I came back today with my bass guitar and Michiko and I were able to play together a little more smoothly. I still can’t sight read normal sheet music, but I’ve improved my understanding of the notes on my fret board to the extent that I can look at the guitar chords written above the staff and play those along with the beat. As far as getting Michiko to play along with the stuff I’m coming up with, she wants me to write it down for her first. If she doesn’t see the notes between the lines of a measure, it’s hard for her to match up her rhythm to mine. So I’m going to try to learn to read and write music. All the good musicians say you’ve got to do it anyways.

Today I tried to write down an arpeggio riff that I came up with this morning. It has ten notes and I can easily tap them out, but Michiko and I couldn’t figure out exactly how to get the rhythm down on paper. Jazz is really different from classical music, it seems!