jasona
Feb-12-2004, 12:51am
Hi all,
In my continuing efforts to live up to my New Year's Resolution to get over my fear of playing in front of people, I am attending a weekly slow jam on Mondays at lunch at work. The banjo player there, who is one of the more skilled players, and I have been working up a few tunes over the past couple of weeks. Last Monday, he asks me, "What are you doing on Wednesday night?" When I replied nothing (my wife lives a long way away *sigh*) he told me that he was playing at a work-related (University) international cultural night. I bit down on my lip hard, and said, "sure, I'd love to!"
So, we worked out a couple of arrangements, got a guitar player at literally the last minute (darned classical musicians!), and away we went to play a couple of old time/BG chestnuts in front of about 100 folks.
Well, it was great! The first tune, Soldier's Joy, I was shaking so hard I couldn't pick my half of the duo melody, so I stopped trying and started playing rhythm. As I calmed down, I started voicing the chords, and by the end was right in there. The second tune, Old Joe Clark, I got to kick off, and we played a fairly melodic version slowly one time through, then kicked it into high gear for two more (and progressively faster) passes, up to about 200 bpm. Whew!
Its not Carnegie Hall (or the Freight and Cargo), but it was my big step past irrational inhibition. It was great fun, and sounded pretty good! Just wanted to share: even a rookie playing about 2 years can make folks happy with music.
In my continuing efforts to live up to my New Year's Resolution to get over my fear of playing in front of people, I am attending a weekly slow jam on Mondays at lunch at work. The banjo player there, who is one of the more skilled players, and I have been working up a few tunes over the past couple of weeks. Last Monday, he asks me, "What are you doing on Wednesday night?" When I replied nothing (my wife lives a long way away *sigh*) he told me that he was playing at a work-related (University) international cultural night. I bit down on my lip hard, and said, "sure, I'd love to!"
So, we worked out a couple of arrangements, got a guitar player at literally the last minute (darned classical musicians!), and away we went to play a couple of old time/BG chestnuts in front of about 100 folks.
Well, it was great! The first tune, Soldier's Joy, I was shaking so hard I couldn't pick my half of the duo melody, so I stopped trying and started playing rhythm. As I calmed down, I started voicing the chords, and by the end was right in there. The second tune, Old Joe Clark, I got to kick off, and we played a fairly melodic version slowly one time through, then kicked it into high gear for two more (and progressively faster) passes, up to about 200 bpm. Whew!
Its not Carnegie Hall (or the Freight and Cargo), but it was my big step past irrational inhibition. It was great fun, and sounded pretty good! Just wanted to share: even a rookie playing about 2 years can make folks happy with music.