Good Nights and Learning Nights

Ok, so it’s been a little over a year of performing live now. Have really been enjoying it, and just about every night out is better than the one before. 

Just about, that is. 

For those of us who tend towards the self-critical, one of the hardest things to do is to backslide. And yes, that’s the word we use sometimes. The we-were-doing-so-well and the it’s-just-not-there. And maybe it never was and we were just fooling ourselves for a bit and now we’re back to where we should be – amateur, dreamer, pretender. 

Sometimes by a miracle (or a hell of a lot of work and therapy) we remember that in fact all of this feeling of inadequacy is a natural side effect of learning and growing. 

What the hell am I on about? Well, I tried something new in my slot at the regular Monday open mic with Andrew and Terrance. Went with my Telecaster instead of my acoustic and also brought the small pedalboard (just to make it less twangy). Also didn’t really figure out which songs I wanted to do until the day before (not intentionally, but still).

And it was pretty bad, by my standards. Missed chord changes, weak voice, forgotten words, thin guitar. 

Just about everything was bad, and all that after a week of feeling really great about how far my music and performance has come. 

I’d forgotten that I’d spent all of Saturday working on a new song, including recording basic tracks and overdubs. At kind of the last minute I’d decided to do two original songs: one that I’d played live once, and one that I hadn’t quite figured out the live arrangement for. I was using the pedalboard out at a gig for the first time. 

Had Sir Humphrey been nearby, he would have described my choices as “brave”. 

On the way out, I ran into one of the comics who had also performed that night:

“How was your night? I think I missed your songs.”

“Well, there are good nights and there are learning nights, and I learned a lot.”

“Yup….  Same for me.”

Except he was great!