Trying Something A Little Different

Where do I begin?

I have made the analogy, that, as far as my musicology has been concerned, I felt like a person putting a jigsaw puzzle back (since it was whole before the toy company cut it up) together.
Do you do like my grandfather, William, and lay all the pieces out on separate pieces of wood paneling, (requiring actually about 4 times the 27" X 15 ¾ size of the assembled puzzle of space, in order to work on it, with the no longer needed pieces of board being stowed away) and then turn them all face up?

I do, now.

I used to start with the border pieces, identifiable by their flat edge, but I no longer do that.

Now I pick a certain color which comprises a large part of the picture, like something in the foreground that takes up maybe 10 percent of the finished puzzle, if you count the pieces, and I start from that one object, as if it was just thrown there in space, and then construct the puzzle around it.
The sky in the picture often qualifies (but the sky can go from Alabama blue, to a very whitish blue towards the horizon, so puzzle builders beware).

How this works musically is that, perhaps knowing at a subconscious level that I would live to be at least 85, I spent most of my life taking the pieces out of the box -buying musical equipment, buying sheet music and method books, reading interviews of musicians, and doing a lot of listening.

And a lot of turning them face up; which would be practicing.

And, only began to snap them together to make any sort of picture, recently.
During the turning up phase, I would often be jamming on a song and would encounter maybe a key change or some idiosyncrasy in the piece and I would communicate something to myself like: "Ok, I need to look up those chords when I get home, and maybe record a loop of them to practice to, and then to analyze and practice, so when I come back out here, I will have them under my fingers and be able to play something cool."

I was just turning the pieces face up and catching a glimpse of what was on them ("Wow, I thing this is the lady in the background's ear ring," type of thing) but then I would continue flipping pieces over.

I wanted to reach something finite. Ok, all 2,500 pieces are face up, now...
So, I listened to everything from Gregorian chant, to my most recent download of "electronic music," and I have looked at sheet music, and spent time thinking about how music works, and, at some point in the recent past, I felt like it was just time to take everything I have and just play as well as I could in that moment.

It was right at around the time I stopped starting puzzles by building the border and started building them outward from some point in them.
So, now it is time to go out to play on a Thursday night during Jazzfest.
I've had plenty of time to hone my craft.

I will have to cover: "Whom, or what am I doing this for?" in a future post.
It's 11:12 already. I hope I at least put together the lady's head and shoulders (to include the ear ring).