One FM, one subtractive and one sampler all with full microtonal capabilities and of course good sound. Additionally no big companies if possible. And yes it is possible. TAL Sampler, UNO LX and Bazille. And lots of fx etc.

I was using TALMOD and Dexed but neither does microtonal. Not sure unolx can replace it by itself... will see. Certainly sounds good though. So now learning bazille which is cool. More possibilities than Dexed and seems to be capable of the same sounds. Finding I like "FM" more.

Chorus patches layered on drums seem good. Possibly also for vocoder. Hard to say. Some promising vocoder sounds but sometimes not quite good enough.

Using Sevish scale workshop for creating tuning temperaments. Wrote a couple incomplete things that sound good lately. Including some vocals, vocoder and not that are better than before.

I don't have time for this and piano. I will attempt to mostly maintain somehow.

I feel mortal. And that something bad will eventually happen at work. Or not but probably will still die. Hope I get a couple more decades.

Much that I failed at to varying degrees with electronic music I'm trying again at now. It has been 5 to 8 years ago that I gradually gave up.

Some new plugins are the TAL stuff along with Tunefish4. This is based off of listening to KVR one synth monthly challenge for last ten plus years along with numerous best plugin lists. At first I was thinking u-he along with crystal but actually there is something special about the first mentioned imo.

There is new tech out now. Drums are easier. Useful books more readily available. CPU is not an issue. Nor is money really. Also I'm satisfied that hardware isn't some holy grail.

I will figure out low latency midi/audio in on my gaming computer damnit. Having much harder time than previous computers. And I will get a vocoder working. And a sampler in the true sense.
I will write better stuff. Less repetitive. Read some mixing books. Possibly the 500 piano hours will help.

As to piano in attempting to increase my "storage capacity" I'm rotating through 3 days separate days of repetoire. Mostly improving stuff and reremembering past stuff. I have about 10 memorized and another 5 half memorized. I feel like my ability to improvise is improving by making educated guesses as to what comes next.

As to piano I became unhappy with forgetting past pieces. So I have refreshed Rachmaninoff c sharp prelude, chopin funeral march and reremembering Beethoven's 19th and Gladiolus Rag...and Beethoven's7th 2nd movement. Along with continuing to play the 5 Bach pieces I learned and trying to find time to learn Chopin nocturnes and maintain canon in d, Pathetique 2nd movement. Etc
Along with Really learning the technical details of some synthesizer stuff and having two small children. So not enough time.

Put aside John Field for now and little to no meaningful time spent sight reading.

And I still have friends who want to do stuff together.

10.18.19
B2p no1 2:55
Memorized no13 1st page HS

11.1.19
Ok so in less than 20 days I have b2part 1,4 and 13 decently well memorized. Just need to gain speed. Not sure how long that will take. Trying to play them at least 3 times each every day. Which takes 30 minutes now.
Bach air on g is half memorized. Frustratingly slow. Can't break it down or chunk it up. Really want to get on to field nocturne 1 which appears far easier.
Haven't been sight reading. No time. I should make time. Ought to sight read field nocturne 1 even though i already memorized the first page HS.

Reading The Long War series by AJ Smith. The Lovecraftian monsters are nice. I like Randall and the Gorlan mother. It's ok.

If I didn't previously mention it Lilith by Geirge Macdonald is good. Need to finish it. Ought to be a tv show or something. It's up there with Lewis. Surprised i never hear much about Macdonald.

And Senlin series by Josiah Bancroft is good. Vaguely steampunkish. Nice main character. Nice characters in general. Awaiting book 4.

10.6.19
Bach 2 part no1. 5:15. 4:59
Learn 1, 4 and 8 first. Really want to get some Bach down.

Beethoven sonata 8 1st movement 2nd half of second page.
Bass bflatx3 then aflatx3 then dflatx1 eflat x1

10.10.19
Bach 2 part no1 3:58
Started 4

10.11 19
Bach 2 part no1 3:31
No4 ran through but not much at end
Started 13 (much harder)

10.12.19
No4 4:10
No13 3 measures in lol
Started greensleeves

10.13.19
B2part no1 3:03
Memorized 1st page greensleeves
B2part no4 3:35
B2part no13 is a bitch. Probably need a ton of HS. But if I can ever play it without looking at my hands I think my playing will greatly improve in general. Have gone through first page now.
Bach 2 part instead of Czerny for last 8 days.

