Sitting In // rehearsals // jamming // cutting through fear

I'm missing my big band terribly! Last night (I'm midway through my NYC artistic/musical songwriting adventure)  I crashed a Hungry March Band's rehearsal. I was terrified! Maybe even more so than my first Minor Mishap Marching Band rehearsal almost 2 years ago. I met Hungry March during last years Honk! Boston. They are a 20 piece brass band with dancers and a very cool NYC vibe. The tunes are more circus-y than Minor Mishap's, but the skill level is about on par with one another. Minor Mishap songs are not easy to play, even though the band makes them sound like it.

The thing about me is I'm an ear saxophone player! I'm pretty quick, but have big gaps in my knowledge about theory and am a horrible site reader. It gives me terrible anxiety to step into a room with a new song that's charted.

Which is what Hungry March was working on last night! I was so intimidated and insecure that I kinda ruined the fun for myself.

But, 1/2 way through the rehearsal they were playing a New Orleans style tune and one of the trumpet players came over and whispered to me- you take t next solo....

Oh God!! No! 

IOVE soloing and I thrive on it. But sometimes I fall really short and bomb it.

This time I didn't...it was ok. Passable but far from brilliant! I made it through without a bomb so I felt better.

Up until then I was full of fear but that solo dispelled it a bit. I could relax, I had proven myself to myself in a small way.

I really feel this way/// almost everytime I step into a rehearsal room with new people. It's like I have something to prove - prove to myself first and then them. ...Or maybe just them....

Last night I just HAD to go to the Hungry March rehearsal, even though I didn't want to, even though I was going to torture myself, even though I can't site read.

It's no coincidence that I have my Bari Sax out now, and by my side is the Rubank Elementary Method for Sax. 

One step at a time I'll beat this ignorance! 

Here we go...