Improvisation is Live Inspiration. Keep Trying.

Approaching my health as improv. Some stuff work at the moment; some don’t. Listen, learn, appreciate. There are no mistakes. We are where we are, trying again.

Proem (Preface)

I keep a daily spreadsheet of steps walked and minutes playing music. I pause to reflect on my progress at the end of April every year. It’s April 2021. I see that I’ve met my goal of 3,500 steps a day for 360 of 365 days with a daily average of 4,400 steps a day. My goal is to maintain. I have maintained my steps for the ten years I’ve tracked, although I’ve gone from one cane to two canes to two crutch canes. Still, I’m maintaining through the years and the seasons. I’m delighted to report I have spent an average of seven hours a week playing music for the entire past year. I averaged 2.4 hours a week in 2014, increasing from 4–6 hours a week over 2016–2020. I’ve bumped up to averaging an hour a day in the past year some because of COVID, some due to the coaching and motivation of weekly virtual lessons, but also taking the time after 30+ years of playing to learn theory, scales, chords, counting to four (keeping my place in four-measure chunks). Not as much time as podcasting (12 -20 hours per week), but still, it’s not nothing. Currently, my wife is learning Spanish. A different language than music, yet many similarities. Work on it regularly, speak…