Looking Back on #dungeon23

There is a post that has sat unpublished in the queue on this blog for almost a year: the last installment I started on last year’s #dungeon23 experiment.  I got as far as July 8th before throwing in the towel. Why only till July 8th? Well, a couple of things:  July means summer class. I teach intensive writing courses in the summer and winter break, and the workload can be pretty full-on. I don’t perfectly remember, but I have to assume that was part of it.  I hit a wall, not of creativity so much as of the limitations of …

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Practice Log: 17–23 March (Sunday–Saturday)

This entry is part 8 of 18 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.  I’m still working on “Four” for this week, but I’ve selected my next tune for my study project: “Skylark.” The chords are challenging but overall playing over them isn’t so tough. I’m planning to do a harmonic analysis, though, just to see how it ticks. I’m surprised at how few versions I could turn up on Youtube.  Below, you can see …

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Practice Log: 10–16 March (Sunday–Saturday)

This entry is part 7 of 18 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.  Having gotten a good handle on “Fly Me To the Moon,” I’ve selected my next tune for my study project: “Four.” It’s a tune I’ve known of for years, with early exposure due to my interest in the music of Miles Davis right when I was starting to get into jazz as a teenager. (Here’s an early, slower-tempo version by Davis. …

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Practice Log: 3 March–9 March (Sunday–Saturday)

This entry is part 6 of 18 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, I learned “In A Sentimental Mood” and started work on “Fly Me To the Moon.” I don’t love the latter song—it’s a staple in Korea and I’ve seen too many people trying to make it profound and melodramatic in a way that turns me off… but I like the idea of doing it as a bossa nova or something, …

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Practice Log: 25 February–2 March 2024 (Sunday–Saturday)

This entry is part 5 of 18 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 finishing up work on “Up Jumped Spring” (especially on Eb horns, where I feel a little weaker on it) and casting about regarding what I’ll transcribe next. Maybe that Dexter Gordon solo on “Misty” I mentioned last time, but I’m not sure. I’m taking a little break for now, or rather, I’m focusing on preparing for …

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February Reads

This entry is part 2 of 9 in the series 2024-Reads

This is the second in a series of posts about books I’ve read in 2024. Some of them are book club books, most of them not. Being in a book club has been helpful for me in widening my reading a little, but getting into the habit is something I’d attribute more to just pushing gently until the habit came back somewhat. The other issue is time, and I’m taking steps with work to moderate (i.e. eliminate) time spent grading work as much as possible, so hopefully I’ll be able to keep it up once the semester starts in March. 

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Practice Log: 18–24 February 2024 (Sunday–Saturday)

This entry is part 4 of 18 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 continuing my work on “Up Jumped Spring,” and casting about regarding what I’ll transcribe next. Maybe that Dexter Gordon solo on “Misty” I mentioned last time, but I’m not sure. I’m taking a little break for now, or rather, I’m focusing on preparing for the coming semester this week, since classes start on the 4th of …

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Before the Storm

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to participate in a playthrough session of Joanna Piancastelli’s Before the Storm, which is the final final game in Pelgrane Press’s  storygame collection Seven Wonders. I should have written up the session at the time, because now some of the details of the session have slipped away from my memory, but I’ll focus on my impressions of the game as a system and an experience, rather than the plotline that unfolded during our particular session.

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