But he let me do a slow warm-up on the scale before tackling the exercise he gave me, and then the exercise came off a dream. He seemed really pleased. Unfortunately, that led to his thinking I was ready for more than I was, lol. He showed me more scales, including the second octave on the major, and we discussed phrasing. Since he knows I write, he kept trying to put things in terms of sentences; it was really funny.
But then he decided we were going to play together. I'd start first in a simple chord progression I'd been practicing, and then he'd improvise a melody behind it. Great. No problem. Did that with ease.
Then he said to switch. He wanted me to improvise on the notes I'd only just learned.
I completely froze. We sat there for nearly five minutes while I tried to wrap my brain around it, and played with fingerings, and then Scott took pity on me and admitted maybe he shouldn't have put me on the spot. He told me to practice on it this week and we'd improvise together next time.
Can I say that this completely intimidates me? I've played with the idea of songwriting for a while, but my creativity tends to be a very private thing. I don't like to share my writing until it's reached a point I'm happy with. Improvising music on the fly scares the bejeezus out of me.
*deep breath*
But I'm going to try. That's the point of the lessons. I love what I'm doing. I love how I feel when I get to practice. I love it when my fingers do what I want to. This is just the next step.
So when we still had 10 minutes left on the lesson and it was obvious the improvisation wasn't going to happen, Scott moved on to the next thing he wants me to learn. Bar chords.
*head thunk*
Guess what else I have to practice for next week? ;)
