During the research I did to find a fingering chart I could use to practice the major and minor scales on the keyboard, I read a comment that stated the Bb Major scale was the most difficult to memorize. How would I know? I guess that's why I practiced it so much tonight. There is another reason I worked on memorizing the scale fingerings for Bb Major. It's because the blues song I have practiced the chords for a good while now, Adam's Apple, is written in Bb, and I already have the left hand part worked out enough to put together some blues song I can play with both hands.
One of the elements of what I'm trying to do to learn how to play keyboards caused me to stop the direction I was going until I memorized the scales I wanna play. I started out rotely learning the blues chords to this one blues song I've never consciously heard in my life. After I learned the chords and practiced them enough to be able to play the twelve bars of the song, I realized that if I wanted, I could play the left hand part I learned for this blues song, and make up lead lines to fit in with the bass line in Adam's Apple just by playing the notes in the Bb scale.
I started messing around with that idea. I played the left hand part for Adam's Apple like I learned to. When I could count it out while I played it for 3=4 weeks and it ended exactly at end of twelve measures, I figured I had practiced it enough to keep the left hand doing the twelve bars over and over again while I tried to find some blues type melody lines with my right hand. It worked pretty good. I'm not ready for prime time yet, but if I was patient enough with myself, I could kind of make it sound sorta like the blues.
I soon realized that I was going to have to learn a proper way to finger the scales I proposed to use as a way to practice something on the keyboard every day. During the time I was making up some solo stuff for my right hand, I played the same notes with different fingers in a very haphazard fashion. This made me realize I needed to learn the scales first so I would use the same fingering I used to play the Bb scales as I did when I doodled around using the notes of the Bb scale to create melody lines, even though I had already formed habits about the way I played the bass line with my left hand.
This might not be as difficult for me as I originally thought. After I had practiced the Bb scale with both hands separately for an hour or so tonight, by the time i got through I had picked up enough of the pattern of the fingering for Bb that I didn't have to look at the notes and fingering charts on my monitor. It's doable. Even me...
Some might think it took an odd motivation for teaching myself to play the scales on the keyboard. One day I realized I had been advising a friend of mine that's what he oughta do to improve his musical technique. Besides pompously telling him that, the next moment I was telling him that he should make a practice of following his own advice. I can be such a thoughtless jerk sometimes even with my friends. Finally, I realized I wasn't practicing what I was preaching. i wasn't doing for me what I advised him to do for himself. I had painted myself in a corner by jacking my jaws. What else could I do then to justify what I told him he should do, but to follow my own advice and teach myself how to play the scales. I'm utterly pleased I finally got around to it.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
In my death process I don't want no stragglers popping up here and there to distract me from the main chance. I think that's why I'm spending so much time trying to get the things done musically i put off most of my life. It's like I'm trying to organize all the sounds I've had to deal with in this specific passage before I completely lose my hearing. Strange things are happening for me now aurally. It's like I'm hearing the same old stuff, but through a hollow drum that has a white noise drip.
This afternoon I've been working on getting all the elements together I need to play the major and minor scales correctly. I researched what needed to be there for me thoroughly enough to satisfy me, and made the necessary decisions to move on with it. I chose a fingering method to use to play the scales. I don't expect to get too good at this, so pretty much any reputable system of doing it is good enough to keep from forming any really bad habits for a mere hobbyist.
The problem confronting me now, is that I don't have all this technical jargon down pat enough to remember one part of it to carry it with me to the other parts of it, in order to put them together to form a greater whole. What I ended up having to do is to write out the minor scales individually on staff paper by hand. I can't add comments to the GIF files, After I wrote out all the ascending and decending notes on the staff, then I wrote down the notes by letter name beneath the notes I drew on the staff, and finally, the number of the finger I'm supposed to strike it with below that. Just writing down all of that for two minor keys has taken 3-4 hours.
This is very tedious for me. I don't eagerly anticipate finding out how dense I can be about things like this, but it happens a lot. I have to make myself do it whether I like it or not if I want it to become second nature to me. As far as I'm concerned, I could go the rest of my natural born days in total ignorance of what needs to be there for me to honor my ancestors, but it's the only way I know how to get things like this done.
There is a method to my madness. Maybe it's not that great a method, but it works for me, and learning another method might take another complete lifetime, so I'm stuck with what I've got. Eventually, I wanna get to the point where I can hear a little tune in my head, and be able to write it down on the spot even when there is not an instrument available to assist me in working out the details.
