I finished up in Hangzhou JZ Club last night. I feel really grateful for the experience I had there. Playing jazz every night Isn’t something that everyone is able to do. You need to practice alone, but I think there’s nothing that can help bring you up than playing live with amazing musicians. It was only a month, but I felt that we developed nicely as a group, started reading each other better and creating some chemistry. I’ll miss them! But I’m sure I will see them in Shanghai on their days off, or over Chinese New Year.
It’s been over 3 months playing almost every night, so I do think I probably need some rest and a bit more reflection on the live recordings. Having listening a bit to the last couple of nights recordings I’ve noticed a couple of things. Mainly that my soloing voice is getting stronger. It comes out pretty melodic when I’m relaxed and enjoying myself. I think the thing I need working on now is trying to get the consistency up. Especially with rhythm and timing. It could be a lot better. The other thing I think I could do more of are triplets to break up the monotony a bit, and also get more comfortable in the higher register of the upright.
It’s been a bit of an emotional period for me. I had my parents visiting, but my Dad didn’t have the correct visa and got deported immediately. So it was just Mum visiting. Also the Italians I was playing with have only been in China a few weeks. Trying to do stuff in China is not easy. Like taking a train, opening a bank account, booking a hotel when your passport is at the police station making a visa for weeks. It’s become more and more difficult for newbies even though the technology has developed so fast. They just didn’t set up the system to deal with foreigner issues. Anyway…… so I’ve been helping them with everyday stuff. Hopefully they will be able to set up WeChat pay or Alipay so they can do everything independently.
…..
Emanuale came in to Shanghai last Sunday to check out the jam at the Lincoln Centre. He was lucky to get on the train with the huge crowds at Hangzhou East Railway. We had dinner at a Nth West Chinese restaurant and then went down to the Lincoln Centre. Killing band as usual! Lucky for us there were only 3 musicians there to jam so we all got to play a couple of songs. They were really cool and friendly too. Emanuale was really happy. He’s a bit of a jazz freak! Anyway, then we went to Heyday where Koh Koh was singing with Oleg, Danny and Ryan. There was a bit of a jam after, and he got to meet some more musicians in Shanghai. He ended up staying in my studio as we got rejected by a couple of hotels, and cause my Mum was staying at my place. Crazy night!
……
So now I want to try to keep playing as much as possible. And when I don’t have anything, I’ll keep writing. But rest a bit too, then get back into a regular practice schedule, and try to be a bit more social too.
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Hello @owain82220, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!