Quitting FB (: Disconnecting from home internet (:

I do not wish to spend time on FB anymore. Although It has been well documented that people who leave FBmay as well be banished to Neptune once they go, I'll take my chances. My creativity is at stake! For those who are conscientious objectors to FB and thinking of quitting, please don't hesitate to contact me the old fashioned way, by email. I don't want to participate in the FB-template-ization of the world. I don't want to make Mark-what's- his-face any wealthier. With it's like and dislikes, status reports, etc. I don't want to offend anyone but I truly wonder what it is doing to our humanity. It's too much! FB is -for me- a big creativity/energy zap. I need time to just sit and think, don't you all?As soon as I reactivated my FB I noticed I spent less and less times at my instrument and more time comparing myself to others, feeling like gee what am I doing wrong here, bla bla bla? When I am perfectly happy- mostly downright fascinated, actually- just puttering at the piano in my own world. Comparison equals depression- something many musicians have struggled with all of their lives, myself included. When I logged on I felt crabby, irritable and freakish. Nuts to it! "Am I supposed to like this FB stuff?" "Doesn't matter, you must do it. It' s good for your career.""But it's torturous and bad for my soul and I hate it." SO QUIT! Live as you truly like. -Vernon Howard Though annoying at times, I liked myspace better because it was set up to immediately be ABOUT MUSIC. I could hear your music and you could hear mine right away. Was it all that much trouble to click a damn button on a computer to send a flipping message? What was so wrong with myspace? And the whole mixing family with former school mates with work contacts with my best friends with my mother in law, with the occasional random weird-o, etc…Am I the only one who finds this incredibly weird and confusing? And people who won't write to you "out of FB"? WT? So here I go, for good this time, for my own sanity and at the risk of my social demise. But I have to ask everyone on FB and social networks incessantly buzzing and tittering and posting, etc: What are we all doing here? Turning into robots, mechanical cyborgs and machines willingly? Will we start reporting our status at funerals? I went to the Monterey Aquarium and no one was enjoying it first hand in real time- they were all filming everything. Hello? Isn't this making us awfully insensitive and unable to appreciate the moment? And FB hasn't helped me with my business, getting people out to shows, with meeting musicians and it certainly has not made me feel connected to anyone in the way I would like to feel connected to people. (in person) "You're doing it wrong then." That's always the answer. Have you ever noticed that most of the folks that tell you you need to Tweet and FB 5 times a day are social media gurus? That they have a vested interest in your dependence on it? What music have they written lately? Seriously now. Is music supposed to be the last thing on my list? All this just makes me a scattered zombie with factoids about inane and unimportant things in my head. No No NO. I won't go! So, I am not the Donald Trump of jazz piano. I really only want to live a real, creative life. It's simple. This week, I cancelled my home internet connection and got a cat (Rufus Wrigley) instead. Thanks for reading my natterings. Be well and say hi sometime, Nina Ott ninaottmusic@gmail.com

Unfinished Business by C Lopes

I asked myself the question-"Why have I left so many ideas unfinished?"and I tried to leave myself open to whatever answer would appear. The answer as I believe it to be was not exactly flattering, as I probably should have expected. Here it is. If I carry around a mind filled with ideas that I have decided are good, I am good. Any further exposure of the ideas to the general public would endanger my protected self image of these ideas (and therefore myself) as good. Even the further development of these ideas private and unpublished, could be seen as a threat to my precious self-image. If I finish an idea and it doesn't come out right or good, well then, if follows that I myself am not right or good. So all I have to do is leave everything alone and it will all be fine just as it is, status quo, right? When I put this all down in words, I can see how foolish ,how childish, all of this is. The fear and the protection I am cloaking myself in are both totally unnecessary. Like most people, I have survived countless attacks of criticism, hostility, indifference-both professional and personal, and still been able to move past and move on. I have finished many things before and been able to deal with whatever happened next-success or failure, joy or depression-anything and everything in between. What I am asking of myself now is to further develop a habit of completion and at the same time maintain at sense of detachment from the results. I try to do this without a sense of panic or high drama.I am asking for these practical habits from what I understand to be the quiet, peaceful and truthful parts of my own self.

