or How 2 Independent Comic Strips Twisted My Practice Like A Pretzel.

It begins just a few days ago as I am reading the Sunday Comics. Darby Conley’s strip, Get Fuzzy depicts 2 main characters, a cat and a dog, in conversation. The cat has written a song for his mewsical, The Sound of Meowsic. It’s set to the tune of Do-re-mi.

The first 3 things just happen to be, roe, ray, me

I love song paradies almost as much as the original songs from the musical itself. This one really gets me laughing.

Roe, an egg, a salmon egg,
Ray, a type of pancake fish,
Me, the guy, who eats them raw,
Na, the second half of tu-!

ROFL.

Street Bandit Creates Musician

Then, I remember a Bizarro cartoon that I clipped from last November’s Sunday comics. It hangs on my studio bulletin board. Creator Dan Piraro illustrates a man attempting to rob a man on the street, who shows the robber his empty pockets turned out. The robber force marches his victim to a music shop where he gets (buys? steals?) a violin. The story continues over time as the robber continues holding the man at gunpoint and forcing him to practice the violin.

OMG, you need to just read the comic. Ten months later, I am still laughing over this comic strip. Piraro’s Bizarro truly lives up to its name.

These two comics get me thinking – well, not so much thinking as much as having a gut reaction to skew my regular music practice into something strange and wonderful.

Non-Standard Standards

The other day, I was practicing my soprano saxophone, working on some jazz standards for an upcoming performance.

I turned my music upside-down. And played it. Starting at top left and reading to bottom right. Hahahahaha. It’s a totally new song and tremendous fun.

Ooh! Then I read from bottom-right to top-left – upside-down and backwards! The rhythms are the same as the original song, but the pitches are very different. At first, I wasn’t obeying the key signature. Then I decided that doing so might give me some sense of a tonality. Still, reading accidentals was a challenge.

Normally, accidentals are on the left side of the notehead, but now with the music upside-down, they are on the right side… well, let’s just say I created a new way to read music.

As a matter of fact, this serendipitous activity should do wonders for my sight-reading skills!

I turned my music right side up again. But I wasn’t done messing with normalcy – oh, no. I played the music backward; from bottom-right to top-left. Now the pitches are the same as the original music, but this time the rhythms are backwards.

What have I learned?

My sight-reading skill level has taken a bump upward. I practiced longer. I played my music – really played it. And most importantly, I had fun. You could say, I played with my music and we had a great time!

If you liked this, you will also enjoy reading:

• Drawing Out Your Innate Musical Genius
• How To Turn Fear On Its Ear
• It’s A Jolly Holiday With Mary
• Got Motivation?

Thanks for reading. The next edition of Musician’s Motivator will be out September 22, 2010.