Google Day 3

I meant to blog from Wednesday, but, and I don't mean to make excuses for myself, I have been morbidly busy and forgetful. So it is several days late, but I am now here to post about the Google Day we had on Wednesday.
I spent most of my time looking for a place to practice, because I am still modest and embarrassed of trying to improvise in front of people. Eventually I went outside on the sidewalk, which worked well for a while, but then people kept interrupting me, and then other people started practicing out there too, which was really distracting.
The first part of my practice was spent playing all of the scales. I did my best to problem-solve when I got stuck, and only looked at my grids when necessary. That worked out well, and I did a good job of beginning to nail them into my head. Then I tried to practice a few rounds of improvising. It did not go well. By this time, my mouth was starting to fatigue and so it wasn't easy trying to finagle notes. My teacher over the summer taught me (a) that less is more if you mean it, and (b) find a melody to play around with. I couldn't find a melody at all. It was very discouraging, but I suppose that I have to keep on trudging through and keep telling myself that the more I practice, the better I will become, and then I will really be able to enjoy improvising.
Today (Sunday), I was also briefly at the Saturday (weekend) market downtown, and a band called Gunner Roads was performing. I don't know anything about being in a rock band, but the crowd seemed to love them, as did I. I was so excited when I figured out that one of the numbers they played was just a blues progression over and over. I don't remember what it was called, but it was a cover of some classic rock song. The lead guitarist was very good at improvising. He was talented in general, but he was also very confident about what he was doing too. I thought I might keep it in mind just in case it sparks ideas in my own improvising.