It seems like to me that if reading and writing music is anything like reading and writing words, then at some point I oughta be able to write music down as well as read it. That's one of the things I practice here with writing my unlikely opinions. I capture drifting thoughts by writing them down, and then publish them on the internet for posterity. They're not my thoughts any more than the music I hear is my music.
Learning I don't own the material I conjure was tough for a double Taurus whose keywords are, "I possess." Possession is nine/tenths of the law, but the ten percent that requires letting go of my ideated children when they're grown can sometimes be my downfall. I attempt to transcribe the music hear in the same way I transcribe the drifting thoughts that pass through my psyche.
The more I try to figure out what those drifting thoughts mean, the less clear or lucid they appear to me when I'm trying to hold them in place long enough to go clickety clack on my keyboard. It seems like or can appear occasionally like I am turning some sort of unstoppable impulse of white noise and static into words, at least that's what I think I'm doing. I don't have time to seek the authority some might need to proceed, and that's why I blow it off and do what I gotta do without approval, else, it'll never get done. Nobody knows.
One facet of this automatic writing that's clear to me, I can't interpret the value of these drifting thoughts, and write them down at the same time. The saying "Be passerby" from the Gospel of Thomas makes sense to me or from the Book of Changes: The superior man lets many things pass without being duped. I've had difficulty letting things happen without trying to spin my take on whatever it it that catches my attention. Letting go of some duplicitous need for ownership is a way of "seeing" with soft eyes.
In the same way, I can't edit while I'm writing when I'm writing or the writing stops. I can and do edit in between my brief urges or impulse to write. Then, when I run outta steam, I don't care if I ever see what I've transcribed ever again. To be sure, I don't wanna discuss it or accept comments on it. Let the dead past bury it's own dead.
I might be exercising some sort of catch and release ritual. What I really get outta doing this has nothing to do with what you see here. It happens in an outta sight/outta mind sort of space that I only catch glimpses of, and even then, to get a small icon or wisp of of what I see there, back across the veil of forgetfulness, is a rare event indeed.
This afternoon I've been working on getting all the elements together I need to play the major and minor scales correctly. I researched what needed to be there for me thoroughly enough to satisfy me, and made the necessary decisions to move on with it. I chose a fingering method to use to play the scales. I don't expect to get too good at this, so pretty much any reputable system of doing it is good enough to keep from forming any really bad habits for a mere hobbyist.
The problem confronting me now, is that I don't have all this technical jargon down pat enough to remember one part of it to carry it with me to the other parts of it, in order to put them together to form a greater whole. What I ended up having to do is to write out the minor scales individually on staff paper by hand. I can't add comments to the GIF files, After I wrote out all the ascending and decending notes on the staff, then I wrote down the notes by letter name beneath the notes I drew on the staff, and finally, the number of the finger I'm supposed to strike it with below that. Just writing down all of that for two minor keys has taken 3-4 hours.
This is very tedious for me. I don't eagerly anticipate finding out how dense I can be about things like this, but it happens a lot. I have to make myself do it whether I like it or not if I want it to become second nature to me. As far as I'm concerned, I could go the rest of my natural born days in total ignorance of what needs to be there for me to honor my ancestors, but it's the only way I know how to get things like this done.
There is a method to my madness. Maybe it's not that great a method, but it works for me, and learning another method might take another complete lifetime, so I'm stuck with what I've got. Eventually, I wanna get to the point where I can hear a little tune in my head, and be able to write it down on the spot even when there is not an instrument available to assist me in working out the details.
It seems like to me that if reading and writing music is anything like reading and writing words, then at some point I oughta be able to write music down as well as read it. That's one of the things I practice here with writing my unlikely opinions. I capture drifting thoughts by writing them down, and then publish them on the internet for posterity. They're not my thoughts any more than the music I hear is my music.
Learning I don't own the material I conjure was tough for a double Taurus whose keywords are, "I possess." Possession is nine/tenths of the law, but the ten percent that requires letting go of my ideated children when they're grown can sometimes be my downfall. I attempt to transcribe the music hear in the same way I transcribe the drifting thoughts that pass through my psyche.
The more I try to figure out what those drifting thoughts mean, the less clear or lucid they appear to me when I'm trying to hold them in place long enough to go clickety clack on my keyboard. It seems like or can appear occasionally like I am turning some sort of unstoppable impulse of white noise and static into words, at least that's what I think I'm doing. I don't have time to seek the authority some might need to proceed, and that's why I blow it off and do what I gotta do without approval, else, it'll never get done. Nobody knows.