So I have really been sight reading consistently for only two months. I guess it's been pretty good. Lots of improvement. Happy with what I've done with Bach two parts in only 8 days. Might learn all 15...?
Maintaining canon in D, pathetique 2nd movement. Memorizing Greensleeves and then air on g which is much harder. Would like to keep those 4 in my memory eventually. Then perhaps some Chopin of Pathetique 1st movement.

Figured out recliner causes right leg sciatica. While sleeping flat causes bad sleep due to back aching in the night. Inversion machine seems to maybe remedy this I think...

9.18.19
Switching to 50/50 sight reading/ memorizing per discussion where pretty much everyone said memorizing is just as much an improvable skill. This instead of scales and then just sight reading. Was up to f sharp major on contrary scales. Still an hour a day. Wife won't allow longer. Still Czerny 30 to ...47 or so. Over and over.

9.26.19
A month of sight reading for an hour a day really helped my ability to learn memorize repertoire. Canon in D and Pathetique 2nd are both good except for occasional pause in last couple lines. Mostly memorized first page of Pathetique 1st movement 1st page in two days and quickly moving through 2nd page. Also relearning Rach c sharp prelude ending.
Need to keep up with Czerny 599 some every day considering how much it helped. Wow. Put aside scales and my etude for a bit.

9/30/19
I feel very humble thanks to piano playing being my main hobby / interest. I really have a whole lot of nothing much going on while also not really being very good yet at piano.

The people who have forsaken me, I am not feeling moral outrage about anymore, because I'm not much of anyone. Perfectly understandable they wouldn't want to associate with me. This of course goes beyond the piano.

I wish I had been playing for an hour minimum daily from a young age. So nice to just play piano and not bother with people.

LOW B12!!!!!
14. 4(43m?) 0 0 6(69m) 0 4(43m) 0-14
Last one did 6.8mph vs 4.5mph per mile. Feeling better with b12 going up.
15. ??? 2 and????
16. 8mi@0.2 (2hr) 4hr sleep 2hr nap, 3mi@1.0 (26:45) good run, 2hr runs really makes a difference - 11 (Friday) 8mi@.5 (2hr) last 20 min @.7° and last 10 @4.1mph
17. 3.2mi in 27:35@1.0° yay! But motherboard gave out. 8.4mi in 120m@.7° 7 hrs sleep-11.6 sleep not ideal
18. 7.5mi in 90@1.0°. 8.4mi in 115@1.0°. Way too hard. Maybe wore out from previous. -15.9
19.

Actually missed a day of work because I overdid the last run so bad. Pretty stupid. I have no patience. Need to ease up.

9.4.19 few days into 1/5 interval etude 8 wrote. Frustrated. 45 pieces into 599 but really need work. It's going to really take a while. Hawth can play twinkle and c major scale. Working on g major. Trying to start HT and note names.
8.30.19 frustrated. Long run maybe makes harder. Contrary is harder.
8.28.19 all 12 scales but need work. Contrary is even harder.
8.22.19 frustration, impatience. Op599 pg 13
8.18.19 up to 10 scales but really have mistakes on some. Like f#major. Added arps. Just C to start. And octave scales/arps and 8th/5th scales. Clearly improving at sight reading with metronome but it's slow. 599 will take many months but I will be so much better eventually. Patience. Hawthy is getting hang of C scale 1 octave each hand. Started twinkle today. Playing about 7 minutes a day. Me about 8 hours a week.
8/11/19 czerny op 599. Practical method for beginners. Treating myself like beginner. Using metronome. Sight reading. Patience. Humility. Will go through all 59 pages. Also up to 7 major scales.
8/10/19: already feeling quite frustrated with not looking. No discernible improvement from day to day. Bought czerny book.
8/5/19: added scales, trills, sight reading/not looking

Autobiography of Tony Iommi followed by auto of Ozzy Osbourne. The second because I was curious about a different POV for the same events. And indeed. Tony leaves out things like spending some time in prison. Ozzy in general is way more forthcoming. Tells a lot of negative things about himself. Beating his wives. Constantly cheating. Extreme cruelty to animals.

I got into Tony's first because he just seemed interesting in interviews. But not terribly so actually. But hearing about both's childhoods in England was interesting. Best part for both is before they were famous.

