Practice Log: 11–17 February 2024 (Sunday–Saturday)

This entry is part 3 of 10 in the series 2024 Practice Log

This is my regularly updated practice log, mostly for accountability with my saxophone practice. Below you can see my practice for the week. If you’d like to check it out, here’s my goal list of tunes for the year. 

This week, it seems I’m concluding my work on “Misty”—I think I “have” the tune, as I “got” Lonnie’s Lament last week. Maybe when I finish transcribing one Lonnie’s Lament solo, I’ll do the same for a version of Misty—maybe one of Stan Getz’s, like this one. As far as picking other tunes, I was tempted by Anthropology or Ornithology, but finally I decided that I’m easing myself back into playing, so I went with Up Jumped Spring, a tune I’ve learned in the past but half-forgotten. 

Below, you can see a log of my practice sessions for the week.

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Lunar New Year 2024

Happy Lunar New Year! Above is some ddeok guk I made for the holiday, because I felt that maybe we should have some Korean food this Lunar New Year holiday. My wife was so happy with it she had seconds and thirds! And I had to tinker to make a decent vegetarian version of the meal, so that was flattering!

Trailing behind the whole new year hustle as I do—often I’m teaching a winter class from late December to mid-January, and it doesn’t feel like a new year starts until that’s done—I tend to count new years off the Lunar Calendar. This year, I’m trying to get a little more of a sense of forward motion, though I suppose what I really mean is that I’d like to carry on with the sense of forward motion I started to develop in 2023. Continue reading →

Practice Log: 4–10 February 2024 (Sunday–Saturday)

This entry is part 2 of 10 in the series 2024 Practice Log

This is my regularly updated practice log, mostly for accountability with my saxophone practice. Below you can see my practice for the week. If you’d like to check it out, here’s my goal list of tunes for the year. 

This week, it seems I’m working on two tunes: “Lonnie’s Lament” and “Misty.” There are reference examples I’m working off and listening to linked from the list of goal tunes. 

Below, you can see a log of my practice sessions for the week.

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Music @Jazzin Lab, Sejong City: Tony Lakatos and Thomas Stronen & Time is a Blind Guide

A couple of months ago, my wife excitedly informed me that she’d discovered the existence of a jazz club in Sejong City, only about a ten minute drive from our home. The place is called Jazzin Lab and they hold regular concerts, of which I’ve now had the chance to attend a couple. Both groups performing were new to me, but both were really outstanding, so I thought I’d do a little writeup while they’re fresh in my mind. 

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December-January Reads

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series 2024-Reads

A new year, a new reading list. This one’s for books I read in 2024. As always, the posts come at some delay after reading. I’m also going to go with shorter posts responding to multiple books from now on, which might give me a little more time to, uh, read. 

Oh, one more thing: I’ve recently (as of last November) joined a book club. Normally I’m ambivalent about book clubs and wouldn’t join one, but a friend invited me and the book list is interesting enough to make me give it a shot. Some of my readings will be for that. For one thing, I’m hoping to read more widely, but I also am still struggling to read as I have been since the start of the pandemic, so maybe this will help me get back in the habit a bit. 

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