Some time last year I had a minor epiphany. Just like how a person who runs a mile or two every other week is not going to wake up one day and be able to run a marathon, I am not going to wake up tomorrow and be ready to go from noodling around on the guitar in my room on the weekends, to playing a 45 minute set in front of an audience of 100 people (is that really what I want? I should probably figure that part out). So, I figure my first step is to play an open mic somewhere in the SF area, which I've never done. I googled around and came up with Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, also known as the Freight, as the most likely venue. It's an acoustic music hall/coffee house with a well-known open mic most Tuesdays, and they don't serve alcohol, so I figure it's right up my alley.
I'm still too chicken to just show up with my guitar and sign in. I get awful stage fright these days. Sheesh... I played those two songs for the OWA in September (see previous post) because I thought, "this is the nicest, friendliest, most supportive group of people I've ever met, even if I miss every note, forget all the words and completely stop after half a song, they'll still clap." And it's true. Even knowing this, when I stood up on the second day of the retreat to play my songs, my hands were shaking like crazy. I had planned to do at least four songs, with a couple extras rehearsed in case I wanted to swap something out, and after I finished the first song I knew I was only going to do two. I felt like I barely had control of my fingers, it was like I was wearing gardening gloves. By the end of the second song I was wrung out- I had slightly better control of my fingers but my knees were actually a little shaky (that's a new one on me). They all clapped, it was great, but man do I need practice.
So about the Freight... I feel like I need to get in on the ground level, sub-basement level even. I have to go watch/listen to an open mic to see what it's like there, what the performance level is. I was scoping out the January calendar to find the next open mic when I saw that they offer classes and workshops, and one class was called Songwriting. The very next day, New Year's Eve in fact, I walked in and signed up for the class- I was so excited. Unfortunately I guess I was the only one... nobody else signed up so it was cancelled, boo. As a backup activity I went and signed up for Italian language classes, also on Tuesday nights, so I guess i won't be sitting in on any open mics until March. Plenty of time to practice, right?
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