Same with previous autobiography of Joe Jackson. A much more intelligent guy who made music that really wasn't as good. Interesting childhood in england though. And Steppin Out and a few other really good songs. Interesting thought about Eye music and how classical music took a wrong turn. But now pop music certainly has also.

Really liked The Urth of the New Sun. Think it should have been part of Book of the New Sun but Wolfe wanted it separate I guess. First part takes place on a spaceship. Then he is "judged". It's really quite strange and works just right. Saving the world type books are so hard to end well.

The Art of Playing the Pianoforte by Cary Czerny. On a Czerny kick. His nocturnes are underrated. Learning op 599. Sightreading it with metronome. Read this and partially many others. Also lots of articles online. Developed my own technique practice. Scales and arps done many ways followed by trilling exercise. Then sightreading with metronome. No less than an hour. Closer to 2 on weekends.

Revisting Perelandra. For ideas for my friends sparse story about Samael, Lilith and Adam. The world is just so empty. How to make other than a very short story? Looking at the conversations between Ransom and the Green Lady.

It's funny that there could be disagreement over something as fundamental as looking at your hands for piano. Some very good players feel very strongly that it doesn't matter. Look at your hands if you want to. I have been I think very unfortunately influenced by them. I have finally decided to very consciously not look at my hands. I will try not to think about being 46 when finally deciding this. I don't like needing my eyes constantly going all over the place and I think it's limiting me. I suppose my memorization could be a lot better. And if it was it would be somewhat less of an issue. But even I have two hands. Perhaps I need to get better at just staring inbetween the two instead of whichever is doing the harder part. But I prefer to just learn to play without looking.

I actually wrote a learning exercise last night called "blind jumps". It's thirds, 4ths,  5ths, 6ths and 8ths going up to two octave jumps.

My routine:
All 12 major scales. Both hands. Just two octaves. This is something I have neglected that I need to get better at.
Trills. Just ten seconds for each combo.
The blind jumps exercise.
Sight reading.
Going back over old repertoire while not looking at hands.
Maybe some new.

I have almost completely neglected technique exercises and sight reading up till now. Not sure why in the last few weeks I suddenly care. I haven't eaten sweets in 38 days. Maybe this has caused some subtle change. Previously I ate them everyday. Sometimes to excess.

I recently suddenly love Chopin nocturnes. It caused me to search and see if there's anything else I suddenly love. Chopin etudes are nice. I seem to feel the same about everything else. Maybe learning his Funeral march is what did it.

In other news Hawth and I moved to the tree room. Always loved this room. He is finally got the attention span somewhat for real movies. Watched gremlins and now raiders of lost ark.

Also I'm forcing him to play the piano. Just 5 minutes a day. Trying to get him to enjoy the process of improving. Which he clearly is so far everyday.

So I'm trying to improve at long distance running, tennis, piano and guitar. I'm pretty sure i will never again have time for the 40 by 20 foot enclosed raised bed garden i made and am considering removing it for some weeping willows. Possibly just let the bamboo go wild. I have a gaming computer but taking a break from that. Hopefully Hawthy will start playing elder scrolls and enderal on it soon.

No time for cello. Writing looms in the distance. Continuing to write my somewhat deep thoughts down elsewhere. Reading Wolfe's entire solar cycle now. Which i had read halfway through before. And read new sun at least 3 times probably more.

My running goal is sub 19 5k/ sub 40 10k. Or say 9 miles in an hour. My PBs are 21 5k, 7:53 pace for 8 miles. To somehow improve at my advanced age i'm trying easy intervals instead of much slower easy continuous runs. Easy continuous runs never did anything for me really before.

My fingers are toughened up for guitar. Need some good books though to start learning songs instead of chords. Barre chords are so hard. A major barring is possibly impossible for me. Barring at all on a 12 string, even scalloped..for get it. Was trying dgdgbd tuning that way. Maybe if i removed the lowest d like keith richards. Or maybe remove the 3rd and 4th string and tune the lowest 2 to like an e and something else? Also got a nylon classical so now i have 4 different kinds of guitars.

Learning canon in d on piano now. Really an easy one. Attempting to play entire gladiolus rag and chopin funeral once through everyday. It's a mental stretch to do both entirely. Also trying to find time for Nyman's heart asks pleasure. Just this is time consuming. If i wasn't also running and playing guitar everyday...