One facet of this automatic writing that's clear to me, I can't interpret the value of these drifting thoughts, and write them down at the same time. The saying "Be passerby" from the Gospel of Thomas makes sense to me or from the Book of Changes: The superior man lets many things pass without being duped. I've had difficulty letting things happen without trying to spin my take on whatever it it that catches my attention. Letting go of some duplicitous need for ownership is a way of "seeing" with soft eyes.
In the same way, I can't edit while I'm writing when I'm writing or the writing stops. I can and do edit in between my brief urges or impulse to write. Then, when I run outta steam, I don't care if I ever see what I've transcribed ever again. To be sure, I don't wanna discuss it or accept comments on it. Let the dead past bury it's own dead.
I might be exercising some sort of catch and release ritual. What I really get outta doing this has nothing to do with what you see here. It happens in an outta sight/outta mind sort of space that I only catch glimpses of, and even then, to get a small icon or wisp of of what I see there, back across the veil of forgetfulness, is a rare event indeed.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
I decided on a fingering system to play the scales. I spent some time this afternoon playing some of them. They're separated into six different groups, and I played most of the major scales, but I'm going to have to work at getting the minor scales figured out. I didn't realize how different they are from what I had a assumed earlier.
It's gonna take a while to memorize just the major and minor scales, much less the others. The largest group of these scales are played pretty much alike and once I learn the fingering for one or two of them the rest will be fairly easy. I don't know how long it will take me to memorize them, but I've wanted to do this for a long time.Maybe my determination with allow me to stick with it.
My e-mail friend out in San Francisco defined what I'm after by learning the scales when he said that when he forms a chord on the guitar, he sees how to do it on the piano keyboard he installed in his mind's eye. That's what I intend to do. The keyboard is so finite and graphic, but how it can be used has an infinite quality to it that lends itself to visualization.
I have been feeling Russian for the last month or so since it's gotten cooler. Right beside my desk two windows that run pretty much from the floor to the ceiling. There's two more of them upstairs. They used to be doors to some business. Ben and I drilled holes in the frames and used them for our own purposes.
The Russian part is that recently i've bought a couple of bottles over vodka and sat them one at a time in the bottom of the window beside my chair where it gets cold as ice. Occasionally I reach over and take a nip of cold vodka to clear the taste in my mouth. I don't care much for warm vodka, but there something about cold vodka that appeals to me. I might drink a pint of it every couple of weeks Tasty!
I wasn't even watching television, but it was turned on in the background. Something was said that moved me, even though I wasn't paying that much attention, and then I found myself weeping. I think it's the idea that I'm doing the ground work in music I should have done a long time ago, but that's not what touches me emotionally.
It's the fact that I'm doing it even though I don't intend to perform. I've always prepared for public performance. My family insisted on it from childhood. I don't know why I'm doing this stuff if I'm not going to play for the other. I'm not confused. I'm sad because I understand.
It's gonna take a while to memorize just the major and minor scales, much less the others. The largest group of these scales are played pretty much alike and once I learn the fingering for one or two of them the rest will be fairly easy. I don't know how long it will take me to memorize them, but I've wanted to do this for a long time.Maybe my determination with allow me to stick with it.
My e-mail friend out in San Francisco defined what I'm after by learning the scales when he said that when he forms a chord on the guitar, he sees how to do it on the piano keyboard he installed in his mind's eye. That's what I intend to do. The keyboard is so finite and graphic, but how it can be used has an infinite quality to it that lends itself to visualization.
I have been feeling Russian for the last month or so since it's gotten cooler. Right beside my desk two windows that run pretty much from the floor to the ceiling. There's two more of them upstairs. They used to be doors to some business. Ben and I drilled holes in the frames and used them for our own purposes.
The Russian part is that recently i've bought a couple of bottles over vodka and sat them one at a time in the bottom of the window beside my chair where it gets cold as ice. Occasionally I reach over and take a nip of cold vodka to clear the taste in my mouth. I don't care much for warm vodka, but there something about cold vodka that appeals to me. I might drink a pint of it every couple of weeks Tasty!
I wasn't even watching television, but it was turned on in the background. Something was said that moved me, even though I wasn't paying that much attention, and then I found myself weeping. I think it's the idea that I'm doing the ground work in music I should have done a long time ago, but that's not what touches me emotionally.
