Music in retirement and a tale of two guitars (as above) . It wasn’t meant to be like this but that’s the way it was and none the worse for that. This weekend was bonkers. You know what they say about waiting an hour for a bus to come and two come along together. My music experiences were like this Saturday and Sunday.
Let me explain. Saturday was my first Folk Fiddle gig for over two years and my first ever outdoor gig. It was at Baildon farmer’s market and let me tell you it was bloody cold and windswept and the tent thing offered absolutely no protection. The photo below gives no indication of how cold and windy it was.
But there I was playing my Martin guitar (on the left in the photo at beginning) and trying to persuade my fingers that they weren’t really frozen to a standstill. I have to admit that, at half time, I was perhaps rather smugly congratulating myself for doing a pretty good job, certainly given the newness of the experience. Not as difficult as I had feared.
I should have been more circumspect because at that point Frank (lead guitarist and a player I have great respect for) said, you’re playing too fast. I’ve always been a person ready with a merry quip and the response, no, you’re playing too slow, came to my lips but stayed there. After all I’m still a relative new boy, not my place to be cheeky to Frank. So I said nowt.
Then he said, you need to watch Iveta (our leader and conductor), she’s setting the tempo. Look, I said you can have the correct chords or the right tempo, but not both. And anyway I’m following you ( a bit cheeky). I thought this was fair enough. I’m not familiar enough with the songs we were playing not to look at the music. Anyway Frank disagreed, he said the tempo was more important. Who am I to say otherwise?
So slightly chastened I continued through a windswept second-half. One’s music kept blowing around and I needed clothes pegs borrowed from one of the violinists, to hold my music even slightly in place. Anyway I got through it and I still thought I’d done OK, all things considered. There won’t be another outside gig until June, another farmer’s market. Oh goody.
When I said at the beginning of this blog, it wasn’t meant to be like this, I was referring to the second guitar (my Gretsch) which was the instrument of choice (not mine unfortunately). I’ll explain. I recently had an invitation on my Facebook page to come along to a jazz session on Sunday morning (the second bus).
I haven’t played any jazz for over a year since I left, a little petulantly perhaps, my Monday night class. I haven’t regretted my decision but I have missed playing jazz and even more I’ve missed playing the keyboard. Folk Fiddle is fine but doesn’t hit the jazz spot.
So when this invitation came along I thought well, I might as well try it, I mean what could go wrong? I won’t say it exactly ‘went wrong’ because I had half been prepared for it. The ‘it’ was that this group already had, as it turned out, two pianists or keyboard players as they say these days.
Which is why I’d taken along my Gretsch (on the right at top) and amplifier and this is what I ended up playing. Now when I said I hadn’t played any jazz for over a year this was me playing keyboard, I haven’t played jazz guitar for several years. And the problem is my fingers have become more arthritic and I can’t form those tricky little jazz chords.
I explained all this to Dom, the leader, (who had been my guitar tutor about five years ago) and he was encouraging. It’s the sound I’m looking for he said not the ‘music’. I thought I understood this to mean, don’t bother about playing correctly just make a contribution in your own way.
This was, if you’ll pardon the pun, music to my ears. I basically meant that instead of strumming along, comping, as it’s called, I could pretty much improvise all the way through. This, and you’ll have to take my word for this, is what I’m best at. Not good but good enough to get by now I had permission from the band leader.
So for two hours that’s what I did. It seemed to go OK but I felt compelled to email Dom afterwards and just check that what I thought he said was what he actually did say. I think it was. So far from being a negative, the guitar playing turned out better than the keyboard playing might have. And incidentally the two pianists were pretty good, In fact one of them was very good. So nothing lost there. Sharing a seat (piano stool) with him would have been quite intimidating.
Music in retirement summary
So there we are. There’s a moral to this story somewhere. It’s something along the lines of what you think you will be best for your ego, isn’t always what you end up getting and (here’s the kicker) what you in retrospect, actually needed. I suppose it’s good, that at the tender age of 73, life still has the capacity to pleasantly surprise you. Of course there’s always a little caveat, as in the words of Frank, you’re playing too fast. I thought my problem would be playing too slow. Ha, who’d have thought it? Well, not me, that’s for sure. But then my ‘life ploy’ of always thinking the worse, then life can only pleasantly surprise you, turns out to be the way to go.