Everything one hand continental works great if playing someone who hits flat. But not as good against really heavy topspin. But I'm going to stick with it. I really need to practice high forehands though.

There is a mindset that it's better to be really good at one thing then ok at many. I highly disagree. Doing just one thing is boring and it's not really a competition. Music certainly shouldn't be anyway. The whole "i am a guitar god!" mindset is a perversion. It's about whatever song you are playing, not you. Same with piano.

In tennis and running (races) you are directly in competition with others but i don't care much about winning, just doing well. I'd much rather play tennis well and lose than win ugly / get my opponent to play bad. In running i just want to run fast with hardly any effort a long way.

Finished Brent Weeks Lightbringer series except for the last book which isn't out. Was strangely unhappy during it. Kind of neglected my other hobbies during it. Wondered though if it was just too much injustice. But it could be something else. Spend time writing letters I won't send to people I knew decades ago. Gave up my sexual abstinence after a month or so because I think it was getting me in a bad mood. Have a theory it turns the "must improve" part of a man while neglecting the "maintain/stay alive to rear my children" part. I really had this feeling of dying of a heart attack. Perhaps there's something to that. What few studies there are suggest people who have sex more often live longer but the science isn't that great. Being around a few more decades matters more to me. I don't really feel like there's anything too terribly important to otherwise accomplish. That I have any chance of accomplishing.

Anyway, Weeks' series is about Kip Guile and Gavin/Daven Guile. They both have very special magical powers and suffer great injustice. Gavin/Daven lost his powers, or at least he lost yellow, blue, green, subred, etc. Everything except black which he refuses to use. Preferring to be blinded. Preferring to die. Young Kip is a budding great magician who has never been properly trained but at 15/16 is already amazing. Their father is a terrible man. Color wights are also a bad thing, I guess. And some special order. Or who knows. Maybe the Chromeria is really the bad guy.

Now reading some book. Except son has my phone and I can't remember name... The Curse of Chalion by Lois Bujold. Great detail. Lupe Castelar is a sort of teacher/chaperone to a noble young lady and her friend. He escaped from being a galley slave. Just a tinsy bit of magic. I would like a tad bit more. But just when one gives up hope finally there is some related to Death magic.

Finally bought expensive racquets Wilson Clash. 2 for 480. Doesn't seem to be anything special about the Clash Tour. Though I was a little hasty in not even demoing that one. But online reviews suggest the two are practically the same. I'm liking the Clash though. Also really trying to hit a straight arm forehand with australian grip and even hitting a backhand drive with same grip. Went to "league" night at the posh club and played well enough.

I need to lose weight. I need to stop eating sweets every single day. Donut/s for breakfast. Cookies/brownies sometimes during the day. A pie on the weekend. lol. Straight up addiction like any other addiction. Over the years gradually it happened. Helped by being able to gorge myself when younger every single day while staying skinny for years. Now I'm 240 and don't lift weights. 6'4" and still athletic. Still. How silly to worry about this. No time to go run for 2 plus hours.

Close to finished with Gladiolus. Taken my sweet time. Enjoying it but feel like eventually, learn it or give it up... Wife doesn't complain I guess.

Been playing Enderal which is a mod that is installed into Skyrim. The modification though is that it pretty much completely replaces Skyrim, except for a few odds and ends. Some objects look the same. Entirely different story, characters, music. I guess some similar magic spells, creatures. I like it better I think. But i may be biased. For one I've been reading about Bethesda and they sound like assholes. They aren't bringing back Jeremy Soule. They don't even speak to him. And from interviews and presentations/announcements they don't sound good at all. ES6 won't be any good. I like seeing a mod that replaces their entire game and is better.

Also I'm curious about doing something similar maybe someday. That place I'm haunted by I don't think works as a book. Could work much better as some kind of virtual reality / videogame.

Also playing Skyrim SE which it's very easy to add mods to. Looks very beautiful but I like Enderal better. I also really like Morrowind with the sound and graphics overhaul anyway. So playing those two games at the moment. I have not really been successful modding Oblivion. Was trying to add Qarls graphics mod. Have tried 4 different mod mangers and manual installs. Will come back to it eventually.
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Learning the Gladiolus "Rag". I really like it. The idea of playing ragtime seems to nerdy/square. But I like it far better than the classical I've been playing. I need to listen to it enough that I can hum the whole thing. That's actually quite a bit of listening for me. Which ahh. Hmm. That in and of itself is kind of a skill actually. Being able to accurately hum a 4 minute ragtime piece. I guess the same applies to classical. I can't hum an entire symphony or even sonata movement. There is some pianist who travels around playing ragtime who can simultaneously run two pieces in his head at once.

