I started recording songs for Lesson 20 of the Jazz Series today.  The DLP curriculum is always organized in groups of 20 lessons, so this is kind of the end of a series that has been my focus for several years. Lesson 20 is Jazz Standards- Volume 1 so the focus is on standard Jazz forms (AABA, Blues, ABAB etc) and it's interesting to write new melodies to some standard forms and chord progressions.  This is common practice all through the history of Jazz.  "Donna Lee" is a new melody on the chords of "Indiana".  The melody of "St. James Infirmary" morphed into "Sugar".  But it goes further than that.  The I IV V progression so commonly used by Beethoven and Mozart is the same I IV V progression used by Jerry Lee Lewis or Mumford and Sons.  The musical language always remains the same.  What we create from it changes.

So, coming to the end of this chapter is a little sad for me.  But that passes very quickly as I start hearing students at DSM playing the songs and talking about the concepts.  It's even more exciting to see videos come in from all over the world of people I've never met playing the songs. This is a very moving thing.  Besides, I have 40 more lessons of songs to write for the Kore Series and 40 more lessons of songs for the Jazz Series still.  I think I will remain busy creating music, which I love to do.