Our first assignment was to do an improvised solo to the song, "What is This Thing Called Love?" We also had to analyze Gary's solo of it which was very fast and abstract. My first reaction when I downloaded the play along track to record my solo to was, "I can't do this." It was too fast, I didn't understand Gary's solo, I freaked out a bit.
Then I looked closer at it all and broke it down into smaller bits. I listened to Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra sing the song. I downloaded the lead sheet on the Real Book online and compared that with Gary's solo. Ok then things started to look doable.
From there I went through the song a few times playing on my guitar and when I saw I could do it--I started to laugh! Yes--I can do this! It is a great lesson of growth for me. Something I will say about music study is it really is the study of my own interior life, my issues of self acceptance, how I meet challenge, how to overcome fear of failure and inhibition, how to push past my inertia with a new task.
Here are some things I learned from it:
1. Sometimes in life there are no "do-overs" and we have to wing it the best we can and accept where we are at that moment in time.
2. I found that the best performance I gave was full of mistakes and flaws but it also had the best shining moments in it too. I tried in other recordings to emulate the best parts and try to "fix" my past mistakes but I couldn't get back the authentic feel I had the first time I improvised the parts that worked. It no longer flowed.
3. Since now I have to post this solo on a public site to be reviewed and graded by my teacher and peers--it means having to be vulnerable and letting others see my weaknesses as well as my strengths. It's not like the recording world where we can overdub over a mistake.
4. I found that I really enjoyed this process and I am aware with how much I have grown because there would have been times I would have let that "I can't" voice overrule my wanting to grow. Or I would not have been able to accept where I am now.
5. Music is all about being in the moment. What i played in that solo I can never reproduce the same way again. I am ok with that!
Here is the link to my first jazz solo that I also had a lot of other distractions going against me as I was recording. Things such as a loud construction crew right outside the window, the phone ringing, the plumber on the way to fix my busted water heater and a plugged up ear (with what little hearing I have)
It is what it is and such is life! :)
https://soundcloud.com/blue-oconnell/jazz-improv-homework-for
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