In my continuing effort to improve at stuff. I could just listen to music and practice humming it from start to end.
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Bored with juggling. Got a number of 3 ball things down. 4 ball really means higher tosses which I'm not so much into. Plus you just have to concentrate more.
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Tennis has been really good as I've started just hitting my backhand like Ken Rosewall and forehand a lot like Jimmy Conners. Hardly any topspin. Simplifying. Went back to heavy racquet. Experimented with extender ripstick and old prostaff and my elbow hurting a bit. Also was experiment with almost backhand grip serve which also annoyed my elbow. Back to old flexible Michael Chang racquet and australian grip for everything.
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Have a baby girl. And minding just staying at home with family far less. My one friend is so often kind of off because of the medications she takes I guess. The other is chaos and so little in common. It's important to have friends. But once you've experimented plenty of hanging out, you eventually don't really need to so much I guess.
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That crap with that boy getting attacked for just smiling at that native american drummer is truly nuts. I was interested in reading about it and the articles make me sick. I'm on the left. So many on my "side" still attacking this 15 year old boy even after it comes out the drummer came up to him and the high school group was being verbally attacked by another group. So many were so quick to attack and now won't admit they were wrong. Hate for Trump is high. Sort of understandable but people who's vision is completely clouded by it are hard for me to understand.

Been playing heavily modded morrowind for a couple of weeks now. Best game ever. More or less.
This has resulted in not much piano playing. Been playing tennis like Ken Rosewall except 9 inches and close to 100 pounds bigger, so still a bit of power. Reading The Banished Craft by E D Bell book 3 now. About a world where dragons and humans have been split apart. Pro-vegan book. First I've ever really read.
Got back into running for a couple of weeks or so now. Just doing 4/2s at 8 minute miles so far. Just twice a week. Juggling I can do 6 or 7 three ball patterns and I can do 4 ball sync fountain for like 5 to 10 seconds.
Second child is due in 3 weeks. I continue to get no support at work. First child seems to be a strange combination of very smart and... really not, just like someone else I know.

Health is good. Sleeping well. Have been mostly avoiding gluten and feel better for it.

It occurs to me that I have to have uncommon friends. By that I seem to mean that they must be a bit nuts. Otherwise things just don't make sense. Perhaps, simply with friends as with lovers, we seek that which feels familiar.

"Lovers" is really not a word I use.

And so my friends are kooky. And this can be a problem, just about always. But well what, make friends with someone that's "normal"? Meh.

So then, so it goes.

And read The Boy From Tomorrow by Camille Deangelis. About two children who can communicate across 100 years. Brought a tear to my eye. Reminded me of my idea, not just a story idea, but something in the real world I desperately wanted, someone to just talk to far away as I lived hell. I of course could not find that in the real world. I found just more hell.

..also loving this Castlevania show on netflix. Which is unusual for me. Never watch TV shows. This is so dark. Destroying mankind. Evil religion. Good stuff.

Pretty much have Nyman's Heart Asks for Pleasure memorized. Now just need to spend a few months improving it. Have first 3 pages of beet's 7th 2nd movement mostly memorized in a way that I can play it with some sight reading glances. Now using metronome to try to get the hang of the third page where the left hand is sort of really 3/4 and the right is 2/4. Sort of. That may take a while to really sync them up. And I really haven't memorized the 2nd page sufficiently. Also still working on pathetique 2nd movement. Have forgotten 4th and 5th page and that's how it goes. While working so hard on Nyman's of course I then forget the previous thing which really I didn't memorize that great in the first place but it will eventually stick. And I really need to brush up Rach's c sharp prelude eventually. And I have unmemorized the the 4th page of moonlight easy movement. Oh well. I haven't been serious at it for very long yet. It will stick eventually. And if I'm glancing at the sheet music I can play this stuff not too bad...

