Since my last update, I am still organizing my ideas. Every day I spend a little bit of time looking over my document, reading through a section at a time, making ideas clearer and cleaner, checking how they fit in with other ideas. Which ideas have I repeated elsewhere? Which ideas need to be grouped together?
I also continue adding new ideas as they occur to me . This frequently happens to me in the middle of the piano lesson (No surprise, since the book is meant to be a collection of ideas from my piano-teaching experience). Thankfully I have my document open and can quickly type the idea down to expand upon later.
I find I’m still getting to know the collection of ideas I have assembled. It is a little like moving into a new place: all my boxes are scattered around the floor. I’m still unpacking to build my life back again. Thankfully the new space is starting (sorta) to resemble a home. Translation: my jumble of ideas is starting (sorta) to resemble a book with a logical sequence of ideas.
In the process, I’m getting to know not only the ideas I have already put down, and what they mean, but also what this book is really about. I still have lots of questions but every day I move forward a bit. I imagine there will be a workbook component, likely with actual sheet music and piano-playing exercises, but it is not yet clear how that fits in with the body of prose I have so far written.
I have printed out sections of the book several times to read over and edit. I like having a printed out version because it’s easy to write comments in the margin or add ideas for text.
As a result of my efforts, the main sections of the book are starting to come into focus. For instance, I envision writing a chapter on the benefits of piano improvisation. I also plan on writing a chapter (or a whole section) on reading music.
I also plan on involving my students as a test audience for the book, but that’s still a ways down the road.
Meanwhile, happy to be making progress 😉