Scratching An Old Itch

I've finally gotten the urge to play music again strongly enough to get some instruments out of storage. It's been too long, and there's an awful lot of rust to be knocked off before I'd be up to playing with any other musicians. The good news is that I don't seem to have forgotten much. I pulled up a video of an old favorite on Youtube and played through the whole thing without so much as one flubbed note until the very end. Not bad for a song I haven't played in over a dozen years. However, that particular song was more demanding mentally (lots of chord changes) than technically. When I try some of the physically trickier songs, I run into trouble pretty quickly. Practice will help, but only time will tell how much.

My ear seems to be better in spite of being so far out of practice, which I attribute to increased attentiveness (partially because of my current spike in interest and partially because I'm probably more patient than I used to be). Today I played through three songs I'd never played before, and while the results weren't impressive, I actually picked them up faster than I remember doing in the past.

I definitely don't want to be in a band again, but I do want to play with other people. I don't want to deal with the business end, I don't want to deal with the interpersonal politics of an ongoing band (about song choices, who gets to sing what, etc.), and I don't want to deal with the egos. I just want the music, which sounds easy, but usually isn't.

Once upon a time, my ego required an audience, but I can honestly say that doesn't matter any more. It'd be fun to play in front of people once in a great while, but I don't need it, and I'm certainly not worried about making money doing it. I twice joined bands simply for business reasons, in both cases leaving situations that made me musically happy, because I was sure that the musically happy bands were doomed to languish in garages for various reasons. I'd love to have either one of those situations back now. All I can do is remind myself not to repeat that mistake, which shouldn't be a problem.

My plan at this point is to shake the rust off and see who I know that might be musically compatible, not worried about getting in front of an audience, and won't mind playing perhaps once a month. I suspect this won't be easy, but I know at least one old cohort (Bob, for those who know him) is interested, and that would be enough to start.