Successfully made potato cakes for the first time. Next will add minced broccoli and garlic. Potatoes are my thing now. Really avoiding wheat. Although I do add a bit to the potato cakes. But really avoiding pasta and bread. Feel better this way. Better energy. Better digestion.

Quitting chocolate. Haven't liked my sleeping lately.

Cleaned my disaster of a mancave/library for first time in many years. Bekah helped. Jeff coming also played a role.

Successfully modded Skyrim for the first time. Way harder than it should be but some issue with my gaming computer of not being recognized as an admin lol. Etc.

Getting very close to juggling 4 balls now. Hardly ever practice it but finally just took some very soft balls to work and practice there a bit. Considering I never practice at home it's pretty good that I can do like 8 to 12 or so throws sometimes.

Thinking to put aside non-dominant forehand because actually I like how a one handed backhand feels better than a forehand anyway. I'll just have to practice it until it gets better. Going to focus on just the drive. Mixing it up with the slice is holding me back. Though I definitely won't do as well in matches without the slice.

Trying to become a d and d dungeon master despite having never actually played the game lol. Watching vids. Reading the books isn't enough I think. Bekah wants me to. And I think it will be very good for my sad writing aspirations.

Trying to learn Nyman's Teh Heart Asks for Pleasure First. It's a bit different and just strangely ...counter-intuitive and so it took 4 days to get the first 2 pages. But pushing yourself at such things is good. Feel like I'm a better player for it. Today did the first two lines of page 3 which are just very strange to me. They just don't follow much of any seemingly musical pattern. Took like at least two hours. Maybe 3, to slowly play (and memorize) those two lines. The first line took the vast majority of that time. Just very weird and I can't imagine something any harder to memorize excluding random non-music junk. Feel like I've broken my brain now. And my body for that matter but I think I'm just not feeling great today.

I really could have just spent another week on Pathetique 2nd movement. And I'm sure I will have forgotten it a bit when I come back to it. (I'm too exhausted to play more now). But it's a given that you memorize something, then forget it and rememorize and each time it should stick a bit stronger.

So I need to "brush up"/rememorize that and a few others. Almost finished (memorizing) 2nd page of beethovens 7th 2nd movement also. That's the one I love how it sounds. Nymans I barely like. But if I can mostly finish it in a week or so that's not too terrible to stand.

Fundamentals of Piano Practice by Chuan Chang
Good book that I'm 30% into. Probably best book I've found. Talks about 5 kinds of music related memory. Says I don't need to do a bunch of Hanon and scales and Czerny. Good.

Teh Verdant Passage: Prism Pendant by Troy Denning
First in a series. Light d and d reading. I like this stuff. I need to write it. My friend wants me to be our d and d dungeon master. So reading up. Enjoyable.

Great Pianist on Piano Playing by James Francis Cooke
Very old book that I'm 36%. Interesting to hear about how this stuff was 100 years ago. Piano is somewhat timeless. I like the idea of playing music that has been around a centuries.

Playing the Piano for Pleasure by Charles Cooke
33%. emphasizes building a repertoire. OK.

Ton of mostly piano related book samples.

So it was approximately Sep 9th that I decided I would work really hard for three weeks at left handed forehand, piano, perfect pitch and juggling four balls. I was motivated by Archie Dan Smith's book where he talks about a supposed 3 week rule and also the importance of avoiding interference. Since then I've read a lot of books about how best to practice. And no one else is talking about interference or any 3 week rule. In fact the best book goes on quite a bit about interleaving which is pretty much the opposite, where you purposely change things up. So I halfway along I stopped doing it like Smith advocated.

For the left handed forehand: Again I stopped worrying about interference and played tennis. Additionally as much of a novice as I am at this shot I don't have to do it a ton to improve. But I am being patient and continuing to work on this shot. Not giving it up. The main issue is not hitting it hard enough. But for low balls I'm getting close. For high balls I'm close to terrible. But two days ago I played a match against a good pusher (GM) and split sets and then won the tiebreak 10-2. I hit left handed forehand about 80% of the time instead of a backhand. Though because he's a pusher I was mostly hitting my right handed forehand once I got past the return of serve. (He does have a good first serve).

Juggling: Only practiced a little each day. Just my right hand with 2 for two plus weeks. When I started doing the left hand with 2 I found that the right hand is now a bit better than the left. So I have improved. But just a little bit. I just haven't put adequate time into this. It's just a matter of making sure the toss goes up in the right direction. Not terribly interesting.

