Eight years later

About eight years ago, I wrote about playing for a Valentine's Day dance. It was the last time I played at that yearly dance. But this week, I did it again. Here's the link to the write-up about that dance eight years ago. I'm no less neurotic now than I was then but they needed a keyboard player. The trouble is, I haven't been playing as much as I would have liked. I wrote about getting a new, 88-key keyboard about this time last year (here the link to that post) and I really did have high hopes that I'd be playing a lot more. Then the rest of 2014 intervened. I keep promising to write about the trials of last year but I'm not quite ready to write it all down yet.

I didn't take my new keyboard because it' not set up to plug into an amplifier and its own built-in amplifier and speakers aren't loud enough for something like this. So, I took my old, reliable Korg DS-8 synthesizer (that's not mine in the picture but it's still a picture of some one's DS-8). My amplifiers still don't work (I hope to get them fixed some day) but they other guys said I could plug into one their amps.

Anyway, it was a big step to play for the Valentine's Day dance this year. The guys I played with were better than ever and it's an honor to get to play with them. They are real musicians and performers. I learn a lot just by sitting in with them. But I am a terrible live musician and especially when there is no written music. Not even lead sheets (with the melody and chords) like you'd find in a fake book. What happens is that one of the guitarists will mention a song and start playing. If I know it, it helps but often they'd forget to say what key the song was to be performed in. So, it took me most of each song to figure out the key and then the rest of the song to figure out the chord progressions to play. For most of the songs, I just figured out what I should play by the last line of music. But it was still fun.

But the very best part is seeing the smiles on the faces and the dancing of the kids at the party. You see, they are all special needs kids. This is a big deal to them. They all look forward to this dance. To them, we make up a terrific band. Not only that but we get to make our own ice creme sundae and spend some time talking with the kids. It's usually about the things they like to do and what they did that day. And they are so excited! Why do I have any right to be neurotic? Because, as Popeye would say, "I am what I am and that's all what I am." It's doing things like playing for this dance that put the neurosis behind me for a while.