It's the fact that I'm doing it even though I don't intend to perform. I've always prepared for public performance. My family insisted on it from childhood. I don't know why I'm doing this stuff if I'm not going to play for the other. I'm not confused. I'm sad because I understand.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
I've reached some point of understanding about where I need to go with what I'm trying to accomplish musically, and it's kind of sad and anticlimactic in some ways I hadn't expected. All that is left to do is just to do it. I don't know why this isn't more exciting to me than wot's currently on the front burner.
One of the bleak facticities of my terse, frenetic behavior is that I'm not preparing myself to perform before an audience, and my awareness of that is a little unsettling. I seem a little desperate. A little too eager to stay busy and keep my mind off of what's coming down the pike. My sentiments reminds me of this old song I used to know and sing from memory.
Streets of Laredo (Cowboy's Lament)
As I walked out on the streets of Laredo,
As I walked out in Laredo one day,
I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen
Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay.
"Oh, beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly,
Play the Dead March as you carry me along,
Take me to the green valley and lay the sod o'er me
For I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/song-midis/Streets_of_Laredo_(Cowboys_Lament).htm
I played the pentatonic blues scale on my synthesizer keyboard through the Circle of Fifths again today. It took less time than yesterday, but how much less would be hard to say. I did it in between some other chores I was taking care of simultaneously. Also, Ben stopped by for a while during this effort.I felt like I understood a little more about how the pentatonic scales are patterned, and with practice it'll come around just fine. Surprisingly, I knew when I made a mistake and struck the wrong key. I thought that might take longer to evince itself than on my second visitation. I don't know why I'm surprised. Like everybody else, I've heard this music all of my life. I just didn't know the lingo used to describe the specific sounds.
I'm playing the scales with a purpose now. I guess there were some things I didn't realize about playing the scales previously. What I feel like I've gained in this regard may not be all that important to a sight reader, that's not me, but as a person who plays by heart, it's a big deal. It's liberating to realize that playing the notes of the various scales over and over again familiarizes me with most of the notes used in most melody lines when I'm playing in a certain key. If I understand the relation of those particular scale notes in one key, it's comforting to know they will have the same relation to the root note in every other key.
I needed to be able to play any kind of music in any key back when I was floating around from place to place. In my role as a nomadic wanderer, I was the one who would profit most from being able to sit in with local musicians and play what they played. Many times that wasn't possible because i only knew a limited number of keys I could play in. I was perfectly aware of the hazards of attempting to get them to accommodate me on their turf. Why am I always the last to know?
I suspect it may be because I was raised a Protestant when Protestants were getting the rug pulled out from under them by the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. In the same time period, the Jim Crow culture I was raised to accept as the status quo got criminalized by an act of law. I was twenty-two years old and full-growed. That not-so-simple fact didn't make me feel any more secure about my future either. I didn't know how to act anymore. Maybe that's why I decided to study Speech and Drama in college.
I didn't know what to care about anymore. How can a person have careactor when they don't know what's right to care about anymore? I didn't create the Jim Crow culture. I was barely old enough to vote in my first Presidential election when the values I was raised to hold dear was declared illegal. My values had been disenfranchised, and I was forced to put together a completely new persona to get by as best I could in a world where people like me were now legally considered the bad guys.
After I joined the Navy to establish my right to make my own decisions, right or wrong, and to protest, by God, having my viewpoint decided for me by the other, when all I did to deserve that was to get born in a particular area of the country. One of the first projects for reframing my outlook from the way I was raised, was to learn how to speak in a more neutral voice than the Southern slang I slung around with the best of 'em.
I started mimicking and imitating other dialects and brogues as I traveled from place to place. I learned some new and unlikely lingoes to toss around in a typically un-Southern manner. I tried to pass myself off as being from anywhere else but the South. I stayed away for nearly twenty years, and still traveled around the country to work frequently, even after i built my house where it is next to family. People from around here who I grew up with still ask me occasionally, "Hoo doo yoo think yoo are... tawkin' lak that thar... boy?", or "Cuz... yoo jest ain't rite... I hope my die yoo ain't. Hae yoo got the ears to hyah me now, boy?"
One of the bleak facticities of my terse, frenetic behavior is that I'm not preparing myself to perform before an audience, and my awareness of that is a little unsettling. I seem a little desperate. A little too eager to stay busy and keep my mind off of what's coming down the pike. My sentiments reminds me of this old song I used to know and sing from memory.
