Prohibitively palpable passion publicly pauses progress positively. Pfft.

Today I started out grumpy and late. Not the best way to start a day. Work went well, for the most part, despite that fact. I'm sort of in limbo waiting for my next project to get underway - or at least, to get to the point where I can do something for it. Until then, I'm just trying to finish up some things that need doing.

We had a review of the semester in Jazz Theory today, and I seem to have caught most everything. We're going to be having a quiz next week - I should study a few things, I think, just to make sure I have them down. Otherwise, it's been a very informative semester. Dave warns me not to get too bogged down in theory, as adult students have a tendency to box themselves in with "rules." I don't think I'm really in danger of that. It sounds odd to say, but I don't generally care about rules, facts, and artificial constraints. I deal with what makes sense in my head, and if that means throwing a flat nine in somewhere when I think it sounds good, so be it. Biology and chemistry always annoyed the hell out of me because a very significant portion of the effort that goes into learning them is spent on rote memorization of terms, compounds, names of parts of biological structures, and all that. I am not necessarily bad at such things, but I dislike doing it, have little patience for it.

So when Rani speaks of passion being the most important part of learning music, I get concerned. I know for a fact, from trying to learn this stuff for the past few years, that great deal of rote memorization is required, as well as a lot of diligent, careful, time consuming practice, practice, practice.

As stated, these things have never been my strengths.

So I wonder, really, how far I can go without being able to apply myself to that degree. I'm not sure if the difficulty of learning is go to get exponentially harder, or if I'll just sorta proceed linearly (but slowly), or if my passion, as he says, will just increase with exposure, or what. It's kinda concerning. I would like to progress quickly and be awesome, but time and energy are often prohibitively scarce.

I guess I continue to do what I can. Learning slowly is better than not learning anything at all... I've been there, and it's boring.