As you can see – things at work still has me hopping around like a mad man. I've planning on doing a journal entry for the past two days but by the time I get home I'm beat mentally. I've still been managing to get in some solid practice time regardless of my mental state. On days where I can't commit to playing my normal routine I do some soft long tones and easy basics with sound being my primary focus. That has been very helpful to keep me in shape and develop my tone. Tone is VERY important to me now (and will continue to be important decades from now).

Yesterday I got in my regular routine AND began transposing a Miles Davis' solo from Four (one of the EARLY prestige recordings). I am finding that my ear is pretty good with picking things up quickly. I've been writing down the notes (no rhythms) to help keep things moving. I tried doing it without writing anything down but I kept forgetting stuff that I had figured out earlier. My goal is to get the notes and rhythms down and then try to get his STYLE down. The notes and rhythms don't mean as much without that style… an obvious fact when I listen to recordings of ME playing the solo versus Miles.

On the Miles tip – I heard a song called “Chocolate Chip” from the Doo Bop album. I grew up on hip-hop as a teenager and it amazes me that he could still do his thing no matter what the genre of music was. PURE GENIUS AND TALENT. You can change the accompaniment but it's still Miles Davis.