It was a good bit cooler today. Not bad for winter weather. It's a little frightening for it to be as warm as it's been in the last week or so, and they're promising more warm weather for the next four or five days. This is gonna confuse the hell outta the fruit trees. I truly hate to see them killed by frost again this spring. There is not much to be done about it though.

I planted the grapevine and the fig tree I bought a couple of days ago. Both of them called for a sunny place with protection from the north wind. I put them on the north side of the house in the south edge of the woods between here and the paved road. I'll have to keep them watered for a while. If they take, they take. Other than me watering it to get it started good and fertilizing it a couple of times a year, there isn't much I have to do for the fig tree. The grape vine is a little different. It has to be pruned. The fruit only grows on new wood.

I was a little surprised that the instructions printed on the plastic bucket these plants came in said the fig tree needs pruning too, and for the same reason. I never pruned my old fig tree until this year. Even then, I didn't prune much of it. I took some cuttings that I then coated with the root hormone powder, and jammed them into the ground to see if they would develop roots and grow. I've watered them pretty good. I can't imagine it could be that easy to provide myself with new fig trees.

I woke up with another sinus headache this morning. This sinus problem doesn't seem to be going away. The headache was fairly debilitating until I popped a bunch of ibuprofen to beg it to go away. The headache really got in the way of my enthusiasm for playing the scales this morning, but I still got through most of the major scales with separate hands, and then surprisingly, I played three more scales with both hands.

It's become more obvious that I can't practice playing the scales with visitors around. I can no more do that than I can write blog entries when someone is here in the house. Even if they're out in the yard. Before I saw how Sartre used the "for" words I thought my preference for being alone to write amounted to no more than just a subjective decision I arbitrarily made on an impulse. I considered my apparent need for seclusion to have a touch of pomposity about it, as if giving myself airs for the pure amusement of it. I don't believe that now. Currently, and due to the direct influence of my reading how Sartre used the "for" word, I'm considering that I don't have any real options about how i respond to the presence of another. I probably never did have the choice I thought I did.

The notion of doing-for-myself or doing-for-the-other has possessed my curiosity more strongly than I first imagined it would. I had already gotten cautious about judging my behavior so damnably before I reflected on it's unfolding through and through. What can appear to be an act of selfishness might not happen due to my say so. Reading Sartre introduced me to the possibility that the presence of the another affects my behavior whether I want it to or not. Sartre states that being-for-oneself is irresistably interrupted if another person comes into the room. You can pretend they're not there, but can you completely ignore them? He appears to state one has no choice but to accommodate the other's presence no matter what. One can't do for themselves if they think or suspect another person is in the room, even if they're not actually there in person.

I've consciously observed how I react to visitors when they come to my house since reading Sartre's ideas. I'm alone 95% of the time. It's not like people are buzzing in and outta here, so when someone drives up to my house, I stop whatever I'm doing until they leave. What I'm doing when nobody is here is usually something I'm doing for myself like writing or playing music. When and if some visitor shows up, I immediately abandon what I'm doing for myself, and spontaneously create a persona I embody I hope will serve well enough to appease the other until they leave.

I used to think letting go of my self absorption to accommodate the other was because I was taught to be polite in my formative years. I know when I am being polite. Just not always why. Most of the time I'm waiting for whoever it is I've become something else for to leave. It's not like I prefer for them to leave. I like the people who visit me well enough. It's just that i can't do for me while they're here. I have to become something for them. That's what's so surprising about using Sartre's perspective to reflect on my ingrained behavior patterns. I figured I had more choice than I actually do.

By teaching myself some music theory and how to play the major and minor scales, I think I'm creating possibilities for the future that I can recognize in real time then. This is a dynamic I've had some insight into for a long time. I believe it's the same dynamic that is behind the Biblical notion of storing up treasures in heaven. When we do for the other it's like we're storing up treasures on earth, but when we do for ourselves, it's like we're storing up treasures in heaven.

