My lessons and practicing has been frustraiting lately. Changing your eumboucher is very difficult.

ah ha ha ha I played the solos right. That is my victory for the day.

Lessons

My last couple of lessons have been very productive for me. The problem with really productive lessons is that they end up putting a whole lot more pressure on you to fix the problems. The main problems that I have been dealing with lately have all been problems with basic fundamentals. These problems are the type3 that fall into the category of not easy to fix, and has got my really focusing in on them. Today even though it was a snow day I found my self up at the college practicing. I did a total of 3 things in my about 50 minutes of practice. Mouthpiece long tones and flexibility was all that I did. I am trying to get it so that I play with my jaw more open. This is just one of those things that will take some time.

Good Semester

I don't know what it is about this semseter but everything has seemed to go better for me. My lessons have seemed to be more of an "ah ha" lesson. I have been getting better and better even with some of muy short falls. It seems like I have been able to really make some musical pregress dunring the semester. I hope that my preformance on fariday can support this statement.

have you guys ever noticed how a lot of the ZZ top songs sound very similar?

So I don't know how many of us practice on wednesday nights but there is this drummer that comes in and really makes some noise. Not really the best either. I wish he would just play quieter than I could stay in the practice room rather than being driven out by him. All my focus goes right out the window.

Coming Clean

Alright, there is something that most of you guys don't know about my past. For my senior year and for most of my freshman year of college I had a bad habbit of chew. It was a bad thing to get into. I got started on it hard core around mid febuary my senior year. A lot of it was just the people I was around. Small town Nebraska hanging out with farm boys it was probably bound to happen eventually especially since my brother is still a chewer. When I started chewing I hadn't planned on becoming a music major. It mostly just happened that way. I kept my dirty habbit a secret from pretty much everyone, but now I am very happy to say that the habbit is gone. It took sometime but the other day I was reminded of my old habbit when a highschool buddy offered me a dip and I didn't feel the same urge that used to be there. The biggest set back that it has had on my playing is that my emboucher is weak in my lower lip. It is going to take a long time to get the control and the strength back. I think though that things are finally on the right path for getting everything fixed.