I do not believe that anything has hurt my brain quite like jazz piano. Ow, ow OW. I think most of the pain comes from thinking about things a totally different way, and thinking about things like this for the first time. Which I suppose is a good thing?

I short, I was practicing my II - V - I chords, in sequence. Except that, the exercise I was doing was asking you to play only the third, the fifth, and the seventh in the right hand, no root chord. (Or you know, switch it up a bit.) On top of that the exercise had you playing the ninth; and the first time around, a year ago I was looking at this exercise and was thinking wtf?? what IS that note. And now that I've gotten more exposed to music over the last year and exposed to music theory, it's finally starting to make sense.

About a year ago, I paid this guy named Keith for some jazz piano lessons, and he was trying to teach me just this; except that it was going way over my head and I wasn't putting in the practicing time, because nothing made sense, and my head hurt even WORSE. So I feel really bad :/ I mean he did get paid $25 each time but I'm sure he was pretty frustrated. At the very least, I got a lot of notes from him and some basic grounding in theory, which now makes sense later. The plan is to go through all of his exercises and then call him up again (next summer?) and be like yo Keith...I finally decided that I want to make a commitment to this every day. I practice a couple hours, every day. Teach me? He'll probably say yes, he's a starving artist anyway haha.

I was thinking of getting more lessons with Mrs. Patterson, my classical teacher, but I just don't have the money for it; I only get a $100 allotment out of my total check every two weeks, and Mrs. Patterson is $60 a lesson, once a week. (Now I understand why my parents were partly happy when I quit piano lessons on entering college.) Again, though, I could kick myself: I could've put SO much more into this. But I've got to move on from that...at least I gleaned quite a bit of technical skills from that, and it's not as if I probably ever planned on playing serious classical music. I play things because I like the sound of them, and frankly I've probably got all the technical skills for jazz, which is most likely the only area in which I'll be continuing my piano study.

Did some more work on Lullaby in Birdland today, now that I have a much clearer shape of the melody. I think I'm probably going to have rearrange some of it, arghers (which is part of the reason for the sudden jazz study). Tonight I practiced 1:40 of jazz/Lullaby, w00t! And then after I practiced my II - V - I chords I started hearing them in Lullaby in Birdland. Whenever I see even minor progress it gives me hope...

Ahh let's see what else is going on...I'm also practicing me guitar, making sure I do some at least every day, although a couple times I went several days without practicing because my dad requested my presence for weird things. For example, just yesterday, I had to help him install network cables for SIX HOURS. I was like dad...tengo mucho shit a hacer. ¿Tu entiendes? Apparently no. Soo that sucked...

Anyway guitar: I've been working on these Deb Talan songs that I sort of "transcribed", that's exciting...and I've been working through Fretboard Logic SE, which has been kind of mindblowing. I was trying to think of the guitar in terms of the piano and that just dooesn't work. This book is highly recommended for anybody still trying to figure out the fretboard...essentially it shows how there are repeating shapes on the fretboard and that through these repeating shapes one can play any chord in different inversions all over the fretboard.

OH OH OH I PLAYED AN F CHORD YESSSSSS. (I've been trying for like a whole year, so.) YESSSSS. (I am a lazy practicer!) YESSSSS. (I am REALLY weak.)

Hmmm other news...'Time is Running Out' is going prettty well. Took me three days to get to the chorus, and I'm making up shit, aand it's great :D And I really hope I can pull off another two songs after this but it seems so unlikely ahhh!!

Ahh funny story of the day: I was walkin along outside my work building, and I mistakenly decided to wear my dress shoes outside; because I slipped and fell on the brick outside the building (and this nice lady in green from Alpha Kappa Alpha helped me up; they had a convention in Washington for the sorority today) and I scraped my knee. It hurts, but really it's not bad. A few little cuts, some missing epidermis (ahh my dermis showing!). So I tried to make my own makeshift bandage with supplies from the first aid kit, that didn't work...so I went to the nurse's office. First she props up my knee in this metal sling thing. Then she puts a HUGEEE glob of neosporin on the cut. Then she puts five different sizes of gauze on top of that. Then she wraps it in gauze. Then she puts tape on top of that. Then she puts on an Ace bandage. Then she puts tape on top of that. Then she gives me an ice pack for "swelling". O.o Then she gives me all this paperwork to fill out. So I bring it to my boss and I'm like hi Amy, guess what I hurt myself on the job (you're supposed to always report to your supervisor when you get hurt) and she's like what'd you do? and I explain...along with the nurse's remedy...she asks me, "were you intoxicated" and "were you trying to willfully hurt somebody" ahaha. The paperwork was all about how I might need sick leave to go to the hospital. So she was like well I guess you're walking. How do you feel about the loss of your limb?? OK so I'm writing this really terribly but, trust me it was hilarious.

*yawn* Aaand welll...that's life, really. Bye bye :)