It's a familiar scenario; all of a sudden I have woken up out of the zone I have been in for the past year to realize that nothing of substance has taken place in my creative world outside of the necessary activity to stay alive and pay my mortgage. All the plans of publishing arrangements, transcriptions, new tunes, recordings, etc. have been no more than a pipe dream and here I am again with a blank page and a new year, lots of ideas and zero organization.
I look around and see that some of my former students have cracked the nut and have established a successful presence in the online musical community. One of them has not only a series of jazz education podcasts, but is also blogging about his visits to state parks and outdoor hiking activities. Another markets his wide variety of recording projects, backed by his participation in touring with a popular band. Another longtime friend and musical associate is a successful music educator offering a variety of improvisational methods and an impressive string of live recordings. They give me inspiration that I might possibly contribute positively to the ongoing musical dialogue that is gaining online momentum due to the oppressive limitations of the pandemic.
So now at the beginning of 2021, I have to ask the question: why not me, too? I am realizing that if I spend time trying to figure out why I am NOT doing something useful in my online space, that's only going to distract from actually posting something, so this blog will also be accompanied by some postings, available in the "links" section of this site, of two activities i have been involved in recently. One project is the first installment of a two part local history project sponsored by the Seacoast Jazz Society of New Hampshire and the Portsmouth, NH public library. The other is a link to a recent saxophone concert offered to a local retirement community; it is unlisted, so you can only view it by access through this site.
To conclude these observations, I am once again publicly committing myself to publishing more useful musical content this year. I will attempt to blog monthly, publish any new tunes or arrangements I have created, put up excerpts of the four books I am working on and print portions of the method books I am creating for saxophone and piano. No subscriptions are necessary to access the material, but if you would like to leave a comment in the guestbook, I would appreciate knowing you visited.
Charlie