My Movie Routine by Cee Lopes

 Just watched a movie at home. Immediately following that, watched an hour and a half of the extras included on the DVD. Then went on the internet. Looked up the cast, the director, the screenwriter, the film scorer, etc. etc. In the age of information, this has become my usual routine.
  At first it was what I wanted to do and it felt like good fun. It seemed like a harmless (albeit time consuming) indulgence, a bit of sweet after the meal. But now it's become more of a bad habit, an obligation, a mindless grab of greedy gathering. My time for relaxation and entertainment is now riddled with anxiety. "I must follow every last trail of information to the end of where?" I don't know. To the end of nowhere? To the end of time?
 Lately, I've been exercising the discipline of saving some of "the other stuff" for later. I'll watch the movie tonight and save the extras for tomorrow. I'll listen to a few songs by a new band without having to hear every single note they've ever recorded. I'll wait to go on their website and hold off reading all of the thousands of articles or reviews written about them.
  This has been working fine for me and has helped to bring back a sense of immediacy to the things I like to do. The sense of mystery, of not knowing "everything", is something precious and something worth tending to.

It's about sound, it's about sound, it's about sound

When people ask me how someone plays that I have only heard on a keyboard:
I must say with all honesty, "I knoweth not.  For thy keyboard is programmed with thy preset
sampling of the touch of another." (A necessary evil, I know- for we must work.)

But - Touch, Sound, Rhythm- number 1! and PHRASING.
notes 2nd.

Jaki Byard=touch and sound
Roy Haynes=touch and sound

Every musician I know and love= touch and sound..soft, loud, in between....

Please don't forget: dynamics.

Touch and sound. Some on youtube are giving lessons devoid of sound and phra sing.
All about mechanics- scales and stuff.  STUFF.

STUFF is necessary and good. But it needs to come with a great sound and feeling. Otherwise, it can sound much more like typing than music.

The Art Prophet by Cee Lopes

Then, a woman with a beret asked, " What of art and money?' And he answered, saying:
"Let there be no conflict betwixt money and art. Let them that produce good works of art
be showered upon in raging storms of golden shekels, so much that their storehouses may
be filled to the brim. Then, let them not hoard but scatter those coins as seed so that they may reap
of them a bountiful harvest"
  "But beware and always be wary of those that might, in any and all ways, condemn thy makers of art to
poverty, for most often, it be these ones who stand to profit most by thy works and benefit greatest
by thy sacrifice and thy submission."
  "Lastly, take no notice of those who stand aside the golden gate asking of thee so much in ransom.
The gate is not locked and you need not surrender but walk straightforward and enter therein.

The Drum Prophet by Cee Lopes

 Then, a guy who held two sticks in his hand said, Master, speak to us of great jazz drumming.
And he answered saying: You go too quickly into four. After one or two choruses you rush to
that ride cymbal as it were inevitable and in doing so, you forsake what might have been in the way
that a child might wish to be at a vacation destination without the long and arduous journey by
minivan. In this manner, you ere!
 So, I say to you my sons and daughters...Sometimes, go not too quickly into four, but play a funky
two-feel and stay in that funky two-feel and let the groove resideth there. Furthermore, purchase
some of the music of Roy Haynes, listen to the music of Roy Haynes and absorbeth the sound of Roy Haynes. Then you will feel it in your body and then,  and only then, shall you understand.

Jaki Byard, Blues for Smoke

This is one of my all time favorite records!
I'll be posting music transcriptions from this and other works of the great pianist and composer Jaki's Byard.

A story: We were in Boston to hear him play at the Regattabar and there was a power outage that night so it was cancelled. Well, he felt bad for us and played anyway- we migrated to the piano out in the lobby - a terribly substandard instrument- as we sat on the floor around the piano. It was such a generous act. Even though we were given refunds he knew we were there to hear him play. It was beautiful to see a musician of that calibre willing to set his ego aside and play for us regardless of the out of tune, bad piano.

When I hear him play I hear love and kindness.