back in the swing of things

After an intense hiatus that began with a lost hard drive, taking me through a return trip to Spain, a painful year of house hunting and finally moving into a new place...I think I may finally be able to return here.

I was wondering if I would ever have the urge to blog again and then recently I found myself posting a lot on fb where I would rather not and realized it's time.

yay.

My best student ever ever ever is moving away. I truly love all of my students and love working with them and learning from them no matter their commitment or skill level. This one is so special though because she practises all the time, does everything I ask (which is a lot), and that means that over the years we have been able to work on some amazing stuff. She's not only an accomplished classical player but has come so far with jazz chords and accompaniment that I have had to learn just as fast so I could keep her challenged. It's been fantastic and I'm so sad to see her go and just a little jealous of her next teacher.

I'm giving her a fake book of jazz standards as a going away gift because I don't know if she'll get to continue working on this with her next teacher and I would hate for her to lose all that she's learned. Then I thought, I'd really like her to have a cd of some of my favourites and the versions of them that I love.

All of this led to one long day on youtube. If you are anything like me you often get sidetracked by the goodies in the sidebar...it was a long and fantastic day of searching and I was in a euphoric state for the rest of the day but I kind of felt hungover the next day and am still a little lost 2 days later.

anyway here's the gem that had me singing my lungs out (happily I now live in a house and can do that!)





and then whilst watching it for the 20th time today, I came across this gem



which led to this.



and now I really must attempt to walk away from my computer.