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Bob Elliott
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4/14/2016 4:28:25 PM
---- Updated 4/14/2016 4:33:49 PM
Six Musical Plans
1) Make a song book with chords and lyrics to everything I've written. I would love to own that book already. It's a trip going back and listening to recordings trying to decipher my own stuff. I want for the rest my life it will be easy to play anything I wrote. Should be that way now, but there are so many songs, and I probably don't know the chords to most of them. If I rebuild that knowledge, this time I want it to stay built.
2) I built out arrangements for about fourteen difficult standards awhile back to play for Dad's 80th, and learning those songs opened chordal and melodic understanding for me like nothing else I've ever done. I want to get a habit going of picking up another about every week or so. Takes awhile to go through and find which form of each chord I'm gonna use, and put it all out on paper. I want to continue that, but I really don't want to move on until I have the first 14 memorized and understood. Otherwise, I'll be just adding one while forgetting another, and that's not the type of strength I'm reaching for. I just about have those fourteen memorized now. That would have amazed me a couple years ago since these songs change from trick chord to trick chord in less than a bar often enough.
But what I mean about understanding is it's not enough to memorize all my hand motions and lyrics, I gotta be able to call out the name of each chord I'm playing, and understand why it has that name. That's quite a bit easier to do on a piano than a guitar, but the process of understanding this opens up whole new musical worlds to me, worlds I've been seeking all my musical life. It's patient work though with taking notes, guitar, piano, chord book or app...lot of study- study that always leaves me feeling life has way more meaning to me.
3) Pretty sure there are 18 songs recorded on the 1680 I need to now start finishing since we wrapped up the Tom O'Brien and The Pawns album (sent it for mastering yesterday). The Pawns (Matt and I) have been piling up our best tracks ever but not finishing them because of the other project.
4) Write more poetry. I always need it, and it's almost always better stuff than what I think of when I just write words made to fit a tune I have.
5) I had,a couple years back, been doing scale work on the guitar, learning in a way that was producing a deeper understanding of the fret board. I'd like to get back to that.
6) I was learning to read music on the piano some years ago. I love that stuff, but it's also slow patient work.
Of course,number 3 pulls at me most, but all the other things make for growth that I really love.
To do justice to this list, I really need to not have a day job. Dad says people gotta watch out for languishing when they retire. I do not think that would ever be my problem. I have ideas and plans bigger than my life span.
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Richard Scotti
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4/14/2016 9:12:00 PM
---- Updated 4/14/2016 9:41:05 PM
Time and money are two of the biggest obstacles to the plans and dreams that I have for myself. Goals, ambitions and even hobbies require both of those elements in abundance. I try to do my best to move my agenda forward within the parameters that I'm stuck with and whatever I'm able to accomplish brings me great joy but at the same time it's very frustrating to be limited by the daily struggles of life in general as well as the lack of funds to finance creative projects. Sometimes I have time to do certain things but other people who I need to interact with to pursue my goals are not always available when I'm available. Getting a team to find the time to all be on the same page is quite a task. And today, no creative goal, business venture or hobby is a cheap thing to finance, especially if one has high standards in everything they do. I'm sure that IMP can relate to this frustration.
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