It was a nice quiet Blues Jam. As quiet as a band playing in an Ale House or bar can be. There was no controversy that I was aware of. And for me no huge revelations just a sort of quiet acceptance of a norm. Which is kind of cool all by itself.
I’d really had my revelations days before when I was given a verbal lesson on how to play slide guitar. The tips and instruction imparted to me sent me off to look up things that lead me to whole new information which then had my brain buzzing and head spinning with all sorts of possibilities. Unfortunately I’ve had very little time to experiment with this new information so I can start to make use of it. That’s ok. The creative possibilities it exposed are still there and I’ll get to them.
The other realization I had was as I was getting ready to head to Halligan’s. It occurred to 
me that somewhere in the last few days I had quit caring, I’d quit worrying. Don’t misunderstand here. I care very much about going to the Blues Jam and doing the
very best I can and learning everything I can to improve. But I quit caring about what songs I played. Whether I played them the last time at Moochies or at Halligan’s. It didn’t matter to me. I just want to get to play and sing and it doesn’t matter what it is. This is significant because I had been worried about doing the same songs every time or every other time and it no longer mattered. I no longer felt the need to control which song we were doing. I was good with saying ‘Here’s what I’ve got in my repertoire right now. What do you want to do?’ It’s a whole new place for me.
It doesn’t mean I won’t learn new songs. And it doesn’t mean I don’t still have a lot to learn. Quite to the contrary. I have plenty to learn and I’ll still be adding songs to the repertoire. I have several pulled out to learn. I’ll just be open to more things that people suggest, sooner. So, if someone says ‘hey what about…’ I’m more inclined to say, ‘let 
me see what I can do with it.’ New songs help to keep things fresh and keep me moving forward as well as keeping me humble. So, we did a new song this week. I have been working on ‘Don’t Start Me to Talkin’ and thought I had the lyrics down but I still managed to get my brain and mouth out of sync. This is happening often enough that I have made peace with the fact that the first time out of the gate, I’m probably going to flub something. Once I’ve done it though, it becomes easier to get it right. So I don’t feel near as frustrated or devastated as I would have a few months ago. I knew that song was going to be a little tricky because it has a lot of stops. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. And Nick tore up his lead on that one. So, yeah. Wow. That was great to hear.
It was nice to get to pull out a couple of songs I haven’t done in a few months. Though that only proved to me that at least one of those needs dusting off a little more often. Now, ‘Shaky Ground’. Oh that was fun. This was only the second time I’ve sung this one and in fact, that I’m aware it’s really only the second time I’ve heard it done at the Jam so it was a nice one to change things up. I was pretty pleased with how it was sounding as we were playing so I was excited to get to see the video. Now I’ve seen the video and can say except where we didn’t really get stopped at the same time, I think it turned out really good.
It’s nice to start to settle into a level of normal where the butterflies and jitter bugs aren’t holding a rave in my stomach every time I get ready to play. They’re still there. Just not quite as active all the time. I know for some people, they don’t feel like this goes away at all so they find ways to deal with it. Dark glasses are a great solution I hear. And even for the
people that seem to still feel that fear getting up on stage, it’s still worth it. I know I’ve said it before. It is scary getting up on that stage. Especially the first time. After a while though, it starts to feel normal. It’s just something you do.
As usual, I have video from the Blues Jam. I’ll get it posted as soon as I can. In the mean time I’ve included a few photos. It was a bit dark inside which means the video and the pictures are a little dark. I’ve lightened these up some to make them easier to look at.