Return of the Triads

Finally got the Behringer hooked up (61-key MIDI controller). Some weeks ago built a cute little 1U rack to let me stick the Firewire audio interface below the laptop and both of those over the keyboard. This weekend I dusted, then added music stand and mic stand...and there was still enough room left for the bass amp. And when I got back to work for the first time after surgery I took some break time for a personal project and sewed up a dust cover for the Behringer.

I'm reading up on theory, particularly reharmonization. I'm splitting my attention between a "folk" cover of the main theme from The Terminator and a sassy small-combo cover of the title track from Hellboy. The latter is where the reharm is really going on; I'm fiddling around with a piano part with some jazzed-up chords.

Having great fun staring at the things and going, "Is that the root? Does that make this a perfect fifth? Or am I actually in A minor and that makes this diminished?" I'm rather convinced -- my dad agrees -- that all these fancy chord names are applied after-the-fact. First a musician plays something that sounds good. Later they go back, figure out where their fingers actually landed, and go, "um, Am7flat9 extended, right?"

Of course since they carved up my nose I have to put off shoving air into a trumpet for a few weeks. Been good for violin and chin'cello practice, though. I've almost got the instinct programmed to complete the string cross before I start bowing, but every practice session I have to lean on it again. Still, progress; I can sometimes cross two strings at once without a horrible noise. Next up -- intentional double-stops!

(I'd say eighty percent of my practice time right now is just walking scales in first position, using the fourth finger instead of the open string. Because there's where the problem is; getting clean from the fourth on one string to the first on another, and back again.)

(Also asked for trouble going to arm vibrato. Means I've lost the security of the neck and sometimes when I leap over to another string I get totally lost. Err...basically, in the default grip the violin is nominally pinched lightly between thumb and the side of the index finger. When you do arm vibrato you pivot off the thumb and there's clearance between your hand and the violin. So when you make the jump to arm vibrato, basically, instead of sliding your grip up and down -- like on the neck of a guitar -- your hand dances spider-like above the fingerboard and you just have to try to keep track of where you actually are at any one moment.)



In the wings is a pop cover of the Assassins Creed III music -- soprano sax and maximum schmaltz -- and I have been dreaming of a mashup between I Am the Doctor and the last part of Tubular Bells -- "And introducing....Cloister Bell!"

Is my energy returning? Maybe. Confidence? I suppose. When I think about it, I'm still lousy at playing an instrument, but mostly I don't think about it and just enjoy whatever it is I am doing.