This is a cockeyed idea. You should remember my disclaimer. I think Mozart was able to write his first symphony when he was five years old because he already learned how to do that in his previous lives. Lives in which he stored up treasures in heaven. Treasures he stored in thetic consciousness that might possibly survive physical death.

For the sake of argument, temporarily accept the notion that going to bed at night and going to sleep is somewhat similar to dying. I play these scales the best I can one day and go to bed. I lose consciousness of being alive and having a body I'm teaching to play scales on the keyboard until the next morning when I upsurge into consciousness again. Then, I play the same scales I played the day before, but a little mo' bettah. If I repeat this process over and again, eventually I'll play the scales as well as I'm able, and then eventually I die. When I upsurge into physical life again, why would I not just continue playing the scales?

There is a brisk wind blowing outside. The space I opened up between my house and the pond by clearing out the underbrush is twinkling with the late afternoon light being reflected by the water. The Sun is still setting too far south for it to set directly over the pond. but still reflects off the water up through the trees. The light seems to be refracted by both the small wavelet on the pond and by the leafs on the evergreens in the woods.

As the Sun progresses in it's yearly sojourn further north, it will soon set in that part of the horizon directly opposite my house over the old pond. For a few weeks in the late afternoon, the colors of the sunset are reflected by the waters of the pond up through the woods to strike the sides of my house from below and softens the shadows of the direct, lingering light of the day. Depending on the atmospheric conditions, I suppose, my weathered wooden house can appear for a few minutes like it's painted neon red. This only happens in late winter and early spring when the Sun sets at just the right angle over the pond.

That's why I cleaned out the underbrush. Back before the twin hurricanes wiped out the old pine forest my house was built in, the only obstacles for that spectacular phenomena was the trunks of the pines. There wasn't much underbrush back then. The overhead canopy of the trees limited how much sunlight got to the floor of the woods.

I planned a combination of Mars and Venus when I built my house. I only cut enough of the large pines for a small house and a yard. Pines are ruled by Mars. I went down by the river and cut cypress trees to cover my house. Cypress are ruled by Venus. Moonlight through the pines. All gone now. At least I can see the sunset over the water again.

I surprised myself by figuring out how to solve the fingering problems I encountered playing the minor scales. I tried to play c minor with the provided fingering, but it was written for a harmonic minor. I figured out the pattern for how I would play the notes of a regular minor scale by the experience I'd gained from playing the other scales I've been practicing. That made me feel pretty good.

I have good times and bad practicing these scales. It's like absorbing them has it's own schedule for me. Maybe it's because I only have two of them, but having to play only white keys with my thumb has made it easier to understand why the fingering charts have to be the way they are. When I'm learning a new scale, if I can figure out which keys my thumbs will have to play, then I'm more than halfway through understanding the scale.

It's kind of a big deal to write about this. To see what I say I have to say what I see. I can't have One without the other.

It's the ups and downs of this music thing that gets to me. I resisted practicing the scales all morning and wrote a long blog instead. Then, i went for a walk and did some grocery shopping. Finally I sat down to it, and brought up the fingering charts I made on my computer monitor and went at it. I just needed to get started.

I worked on pretty much the same major scales I worked on yesterday. I looked at the charts and played the F Major scales several times single handed before i tried to put them together and play both hands at once. It wasn't such a smooth transition, and so I went back to playing one hand at a time until I felt more comfortable. Soon enow, I was able to play through the scales several successful times playing with both hands together.

Then I tackled the Bb Major scales again. I read about something called Fake Books that have a lot of old time jazz songs in them. I glanced through the article even though I don't have the slightest intention of playing somebody else's old songs. I wanna make songs up as I go along, and then let them land where they may without taking the slightest responsibility for what I just played, than for yesterday's newspaper. Do you really think I'd go to all this trouble just to play somebody else's music? Bah... Humbug!!

