Mr. Sean's Music Quest June 2019

Mr. Sean tries to be artsy in an attempt to lure readers.

Recently I decided to try to muster up some discipline for practicing musical instruments like I used to do in middle school and high school. I have chosen three instruments to focus on with the greatest emphasis being on the violin, then the banjo, and finally the clarinet. I have chosen to spend the most energy on violin as I see it as a challenge and I like challenges. So far I have re-purposed a notebook I was going to use for math or meteorology stuff and created a daily practice log for the violin and the banjo (there's a separate one for clarinet, but keep reading and you'll see why I'm not focusing so much on clarinet at the moment). Each day I have a task and a goal for each instrument and despite my general musical ability being quite proficient, I have to start out with the basics for the banjo and the violin. For banjo it's transitioning between the G chord (open strings) to the D7 chord (for banjo, do not play high G and place pointer on the first fret space of the second (B) string and the middle finger on the second fret space of the middle string (low G) while for violin I'm going through Essential Elements for Strings and have been stuck on page 9 trying to make the A string make a sound while my fingers are on the D string ready to play a G. The low emphasis on clarinet, despite me writing up a separate log for it is that I already have a decade of playing experience and although I still have a lot that I can learn, playing catch up on getting to a high baseline isn't as hard as learning an instrument from scratch. It remains to be seen how well I'll get along with the banjo and the violin, but I can say that practicing does help and taking advice from a friend whose main instrument is the violin is also of help. Now I just need to get me a shoulder rest so I can stand a chance at playing the violin with closer to correct form.

Maybe if I spend more time I can try to come up with definitive goals on each of the instruments.

For example, even though I don't have an A soprano clarinet (instead I have a standard B flat soprano), I think trying to learn Mozart's Clarinet Concerto (at least the solo clarinet parts) is a worthy goal. For violin, I don't have a definitive goal yet, just that I can be able to play something of substance. Then for banjo, I kid you not, one of my goals is to be able to play the banjo part of Dueling Banjos, as I must only seek victory from a challenge that involves that song.

I'm Back!

While I search for a job outside of food service. I've been up to a few things. I apologize for the silence on this blog after the end of March, but recently I've felt motivated to write up some posts. This post will recap the past two months. I hope to be less boring in June so I have more to write about.

Patch Blanket Complete

So many Boy Scout patches!

At the beginning of the year I wanted to complete sewing the patches I got in Boy Scouts onto a blanket made for patch display. The goal was to have every patch sewn on by my birthday. Even though I discussed the near completion of the patch blanket in March, the last patch, the Eagle Scout badge, was sewn on to the blanket on 1 April. Since it has gotten warmer outside I haven't had much opportunity to use it or show it off, but the effort and time spent hand sewing every single one on is still worth it. It did feel good to have a bit more time in the day after I got this finished. More time also came once I got a bike and could bike to and from work rather than wait long times for a bus.

New Bullet Journal

The month spread is now larger, because Mr. Sean decided the month needed more space.

Using the old bullet journal to test new ideas for the new one.

I recently decided to continue on the bullet journal train but with some major changes to my approach. In previous journals I had the month restricted to a one page cramped view and the daily logs were trapped by boxes of a single size. With the new bullet journal I have fewer boxes to draw in the daily logs while the boxes that make up the month have expanded the month view to two pages. My bullet journal isn't artistic and that is okay. My goal is to be more productive and to accomplish more goals, so even though the daily logs are essentially nested to-do lists, the method works for me. The artistry of some bullet journal users does not need to define the bullet journal, only that the method helps people with whatever they use it for.

Running Toward Success

A surprise second medal

During April and May I trained for a 5k (k for kilometer) race using an app called C25K. There are many takes on these couch to 5k programs that promise the average person that they can run a 5k in a few weeks after training from essentially zero running. I was training for a 5k on Fort Meade and things were going okay. Temperatures were a bit warm and sometimes it felt like the program encouraged too much walking, but I kept at it and it turns out I was participating in two 5k races in one weekend. Race weekend comes and I run the Fort Meade one the entire way in about 30 minutes, finally redeeming myself as the first time I tried to train for a 5k I failed miserably and in prior 5k races I've had to walk some of the way. I didn't have the same luck with the Dawn's 5K Dash in Bel Air the next day as the hills were a bit much for me and I almost twisted my left ankle. Despite walking a bunch and finishing in 40 minutes, I managed to place 2nd in my age group. I guess showing up really is half the battle. Next step on my quest of running is to run a 5K under 30 minutes in an officially sanctioned race.