Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.
-Cecil Beaton

Think for a moment of your musical heroes, mentors, and villains. Did they exhibit these qualities? Did they express and live these qualities prior to obtaining success?

1. Daring, but not foolish
2. Different, but also competent
3. Impractical, but prudent and calculating
4. Singular purpose, no dilution of focus or hedging bets
5. Imagination with courage action

​They never chased a sound; they created a sound. As my mentor Bill King said in response to listening to one more mainstream jazz recording presented to him by eager hopeful shiny faces, “haven’t we made the record already?”

Have a great day.

​David  

Cognitive overload: Too much information, not enough context, too little time to process and reflect= stress, from the resulting inefficiencies in holding information in our memory for later retrieval. 

A good example for musicians in memorizing music. Apparently as we age, we lose abilities with working memory. Memorizing becomes increasingly difficult.

How do we improve our working memory? It's complicated, but decluttering the mind might be of help. 

Ten things to help lower this stress to free up our processing power, so to speak.

1. Acceptance that life is complicated, and aging is, if you are lucky, inevitable.
2. Lower social media use, this apparently is a negative factor of modern life.
3. Access news once a day, or week. Another difficult edict during a pandemic.
4. Do an audit of one’s daily activities. It may be time for a reshuffle, reordering, or abandonment of  activities and goals that are no longer relevant. Circumstances change, people change, you’ve changed.
5. Take a nature walk, leave the phone at home.
6. Call a friend, have coffee, chat about nothing important.
7. Practice without an agenda. With the current pandemic situation, it’s going to be awhile before activities musical resume. Have more fun with your instrument.
8. Declutter your studio.
9. Revisit your goals. Are they congruent? (It’s impossible to suck and blow at the same time.)
10. Seek out competent sources of information on this subject from eminent authors. My goal with this blog post is to excite your curiosity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_load#Effects_of_heavy_cognitive_load

David
 
 

Ten Tips:

1. Decide to learn something new, something unfamiliar. Something challenging. 
2. Decide to reach out to a new group of musicians. Keep reaching out until you find new musical soulmates. 
3. Buy a new instrument.
4. Clean out your studio until it’s fast and lean, uncluttered, and clean.
5. Ask younger acquaintances what they are listening to. Follow up.
6. Take a lesson or two with an eminent music teacher.
7. Head to the practice room and address your deficiencies.
8. Sight read new music.
9. Record yourself. When you are happy with the result: post it online.
10. Start a blog and tell the world about your journey to musical renewal.

 
Best,
 
David
 

A recent release from Fade/Dissolve our cinematic noise trio

​I am sitting in North Bay Ontario looking at the lake through a hotel window. Damn it is beautiful. I'd forgotten how beautiful Northern Ontario is. Inspired by the Netflix series, “Cardinal”, I’m revisiting my old haunts in “Algonquin Bay”.

Yesterday I had a coffee with a former co-worker from Music City, where I was employed over 40 years ago.

What a great time reminiscing on old times, forgotten bands, dead musicians, our youth with all its ribald triumphs, failures and near misses. I am feeling reenergized and full of beans going home today. It was a good idea to reach out. Thank you, Bob and Mike!

This morning on my way out of town I will be having coffee with an old blues player, whom I jammed with around 1976-77. We’ll talk blues and music. I don’t know the guy, but I do know his work. And, I remember fondly his playing. 

Time is short, if there is someone from the past you want to play with, get on the phone and reach out. Time has passed, they will likely say yes. If you need to patch up some things from decades ago, it’s time.  

​Cheers,
 
David