One of the details I noticed in this review of the Fake Books was that the songs were usually written in Bb and Eb. I don't know why. It implies to me that Bb and Eb are probably among the favorite keys to play jazz in. Since they might be, and I gotta start memorizing scales somewhere, then I figured i might as well begin with these scales. I play through the other scales for the sake of familiarity a little while each day. When I at least go through the motions, no matter how long it takes me or how tedious it is, the next time I get back to something I've played before it gets a little easier.

I'm concentrating on a couple of sets of scales each day, and playing through several more less familiar scales briefly. After I have played for a while and my fingers get more nimble I get a sort of physical high when I recognize a pattern in the scales. These patterns in which the scales are written and played make more sense to me as I go along. I get excited because when I recognize some pattern I realize in real time that recognizing the pattern is gonna be helpful down the road. I don't know how it's gonna be helpful yet.

I'm fairly familiar with about five or six scales now. I've played three of them with both hands. Granted, it was a fairly clumsy effort, but it's coming along. I have to look at the charts for longer than I like to get started. It was my first impression that I was gonna have to get off these charts to really start learning, but I could be wrong.

I'm learning something pretty special to me even at this early stage. I don't know how to describe it yet, except to say that I'm learning something I've wanted to know for most of my life. i get so excited that I'm actually doing what knew I should have done a long time back, that i have to stop playing, and engage in another activity to calm myself down.

The tritone in music fascinates me to some degree. I've written a little about it. It has an eerie sound when played in relation to the root note. The other day I was trying keep up with some conversation about how to use tritone substitutions. I didn't get it. The author was writing over the top of my theoretical depth. Just now I was reading on this web site, and in the section on the Circle of Fifths the author points out tha the opposition note or chord in the Circle of Fifths is the tritone of the other. This helps me a lot.

The Circle of Fifths is drawn like the Zodiac. I've spent a lot of time drawing up Zodiacs. Decades. It's the oldest memory system in ex-is-tense. All the symbols in astrology are used as "hooks" for memory system associations. This is gonna be fun associating the zodiac with the Circle of Fifths. I bet the history of the world can be derived from it. If I learn this well enough I should be able to play the music of the spheres.

I spent part of the day reading here:

http://www.outsideshore.com/primer/primer/ms-primer-4-1.html

The information here is written in a way that appeals to me. The business about the tritone is very useful because several of the articles I've read keep bringing it up. Knowing how to locate it by opposition on the Circle of Fifths is a neat trick. He has explained several aspects of phrasing and writes out the exact notes of the chords he writes about so even I can play them to try and understand his point.

I've been practicing the major scales and some of the minor ones I've written out by letter name and fingering number. The name of the scale is the piano key I put the starting finger on, and then I have to look at the charts on my computer screen to play the piano keys by sound and feel. Here is a partial view of the minor scales I created for convenience sake. It's what I'm looking at when I play the c# minor scale currently. I had to chop them off to get them to fit on the page right.

c# minor-Right Hand *

c# d# e f# g# a b c# d# e f# g# a b c# b a g# f# e d# c# b a
3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 2 1 2 3 1 4 3 2 1

c# minor-Left hand

c# d# e f# g# a b c# d# e f# g# a b c# b a g# f# e d# c# b a
3 2 1 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2

I feel less intimidated by the prospect of learning how to play the major and minor scales on the piano keyboard. I got used to playing some of the scales long enough to look at my hands part of the time instead of the charts. I began to see how the fingering moved around to always place my thumb on a white key. The fingers are number 1-5 with 1 representing the thumb on both hands. the 4 finger mostly gets used to get around the grouping of three black keys, and the other grouping of two black keys. I'm beginning to see how this works.

One of the biggest deals in learning these scales is where to put my fingers when I play in different keys. Until a couple of days ago I had no idea that playing the black keys the thumb is taboo. Now I feel like I gotta put the other stuff I was doing on the back burner until I memorize these scales. Nothing is lost.