Finding the time to practice is more about me than about the time allocated. There’s always plenty of time… if you remove the time spent watching TV, blogging, reading in the forums, and the like. Notice I didn’t say remove time with family, pets, exercise, and the like.

But I don’t practice enough. In a week I usually put in 1.5 hours in lessons, 4 hours in practice with the bands I’m a part of, and 2 to 3 hours beyond that. I need to be doing at least an hour a day to progress from where I am now. Oh, and I spend two hours a week with my grandson working with him on the bass clarinet and the bari sax.

On the bass sax solo for the Grinch (to be played in December at the Seattle Center House, aka a big deal), I am close to the big, loud voicing I need and without a mic. But I haven’t memorized the solo yet. And there are places where I jump an octave that need some finessing. Also, the cadenza will have two takes off to other songs, "If I only had a brain" and either "Jaws" or the "Theme from James Bond".

I could also do a piece on practicing smart. Instead of doing the stuff you like and can already do, spend time on the hard stuff, the theory, long tones, and the stylistic improvements like ubba, ubba for a swing rhythm. Still playing the music I like is soooo satisfying.  ;o)

There are so many people who could be world-class performers but who, like me, have trouble doing anything over a hour at a time. That’s why I like band practice because it forces me to do so. But that doesn’t help me get the difficult passages down. I’m not whining, no really, but I am voicing my biggest concern about moving forward with my music because increasing my practice time and being smart about how I use my time is gonna be key from now on. The easy stuff is mostly learned and I’m refining that as I go along. It’s good to have a challenge though, isn’t it?