When good enough is not good enough

My project is all about going back to master the basics. I'm still playing and singing for fun and even practicing other stuff as I do this and recommend the same for anyone else.

Of course, when I first started, exercises such as the stuff I put up yesterday were hard. I'd sit there and want to curse because I'd will my fingers to do one thing and they did either something else or nothing at all.

Now the problem is that it can sometimes feel too easy. If I just play the notes Mi-Re-Do, Mi-Re-Do over and over again, I think, 'I've got it now I'll move on.' This is, I think, good enough.

The thing I am challenging myself with is to never accept good enough as good enough. I want to do more with the simple things. I want to master the basics.

• I want to play the notes and sing them at the same time. That is I want to get those notes programmed into my brain, my ear, my mouth and my fingers so I can string them out just as easily as I do words in sentences when I speak.
• I want to make it music. Think about two notes Mi-Re. I could produce those mechanically like the way the siren on a police car does. Or I could produce like a cruel kid on a schoolyard "nyeh-nyeh, nyeh-hyeh, nyeh-nyeh". Or I could make them musical. As Eddie Condon said, it can go in like broken glass or it can go in like honey. Even with one note, we should be able to make it go in like honey.

Here is the opening phrase of a very famous song that uses only one note. (click on the image to see it larger.) Can you hear the song? Can you make others hear it with just this one note? Can you treat it with love and joy and make that one note flow like honey?