We’re nearly 14 days into the new year, and I have already lost my drive for a little bit. I last practiced about a week ago. It shouldn’t last long, but I hate it when it happens. As I’ve said before in previous posts, I am not as driven now as I was when I was young. As an old man, I want to be a better sax player, but I don’t have that drive to take me to the next level.

I love playing. I would not be opposed to playing in front of an audience if the genre is jazz. I am not willing to spend time playing beach music, R&B tunes, or any pop music from the 50s and 60s. I find all of it boring. However, jazz is always fresh and ever-changing. And playing jazz is quite a challenge. You have to have a certain amount of mastery of your instrument to play jazz. Improvisation involves the ability to play scales, arpeggios, and all modes in every key. Jazz improvisation will be pretty difficult if you have not learned these things. Also, by learning these musical facilities, you train your ear to hear certain sounds, which can help you improvise.

I made some improvements in 2023. Something I never learned before 2023 was the ability to outline chords. Thanks to some YouTubers, such as Chad LB, I decided to begin learning. Chad had said one of the first things he does to learn a new tune is to outline the chord changes. Why did that never occur to me? So many things never occurred to me when I was young. I was always looking for the easy way out. That’s probably why I didn’t advance as far as I should have.

It took me a long time to finally decide to learn my major and minor scales when I was young. I was hard-headed. Those are the fundamentals, and I wasn’t willing to do the work. I thought I could play jazz without learning scales, arpeggios, chords, and chord functions. I thought my ear was developed enough. How wrong I was. Now, so many young players (in their 20s) play light years better than I do. They were willing where I was not.

I regret that I was not more disciplined as a young musician. Fortunately, I can still learn as an old musician. It is a little more challenging, but I can still learn. That old idiom “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is close to being true. An old dog can learn new tricks (old tricks, in my case). However, it takes longer. It is a slower process. It feels that way.

My problem as a younger man, I was so impatient that I couldn’t take the time to learn what I needed. You went through a six-month basic-music vocational school as a Navy musician. After graduation, you are sent to a fleet band. Fleet bands are extremely busy with ceremonies, receptions, concerts, recruitment tours, etc. You are playing a lot.

Believe it or not, you can get burned out playing music with a military band. When your day of rehearsals, performances, loading, and unloading gear finishes, you are not in much of a mood for personal practice. And I guess it would be the same for a pro musician outside of the military.

I’m not making excuses. However, I was always tired, but there was plenty of downtime where I could have done some personal work to improve my skills. I didn’t take the opportunity to do so. Now I’m old with lots of downtime but no drive. However, I try to make the best of my time in the practice room. I make an effort to learn the things I didn’t learn before.

Hopefully, my current slump won’t last too long, and I hope to get back on track soon.