Perfect pitch: I decided knowing the intervals is just more important. I quickly was able to discern 2nd minor, 2nd major (chopstick), perfect fifth (vaguely asian), and octave and seventh and major third. But just 3rd major and minor I'm terrible at. And I can see the same issue is there with perfect 4th and perfect 5th. And  the solution seems to be just playing a bunch of 3rds, etc on the piano. But when I sit down at the piano right now I want to focus on actually practicing the piano so putting this on hold.

Piano: Definitely have improved. Though I can see getting fatigued with trying to play everyday. I want to try to more or less continue that. I want to perfect the following repertoire:

Moonlight Sonata (can easily sight read but falter here or there on the memorization)

Rach's Prelude in C sharp minor (used to know and with just an hour of practice almost have it totally back except the very ending)

2nd movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony (the proprioception is difficult. The big jumps on the second page. Getting frustrated with how often I still hit the wrong note. Have only memorized the first page and a half because I'm really working on the proprioception.)

Dark Eyes Richard Benda (I have been able to play the first page or so for many years but trying to play without looking at hands is very difficult. Going to take a long time to manage that I'm sure.)

Scarlatti sonata in F major 118 (Haven't begun it yet. Wanted something baroque not by Bach that will help me with my technique and really like how this sounds.)

Pathetique Sonata 2nd movement by Beethoven (Can play first page so far).

Big thing is I'm learning proprioception whereas I used to just memorize and look at hands. Goal now is to play all this by memory without looking at hands. It's much more enjoyable when you don't look at hands, etc. Once I get the proprioception pretty well I expect I will speed up. I can hardly expect it to take just 3 weeks.

Make it Stick by Peter Brown
70% in. This is about the best way to learn/practice. Best book on the subject. Most important concepts are interleaving and retrieval (self quizzing). Don't mass practice, instead interleave. Jump from thing to thing. This gets it past the short term memory and into the long term. Don't just endlessly loop a passage for an hour on the piano. Loop a passage for a bit. Then another and so on. And then circle back around. Let it leave the short term memory and then... retrieve it. Bring it back using your memory. Every time you bring it back that way on your own it becomes stronger. People consistently have the illusion that mass practice works better. But for long term improvement interleaving works far better. In tennis hit a serve against a backboard followed immediately by two grounds strokes. Catch the ball and repeat. You have to be able to recall the different shots to mind quickly.

First Learn to Practice by Tom Heany
Useful book about music practice, had some additional ideas that combined with Make it Stick I have a basic piano practice routine. Something important is don't spend too much time just playing pieces from beginning to end. Common sense stuff. But very useful. Made notes elsewhere.

Elric and the Sleeping Sorceress by Michael Moorcock
A good blueprint for successfully writing something damnit. Go retrieve such and such magical artifact and use it to defeat some nemesis. Simple short stories in fantasy fiction setting. Got to find the time.

Thank god my friend Bekah seems to finally be better. Had a very typical manic episode it seems. Lasted the average amount of time. Financially ruined but no ruined relationships and she's not physically hurt. I must say though that seeing this and knowing that her brother is in his 30's and still lives at home really brings home that there is something seriously wrong with the other sister. Has helped me deal with the vicious thing she's doing though I hate to make it sound like there is anything positive to gain from the ordeal Bekah has suffered.

As to Zelazny's Amber I am pretty sure part of my like of it was that I had an audiobook version read by Zelazny. Just one of the books in the middle. The way he read it made it so damn cool. But I have now read the first 5 or 6 books and become disillusioned. Somehow it didn't keep its "promises".

Just read the Anubis Gate by Tim Powers and thought it extremely good. Don't know how I didn't know of him. Going to read more by him. Time travel and a very detailed early 19th century England with plenty more, Byron and Coleridge and Egyptian gods and gypsies. Really good.

Started Beloved. The characters are so damn good compared to fantasy fiction. But I've seen the movie a couple times and it seems to follow very closely...

I wrote while I wasn't being athletic because of my broken toe and basically stopped once it was better and I was back to tennis a few times a week. Why? Not laziness. Just so disillusioned with my stories. They aren't very good. Feel like I need to start over but I haven't somehow started.

