More exciting news! I've been accepted to SDSU's Master of Music program in jazz studies.

I've been thinking about music school for almost eight years. It was two years ago when I started seriously looking into applying to LA Music Academy, not long after I started my year in the woodshed. I was accepted, but wasn't offered a scholarship. It was expensive, and I had knee surgery bills, so I declined.

I moved to San Diego, started looking into SDSU's jazz program and running their required recital scales during last year's Olympics. I applied for fall 2009 admission and took lessons with Steve Nichols, local pro guitarist, in preparation for my audition in February. I didn't pass that audition, so I thought I'd try again this fall for spring 2010 enrollment. I arranged to take more lessons with Travis Daudert, current student in the program, and started attending weekly jazz jams.

I discovered a few months ago that the school made budget cuts and would not be admitting anyone for spring 2010. (The correlation between reducing a budget and excluding half of your annual potential paying customers is an entirely different topic and inappropriate for this blog. I write about such things here.) They were nice enough to make an exception for me and gave me another shot at an audition for this fall.

That audition was yesterday morning. They had me sight read chords from three tunes and melody from one. I did far better on the melody sight reading this time around. That was my downfall in the first audition, and that's the area in which I busted my ass for the last six months. Then I performed and improvised on Hancock's Dolphin Dance and Shorter's E.S.P. I was far from perfect, and had more clunkers than I ever do in practice (I'm used to that), but I left the audition completely thrilled with how well I played. So I celebrated last night, even without my results.

I got a phone call today telling me I passed and I've been admitted to the school. WAHOO! I start immediately. This will give me a litany of additional material to write about. Stay tuned.