A start...

Since February 2010, I have been endeavouring to comprehensively wade through Mark Levine's Jazz Piano Book - with variable success... I set a rudimentary timetable, for how if I was able to spend a week on each chapter, I would be able to complete the book (a once over) in roughly six months: by July 2010.

Following a few interruptions of late (setting me back by a week and a half), I have reached an impasse, a block.

I'm three topics/chapters behind:

1. the week primary interruptions started,

2. the week of secondary interruptions, and

3. a week nursing my demoralised state to re-establish focus and drive (this week).

I'm struggling to continue.

The book is dense, and at times frustrating to follow (not all the elements are revealed in a chronological order: "later explained in Chapter 7" where a symbol has been used repeatedly without explanation for the previous three chapters!). But with the little I have done, I feel I have achieved a sense of reward and satisfaction in my ambition to decipher and make sense of one of the few books of authority in the Jazz education field.

I still think this is a worthwhile endeavour, and determined to see it through!

Perhaps in the vein of the recently viewed Julie and Julia (2009)*, I'm aspiring to keep some sort of log and record of my progress, or lack thereof, in an attempt to keep track of things, and accurately reflect upon them.

Similar to the movie, the challenge is to have something of relevance to say everyday, so I don't regress into my usual 'giving up', or 'turning to nothing'. The challenge is to have an obsession that may, or may not lead to something...

Self knowledge, and a greater knowledge of something I'm interested in at the very least.

So here goes!

Re-arranging my timetable of study until July, and having to say something everyday about my efforts.

Bonne chance pour moi!