Also I finally got a piano again after 15 years. Just about memorized moonlight sonata so far which I had previously only been able to sight read. But memorizing is so much more enjoyable. And some other things. First page of Bach's famous toccata and fugue. Fur Elise. I really missed it. Could just happily play and play with no time left for other things. The internet changes things. I can tune it myself now thanks to amazon and youtube. I can easily find good free sheet music and immediately hear a recording of anything. Would have made things very different back in 1988.

But starting to feel unhappy that I'm not writing. Wondering if I should try to salvage what I was working on. Or just totally go back to the drawing board while trying things a bit different. Thinking to make the lead more heroic, more "Gary Stu". Avoiding any mentions of ever having been a child. And writing more linear with a bit less outlining. Ending up with a ton of junk that needed extreme editing actually really lost my interest, finally.

I haven't written anything in the last week. I was away to Seattle for "work". I did read Thomas Disch, The Genociders, which is about how earth is turned into a one crop garden while other life is exterminated. Tad bit depressing. And Frank Herbert's The Heaven Makers which wasn't as depressing as the MC was very intelligent and sort of prevailed. About how immortal aliens are behind the scenes controlling our behaviors in order to make movies.

And now 1/3 into Zelazny's ten volume Amber. Which I had read a part of before. There is something about it I liked before. It has a certain feel. But also I listened to a part of an audio version where Zelazny was reading it and it really made it better. I vaguely recall being in New Mexico at the time. But maybe I wasn't. I don't know. Something though about it like while at the same time something about it don't such that I hadn't already read the whole thing despite being a voracious reader of fantasy for many decades. Too much intrigue /mystery where the motives seem largely pointless. (To rule Amber). And I ask myself, would I be happy to have written this? And the answer is no. But over and over such is the case. All the best writing I find myself thinking this. I wouldn't have bothered and that's probably why I haven't bothered. And I think perhaps it's a sort of nihilism about life. So much of the stuff of life I can't get into. And so I don't write.

But Song of Solomon. That was a book that I would have been pretty happy to write. I can't at the moment think of anything else really. Some short stories. Death of Dr. Island. Chun the Unavoidable. But that's different.

So I have to think more about this. Read more Morrison. More magical realism.

I don't know perhaps I would have pretty happy to write most of the first two Fitz trilogies.

Played really good tennis today. Using only an australian grip. Including hitting a lot of non-dominant hand forehands. Two hours of doubles. The worst player was a retired lady who used to play pro. Played Goolagong. And I hit a non-dominant one hand forehand. And two hand backhand. A one hand backhand slice. A one hand backhand drive. And hit it all OK. The left hand forehand needs work. Hit with the former pro exclusively left handed for 20 minutes afterward.

In Seattle there was a grand piano that I played a lot. Synthesizers are just not the same. I am going to buy a piano. Haven't had one in more than a decade. Want to get back to being able to have prelude in c sharp minor by Rach memorized and others. I miss memorizing music. Weirdly I wasn't good at that with the cello. But as it's almost always just one note at a time, it's so much easier to sight read. But memorized music is so much more enjoyable and I'm sorry but the piano is more enjoyable.

I have tons and tons of baby goldfish in my pond. Too many. Gave a couple to my nephew. But it was just a piddly one gallon bowl without a filter. I told him that honestly they probably wouldn't survive for long in it. And I told him I'd buy him a much larger aquarium if he successfully learned how to play fur elise.

The idea just being to get him thinking about just trying to achieve things in his life. It's not that he needs to be good at music, just that he should just try to start doing something with himself. Get in the habit of trying to achieve things. And learn what it's like to get something as the result of hardwork.

A month has passed and he hasn't done anything. Those fish sit there slowly dying. Perhaps he's ashamed about it. Perhaps he'll slowly learn to dislike me for making him feel ashamed.

He's only eight though. But perhaps he's a bit like his mother, who goes to the emergency room once or twice a month for migraines, yet won't even give up caffeine despite knowing it cured her brother's headaches.

Here I am, at 38, and the obstacles one encounters in writing have still successfully stopped me cold. And he's only 8. So it may be too much, although certainly many children could manage it. It is that I'm trying to help him be a better person than I've been. But I forget just how much else he's dealing with at that age. There's a lot that comes ahead of learning to play the piano. Also they have him playing soccer and swimming and he seems to lay around exhausted a lot of the time. Oh well.