Friday, January 18, 2013

Jamming

by Bryan

Back at Clearwater after several days' absence, stressed out about lots of things, and not really sure I had the energy to be fully present at school, I was asked to sit in with a number of students practicing on their musical act. That was something I could do.

There's nothing like jamming with other musicians, and by now the group is at a very exciting point -- musicians are sure enough with their instruments to be able to do things, and confident enough with each other to feel free to experiment. This is a great stage for a musician -- confidence with where you are, tempered with frequent tastes of learning something new.
 
Practicing for Winter Cafe (Bryan, 2nd from left)

I sat in on keyboard and more or less filled out the sound with some chords. It was the perfect re-entry into school. What I added didn't feel like much to me, but it was gratifying to hear others remark about how it added to the sound and made the whole thing better. I love playing music with others, but it's especially exciting when everyone is improving on each others' riffs. After we stopped, I found that all that afternoon and evening I had a bass line going through my head, and my mind was experimenting with what I might do to complement it.

The jam doesn't stop even when you put down your instrument.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, is there a higher res version of this image?

Shawna said...

Yes, there is. I'll email it to you. More images of the day coming in a soon-to-be published post, too.