Music in retirement. It’s been quite a while since my last musical blog, early September in fact. It’s been patchy since then. I’ve missed rehearsals for various reasons ranging from Covid to outright indolence. The Covid bout meant I missed the last gig and so that means the last gig I performed at was Otley and that was in August.
And why am I telling you this now? Because we’ve just had our last gig of the year at Baildon. A place we performed at earlier in the year, hence the number 2 above, but this is different it’s their annual Christmas do. This has several implications – it’s a performance, along with a number of other ensembles (a ukulele band for example); we add in a suitable number of Christmas tunes (which bah humbug, I hate and don’t have the music for); it’s cold and so we perform in a tent in the car park of one of the pubs. A far cry from a very hot Otley market place just a few months ago.
OK a confession. I started this blog last Thursday (the day of the last rehearsal) just to give myself a start. And now it’s Monday and I can report on how the gig went. And a rather gruesome business it was too. We played two half hour sets behind the pub in a large tent. Whether I can get any photos remains to be seen. If I do thankfully they don’t show the ‘gruesome’ part.
Which started with me forgetting to reattach my strap after the break. Stupid or what. Let me tell you that you cannot play guitar standing up which I was, without a strap. The standing hadn’t been the problem I thought it might be because although we were in a tent it had wooden supports inside against which I could (and did) lean. So that was fine and all was well until after the break.
The problem was the stage was crowded and getting off to retrieve my strap wasn’t easy without sweeping aside all my fellow musicians which is what happened on the way back. Yep although I found a way off stage, I couldn’t find a way back. I could not climb back on to the stage on account of my wobbles and my knees and the stage being at its most crowded at its lowest (and therefore theoretically most acccesible part). I grabbed at the music stand of one of the violinists to help me up. Not my brightest idea. I’ll draw a veil over the outcome. A degree of chaos ensued.
To say it was embarrassing would be an understatement and I can see it all in its gruesomeness. Hopefully this blog will act as therapy and enable me to move on from this dreadful scene. Great pity really as I was playing well, well, well enough. But it wasn’t my hands and fingers that were the problematic parts of my body, not the fine motor skills as we used to call them, just the gross motor parts.
Ironic to think that it would be these aspects of my physiology, in my old age, that might bring an end to my public performances. Too soon to make a decision, hopefully the embarrassment will fade and there isn’t another gig as far as I am aware until the spring. Furthermore they don’t usually involve trying to climb on a stage with no steps or handrails or space to manoeuvre. If that’s a possibility then I will have to reconnoitre and come up with an accessibility plan.
Music in retirement summary
So I’ll let you know what I decide. But the really sobering aspect of all this embarrassment is that it was my stupidity in forgetting to pick up my strap after the break (next to the chair on which I had been sitting) which caused all the trouble. In other words my mental faculties rather than the physical ones that caused my discomfort. Now that’s a comfort isn’t it? No, it bloody well isn’t.
PS. apologies for the quality of the photo at the top. I had to take a photo of my screen as I couldn’t work out how to achieve an ‘electronic’ transfer.