Streets of Laredo (Cowboy's Lament)
As I walked out on the streets of Laredo,
As I walked out in Laredo one day,
I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen
Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay.
"Oh, beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly,
Play the Dead March as you carry me along,
Take me to the green valley and lay the sod o'er me
For I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/song-midis/Streets_of_Laredo_(Cowboys_Lament).htm
I played the pentatonic blues scale on my synthesizer keyboard through the Circle of Fifths again today. It took less time than yesterday, but how much less would be hard to say. I did it in between some other chores I was taking care of simultaneously. Also, Ben stopped by for a while during this effort.I felt like I understood a little more about how the pentatonic scales are patterned, and with practice it'll come around just fine. Surprisingly, I knew when I made a mistake and struck the wrong key. I thought that might take longer to evince itself than on my second visitation. I don't know why I'm surprised. Like everybody else, I've heard this music all of my life. I just didn't know the lingo used to describe the specific sounds.
I'm playing the scales with a purpose now. I guess there were some things I didn't realize about playing the scales previously. What I feel like I've gained in this regard may not be all that important to a sight reader, that's not me, but as a person who plays by heart, it's a big deal. It's liberating to realize that playing the notes of the various scales over and over again familiarizes me with most of the notes used in most melody lines when I'm playing in a certain key. If I understand the relation of those particular scale notes in one key, it's comforting to know they will have the same relation to the root note in every other key.
I needed to be able to play any kind of music in any key back when I was floating around from place to place. In my role as a nomadic wanderer, I was the one who would profit most from being able to sit in with local musicians and play what they played. Many times that wasn't possible because i only knew a limited number of keys I could play in. I was perfectly aware of the hazards of attempting to get them to accommodate me on their turf. Why am I always the last to know?
I suspect it may be because I was raised a Protestant when Protestants were getting the rug pulled out from under them by the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. In the same time period, the Jim Crow culture I was raised to accept as the status quo got criminalized by an act of law. I was twenty-two years old and full-growed. That not-so-simple fact didn't make me feel any more secure about my future either. I didn't know how to act anymore. Maybe that's why I decided to study Speech and Drama in college.
I didn't know what to care about anymore. How can a person have careactor when they don't know what's right to care about anymore? I didn't create the Jim Crow culture. I was barely old enough to vote in my first Presidential election when the values I was raised to hold dear was declared illegal. My values had been disenfranchised, and I was forced to put together a completely new persona to get by as best I could in a world where people like me were now legally considered the bad guys.
After I joined the Navy to establish my right to make my own decisions, right or wrong, and to protest, by God, having my viewpoint decided for me by the other, when all I did to deserve that was to get born in a particular area of the country. One of the first projects for reframing my outlook from the way I was raised, was to learn how to speak in a more neutral voice than the Southern slang I slung around with the best of 'em.
I started mimicking and imitating other dialects and brogues as I traveled from place to place. I learned some new and unlikely lingoes to toss around in a typically un-Southern manner. I tried to pass myself off as being from anywhere else but the South. I stayed away for nearly twenty years, and still traveled around the country to work frequently, even after i built my house where it is next to family. People from around here who I grew up with still ask me occasionally, "Hoo doo yoo think yoo are... tawkin' lak that thar... boy?", or "Cuz... yoo jest ain't rite... I hope my die yoo ain't. Hae yoo got the ears to hyah me now, boy?"
Monday, January 28, 2008
Not much happened around here today. I went to eat at a new franchise restaurant that opened here, and then walked around a while before I bought a few groceries and came back to the house. I spent about two hours or better practicing the minor scales using the Circle of Fifths. I was right pleased with that. I've known I needed to memorize at least the major and minors scales, but never got around to it. Now that I find myself interested in playing the blues I have realized I'll probably have to learn the pentatonic scales too.
It's come in real handy for me to have learned the blues chords to the song Adam's Apple. It got me started and helped me to realize the bass line in most of the blues songs I've seen spelled out are generally about the same, and the lead line is pretty much the notes in the pentatonic scale. I've been practicing that a bit in several difference chords, and although what comes out is as simple as it gets, I'm still playing the twelve bar blues with two hands on the keyboard.
