Lately

Went to one of the alternative brat fests on Sunday. Drank when I said I wouldn't and talked too much and probably hurt myself in both cases, but it was fun while it lasted anyway. Had long deep discussions with people who's names I don't even know.

Monday I moped around and felt useless. I'm just not in a mood to practice lately and I don't know why. Perhaps because there's no pending due dates on the horizon. No gigs to speak of and no new tunes to learn really (or at least I've got the new ones in hand as well as they need to be in hand at the moment).

People keep telling me that my drumming is getting better. I'm not good at taking compliments and I keep thinking

1. I'm not practicing, so there's no reason I should be getting better
2. Was I that bad BEFORE...bad enough that you NOTICED slight improvement?

I know that this is the wrong way to look at things...but that's me. I don't know if I'm getting better or not. I'm getting better at some things and worse at others. Overall I've got to be better than I was in the past...but it's really hard to judge. I'm stagnating a little bit. I think I'm at that place where the low-hanging fruit has all been picked and there's really no progress to be made without conserted effort now.

On the bass front...I pulled out a playalong bass book and was pleasantly surprised. I remember having trouble with the songs included a year or so ago. My sight reading is marginal...but now there's nothing there that could not be learned with a little practice (Crazy Little Thing Called Love * Crocodile Rock * Maneater * Message in a Bottle * My Life * No Reply at All * Peg * Suffragette City). Was surprised at how awesome the bass line for this song is: