What I'm Working On Wednesday for September 13, 2023

 Whew! Here we are again! What the heck? How are we halfway through September already? The last ten days or so have just flown by in a blur of songwriting and baking and spending time with family. 

Last weekend, we took my mother in law's ashes down to Rogers Rock on Lake George and scattered them. It was actually a gorgeous day, overcast and warm, and I waded into the lake up over my knees and felt the little fish nibbling at my legs... I swear I felt that lake water lapping at my shins until I went to bed. On the way home, we stopped and got Dunkin' Donuts and it was a good day for healing. 

So now after finishing two different songwriting programs in the course of 8 days, I have the bones for 8 new songs laid out in my notebooks. I have to spend some time this week doing some writing to pay the bills, but then I'll be fleshing those out and getting real about what I want to say. 

I'm also laying down the bones of a new Tarot course all about using the Major Arcana for self-exploration and healing. And I'm looking forward to starting up sessions with one of my shamanic teachers as we move into the West direction on the medicine wheel in a week or so. 

BUT what I'm working on ukulele-wise...let's see...

I just passed the first level of Andrew Molina's Uke-Jitsu course (yay!) and I'm looking forward to getting started on the second level of that in October. 

I've started learning two more pieces from 50 Miniature Studies for Ukulele by Choan Galvez: No. 6 Ebb Tide and No. 7 Fairly Late. I've almost committed Ebb Tide to memory, and while Fairly Late is considered a grade 1 (very easy) piece, the timing is a little tricky. (Gotta get out the metronome, dang it.)

I haven't done much with Nothing Else Matters, still trying to get some of the tricky parts up to speed. Those pull-offs are driving my crazy. I can play everything else totally up to speed, but trying to get the correct rhythm for the pull-offs up to speed is harder than I thought it would be. No worries, though. Gonna just keep at it. 

Mostly what I've been doing for the last week is just working on chord progressions and hooks for my own songs. 

AND I did something last weekend that is still kind of a top-secret project, but we'll see it unfold in the coming months, provided I can beg my body to cooperate with me. 

So that's about it. Nothing terribly exciting. And I have some deadlines to attend to today, so might not get too much else done. Onwards!