I started playing guitar in the Navy because there was a friendly guy with a real bubbly personality who played guitar on the ship we were both assigned to, and I liked the attention he got when he played it. I never learned much about playing the guitar during that period. The guy who was showing me how died in an onboard accident. He was shorting out some capacitors in the sonar room with a screwdriver, and the discharge was so powerful it melted the plastic handle off the screwdriver and literally blow him into smithereens. They say his head was blown plumb off his shoulders.
I've probably mentioned it several times, but I made a bad habit when I taught myself to play guitar that I found it impossible to straighten out later on. I held the neck of the guitar in the web of my forefinger and thumb, and that made it difficult to play bar chords. That awkward habit stopped me from playing instrumental leads in between verses of the songs I wrote, and even though people seemed to like hearing me sing, without breaks it got tiresome. Eventually I gave up the guitar because of that very thing.
I don't know how other people deal with playing musical instruments, but if I don't continuously learn something a little bit different I eventually lose interest in playing a particular instrument. I've played a series of them. One of the problems with me learning new material was that I moved around so much. I never stayed any place very long until i built my house here. Now when I wake up, everything is right where i left it when I went to bed. When I was younger, I'm liable to hae woken up in a different place every morning of the week, with only the stuff I could tote in my bare hands to make my day with.
I liked moving around and being a stranger in a strange land. There were hard times and periods when I suffered deeply from poverty. I stayed hungry a lot and seemed to never get enough sleep. I pretended it was all necessary because life was merely a great adventure. I romanticized the hard times, and claimed I was on a fast when I was actually starving. I was half crazy from chronic fatigue much of the time. Yet, the whole time I lived that way it was done from my own volition. Nobody made me do any of that stuff. I'd just get itchy feet and begin roaming across the country.
I have realized my true religion is that of a Protestant. It's not necessarily about Christianity unless the notion of a docetic Christos is brought into play. What I really mean when I say that I'm a Protestant is about my right to protest other people deciding what anything means to me. Not just scriptures, but history, science, sociology, music, and any other topic or subject that comes down the pike. In all those situations, I choose myself over the other.
It's come in real handy for me to have learned the blues chords to the song Adam's Apple. It got me started and helped me to realize the bass line in most of the blues songs I've seen spelled out are generally about the same, and the lead line is pretty much the notes in the pentatonic scale. I've been practicing that a bit in several difference chords, and although what comes out is as simple as it gets, I'm still playing the twelve bar blues with two hands on the keyboard.
I started playing guitar in the Navy because there was a friendly guy with a real bubbly personality who played guitar on the ship we were both assigned to, and I liked the attention he got when he played it. I never learned much about playing the guitar during that period. The guy who was showing me how died in an onboard accident. He was shorting out some capacitors in the sonar room with a screwdriver, and the discharge was so powerful it melted the plastic handle off the screwdriver and literally blow him into smithereens. They say his head was blown plumb off his shoulders.
I've probably mentioned it several times, but I made a bad habit when I taught myself to play guitar that I found it impossible to straighten out later on. I held the neck of the guitar in the web of my forefinger and thumb, and that made it difficult to play bar chords. That awkward habit stopped me from playing instrumental leads in between verses of the songs I wrote, and even though people seemed to like hearing me sing, without breaks it got tiresome. Eventually I gave up the guitar because of that very thing.
I don't know how other people deal with playing musical instruments, but if I don't continuously learn something a little bit different I eventually lose interest in playing a particular instrument. I've played a series of them. One of the problems with me learning new material was that I moved around so much. I never stayed any place very long until i built my house here. Now when I wake up, everything is right where i left it when I went to bed. When I was younger, I'm liable to hae woken up in a different place every morning of the week, with only the stuff I could tote in my bare hands to make my day with.
I liked moving around and being a stranger in a strange land. There were hard times and periods when I suffered deeply from poverty. I stayed hungry a lot and seemed to never get enough sleep. I pretended it was all necessary because life was merely a great adventure. I romanticized the hard times, and claimed I was on a fast when I was actually starving. I was half crazy from chronic fatigue much of the time. Yet, the whole time I lived that way it was done from my own volition. Nobody made me do any of that stuff. I'd just get itchy feet and begin roaming across the country.
I have realized my true religion is that of a Protestant. It's not necessarily about Christianity unless the notion of a docetic Christos is brought into play. What I really mean when I say that I'm a Protestant is about my right to protest other people deciding what anything means to me. Not just scriptures, but history, science, sociology, music, and any other topic or subject that comes down the pike. In all those situations, I choose myself over the other.