My first semester of music school is nearly finished. The combo I was assigned to had its concert last week. We played Invitation, Triste, Blue in Green, All Blues, and Mr. PC. It went quite well. (I wore a suit and tied my first Full Windsor. It was huge.) I'm told there's a recording of it somewhere and that it sounds better than anticipated. I'll post if it's available.

I performed my first jury today. It was similar to the audition at the beginning of the semester. I did some sight reading, played two prepared tunes, and ran some of these scales. The tunes I chose were How Insensitive and Tones for Joan's Bones. Tones is a pretty crazy Chick Corea tune. I could barely play it a week ago, but I pulled off a great solo today.

I've been looking at How Insensitive for a little longer, maybe a month. The first note in the melody is an A. The tuning fork I keep by my keys on my desk is an A. Every time I leave or return to my apartment, I concentrate on the opening notes of the song for a second and thwack the tuning fork on my head like my fourth grade music teacher. I've been getting better at it, and I've been consistently nailing it lately. I even correctly identified the hum of a vent in my practice room at school today as a D. I blocked it out, thought of How Insensitive, got A in my head, and recognized a perfect fifth down to the vent hum. I got out my guitar, plucked the D string, and did a dance.

I've had these sensations for a few years. I'll play or hear a single note or chord, and I'll get a vivid aural image of a specific song that starts with that note or chord. When I look up the tune, I find I'm in the right key every time this happens. I think I'm learning to harness this power with How Insensitive on A. One down, eleven to go.

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