Goals

Still working through the same book (Shipton).

One of my goals for my current sabbatical had been to try to finish the book before the end of the sabbatical.

I'm really really close, but there are still 4-5 songs in the book and my sabbatical technically ends at the end of this month.

Hm. I just realized that I have my own sense of making progress with a piece.

• First stage is that I can play all the notes through, off tempo.
  
• Second stage is that I can play them through and it vaguely sounds like the actual piece.
  
• Third stage, would be that I can play through at tempo with the music.
  
• Fourth stage is playing through at tempo with no music.
  

I'm certainly not to stage four with the whole book, but I'd love to be at stage three.

Reading music

I'm still working through the Shipton book. I'd been making what seems like good progress.

A couple of times, I've really stalled. Sometimes I think that's probably normal plateauing, but other times it's been something else.

The fact of the matter is that I can't read music very well. I learned how when I was really young and have had no reason to keep sharp with it over the last 30 years or so. What I find is that when I come to a new piece that's written in normal musical notation as opposed to tablature, I can read it, but it's really slow.

This has shown up in the book several times so far, but I'd come to a couple of pieces back to back in the Shipton book over the last two weeks or so written in standard music and it had slowed me down.

I seem to have overcome it a bit. I can play both through (slowly and awkwardly of course!), but I can get through them. So I figure I'm due a little celebration.