Jazz School<\/a> in Berkeley. A few months ago, I proposed teaching a class on the music of Stevie Wonder, and everyone at the Jazz School seemed excited about the prospect. Initially, my concept revolved around working with keyboard players, but it was suggested that instead I teach an ensemble class. I had a few weeks to prepare charts for the students, but given the fact that I had no idea who would show up, I really couldn\u2019t begin charting until the class structure had been determined. So, at the last minute (as in the night before class), I stayed up all night doing quite literal transcriptions of Stevie\u2019s recordings for the class. A classic example of my tendency towards perfectionism, I had no reason for putting that much detail or so many hours into class preparation, but I did it the night before the first class, and again for each of the past 3 Wednesday nights. I can\u2019t do it anymore. My fatigue level has reached a new high (low?), and if I don\u2019t find a way to get more down time, I\u2019m afraid I may break. We\u2019ll see\u2026wish me luck in overcoming a lifelong habit of perfectionism\u2026 Nonetheless, I\u2019m having a great time with the class. The students clearly love the music and are very responsive to my coaching, which makes teaching so much easier!<\/p>\nI\u2019ve had several performances at local restaurants where I sing and accompany myself on the piano. This is a new phase of my musical journey. I\u2019ve played hundreds of gigs as a solo pianist, but only in the past few months have I started singing too. All of a sudden, I get more requests for performances as a singing pianist than as a solo pianist! I must say that I am enjoying the process of honing my skills in this new role. My confidence as a lead vocalist is growing (singing background is ENTIRELY different), and I\u2019m working on building a repertoire. I\u2019ve had several friends stop by the restaurants where I\u2019m performing, including on one night in Burlingame, my yoga buddies Karen, Janet, Jenny, Jamie and his friend Michelle; my friend Alan brought his friends Noelle and Guy. On a different night in Danville, my yoga buddies LaShara & Jaime brought 2 of their friends, and my music colleagues and friends Angela, Sandra, and Sandy and her friend Lisa came to my gig. Lisa even built up the courage to sing a couple of songs with me. I do enjoy accompanying, so in my gig promotions, I encourage people to come perform with me at my gig in Danvile. It\u2019s fun and gets the clients involved in my performance in a more intimate way. Performing as a background artist is quite isolating at times.<\/p>\n
I had lunch with one of my mentors a few weeks ago. Bill Bell has been a steady and supportive presence in my musical life, and it was a pleasure to sit and catch up with him over lunch. Mr. Bell (I still can\u2019t bring myself to call him by his first name) is and has always been a great inspiration for me. He\u2019s an accomplished musician, instructor, composer, and conductor and has always graciously shared his insights, both musical and otherwise, with any number of Bay Area musicians, both aspiring and professional. <\/p>\n
Those are some of my recent musical adventures. I will try to be better about writing\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Several weeks have passed, and again I\u2019ve found myself struggling to follow a regular blogging schedule. I think about writing often, however, during the midst of the day, I am inundated by the mundane tasks of everyday life, practicing, chores, errands, teaching, email, phone calls, administrative tasks for my business, etc., and by the time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions\/1018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriatheodore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}