In last weeks meeting with Alley I said that this week i would take care of those items, and I want to be able to report on my progress today, so no more time for blog writing!
A few days after the New Year arrived, my friend Alley and I got together to discuss setting some goals and resolutions for 2004. In fact, I typed up a 2-page (in very small print) list of goals, to-dos, resolutions, and the like. Actually, why don't I just list them here:
Resolved to...
1. Reject the idea that I cannot maintain all major categories (esp. Work, Acting and Body) at the same time, that I have to shelve one to focus on another.
2. Establish a reward system for significant accomplishments and follow through on the rewards.
3. Have home & car clean, laundry washed, and Quicken current every Sunday.
4. Review, revise and reprint goals on the first Sunday of every month.
5. Try and budget a number of hours each week for a different project/item that usually gets neglected. (variation/adjunct) Spend a real amount of dedicated time each week for a purely artistic pursuit. (That should be a major understatement.)
6. Strive to forge bigger, more ambitious goals as they get revised and updated.
7. Ask myself what I'm going to get done at the beginning of each day, and ask myself what I got accomplished at the end of the day. (variation/adjunct) At least for a while, make a point of listing the accomplishments for every day, week, month, regardless of whether they were on any original to-do list.
8. Ask myself once a week "What items am I procrastinating taking the first frightening step on?" and resolve to take that first step.
9. Keep the personal web site ever-changing and growing, and never let it go stale or show signs of neglect.
10. Get a good start to the day.
a. "Dress for Success" and don't walk around in pajamas throughout the day. (Get dressed, showered, etc. by 9.)
b. It's called an alarm clock. Use it
Alley and I have been trying to get together once a week to go over our goals, talk about where we are and what we're going to try to do for the next week. So far we've been able to do this about once every two weeks, but the results are palpable.
Granted, I haven't succeeded at fully accomplishing any of these items, but changing my life is a gradual process. The point is that I think since Alley and I started on this project, we've been getting some real results.
One thing I don't have listed up there (but it's in the longer "goals and to-do" section) is the need to get out and be social. Last year I spent way too much of my time being holed up in my apartment in total "hermit mode" writing about my life and not really living it. I did have some accomplishments last year—getting a pretty decent body put together in the gym, creating a pretty kick-ass website, earning my SAG card and finishing my master's degree—but in many categories—work, finance and social/relationships—if I were to grade myself I would have to give myself a "C-".
Already I'm spending a lot of time with work (the cool new contract programming for a London-based company) and social stuff (getting involved with the local Dean campaign and helping to create the Stonewall Young Democrats) and music (over the last few days I've been spending maybe an hour a day on the guitar).
The guitar stuff has been so cool. Once of the reasons I chose to start learning in (two years ago) was that I wanted to find an instrument that complimented the way I think about music, meaning the way my brain processes music. I've been trained as a [classical] pianist, and although I have a good understanding of theory and ear-training, I had a tendency to see a piece as a collection of individual notes. I was very visual; I saw notes printed on a page and I played them, eventually memorizing what my hands did when, but I never really focused on the sound of the notes. I didn't listen to the chord progressions throughout a piece. I was horrible about playing something "by ear" or recreating a melody that I heard instead of read.
In contrast, the guitar is an instrument based on chords, and there's something about the strings that makes it a very "by ear" instrument. I can play a melody without even being aware of what exact notes I'm playing. The ear just connects to the strings and the frets. Granted, being a lifelong student and an academic purist, I've been spending time learning to read music on the guitar. There's this horrible tendency for written guitar music to be written in something called "tableture" where they write down numbers (which fret) on a six-lined staff that represents the six strings on the guitar. It makes it easy for a beginner to "read music" and sight-read something that's written down, but it creates an inability to actually read real music, and the player has really no idea what notes, scales, chords or arpeggios he or she is ever playing.
Something neat happened yesterday. I was doodling around on my brother's electric guitar that he loaned me (I had it plugged into my Apple PowerBook and GarageBand was simulating a guitar amp with a nice rich sound and a little echo.) and I kind of found this sequence of notes (a scale) that sounded really good. As long as I stayed on this particular scale the melody had this really cool sound to it. I knew it wasn't a standard major or minor scale (primarily because it jumped straight from the tonic to a minor 3rd interval) and it wasn't one of the standard modes (mixolydian, frigian, locrian, etc.) and really I felt like it was something I'd invented; my "ear" had just put it together.
I wrote down the sequence of notes because I didn't want to forget them the next day: E G A (B-flat) D E. I wrote B-flat in parentheses because it kind of sounded like an "added" or "optional" note to the scale.
The, on a hunch, I looked up on the Internet the search words "Blues Scale". You see, I've heard of something called the Blues Scale. Alley's roommate who once tried jamming with me on guitar (I was awful) told me as long as I stayed on this Blues Scale, any solo would sound cool. Well, guess what? Those notes were the exact Blues Scale, and the "added" B-flat was the note that you add to a Minor Pentatonic scale to make it a Blues Scale.
Looks like my ear knew something my brain didn't. That might sound pretty geeky, but I was really psyched when I discovered that.
Well, enough writing. That resolution of having the car and apartment clean every week needs to be tended to. Actually, I've been just trying to get it down to once a month. I took Hedwig (my car) to the carwash yesterday for the February Cleaning, and I've been trying to make some progress with the apartment. In last weeks meeting with Alley I said that this week i would take care of those items, and I want to be able to report on my progress today, so no more time for blog writing!
Posted: Sun - February 8, 2004 at 09:32 AM