Weekly Studio Update - In the Zone

How many of you got caught out in some way, shape or form by the clocks switching to Daylight Savings time for the rest of the Eastern states? Everyone whose phones incorrectly tell the time seem to have a great complaint - "I had to get up an hour early!" But for those of you who often feel time-poor, how useful would and extra hour in the day be?
I had the opposite experience on Sunday - I lost a lot of time! My wife was away with some friends on a trip to Tasmania over the weekend, so I had free reign over how I spent my time. After doing some piano practise (yes, even teachers do it...), I looked at my electric drum kit, put some music on, and a half hour later had reminded myself of how fun it is to drum. That got me thinking about rhythm, so I decided to listen to some of my old demos, which took me back to the piano so I could play some songs I'd written a while ago but never recorded, which then took me to my computer so I could start producing one of those songs. All up, I spent about 3 hours playing and making music, and it went by in a flash!

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Some of you might know of this phenomenon as being "in the zone" or "in a flow state". Time passes without you knowing because you're in that beautiful area where you're challenging yourself without being frustrated by difficulties. As a teacher, I'm always hoping to keep you "in the flow" for as much as your practise as possible, so your feedback each week as to what you've been enjoying or what you've found frustrating is very helpful to me. Don't ever be afraid to let me know if you've found things too frustrating.
The next Catch-Up and Performance day will be on Sunday November 10 at 3pm. I'll be sending out an invitation email soon with a few more details.
Last week I welcomed Hannah and Luis for their first lessons here - Hannah is a student at Brisbane Academy of Music Theatre who has taken an interest in becoming a Musical Director, while Luis is one of my neighbours from down the road, a semi-retired mechanic and former microfilm technician who is very excited to learn the piano. It was a pleasure to meet both of you!
Things I've been watching/listening to this week:

1. Jacob Collier - All Night Long (Official Video) - Jacob Collier is a modern day jazz prodigy, and this video is a good a showcase of his skills as any! So inspiring to see someone enjoying himself so much as well.
2. Dirty Loops - Next To You - a Swedish(?) trio of ridiculous talent, if you've never seen or heard of Dirty Loops then prepare to have your mind blown with some pop-jazz-soul-funk fusion. Seriously, mind-blowing.
3. Beethoven's 5th Symphony - my student Tom is a Classical music lover, so we were talking about something called 'Theme and Variation' - I used this very well known piece to illustrate.
4. What are 6/9 chords? | Q+A - Adam Neely answers viewer questions about different parts of music theory.
5. Vintage Vibe 64 Deluxe Electric Piano - Matt Johnson of Jamiroquai playing some beautiful improvisations on a very retro-inspired electric piano.
6. This week's chores have been soundtracked by Frank Ocean (Channel ORANGE), Josh Pyke (Chimney's Afire), Foo Fighters (The Color and the Shape), Cake (Comfort Eagle) and Yeo (Come Find Me).