Hey, let's try ____!

We almost thought it was going to be just me for a while there this week, both drummers and a teacher couldn't get there because of flooding. But the girls showed up and then B, but he didn't have his guitar and he didn't feel right to me (damn empathicness). Turns out he just came for his amp, his deployment's been moved up from March to February and he's going to go spend time visiting family before he leaves. He’ll be gone 14mo. So all us girls had to hug him and most of the guys walked out to the car with him and did whatever it is guys do when they want to say "Hey i care about you, stay safe buddy" and then we played "Squeezebox" several times to warm up. Teacher on drums, one of the girls on bass and the bass teacher playing the crappy Squire (that was funny). Messed around with it, turned it slightly reggae for a bit, (didn’t sound too bad that way), then played "Free Fallin" about 3 times and dicked around with extending that one too.

They talked me into playing "Some Kind of Wonderful" with the bass teacher calling chord changes for me since i was the only 6 string... (I was reluctant because I'd be the only guitar and i don't know the song well...but it went better than i thought it would with me on lead). We messed around for a bit and then it was "hey let's try _____ it's only 3 chords". Someone brought the laptop down and we played 4 NonBlonde's "What's Up" and DeLites' "Groove Is In The Heart" (two chords for me, teacher on the bass line and another on keys). It was funny after that time with him telling us we shouldn't use my chord charts to see him and the girls huddled around the laptop though. Sometimes the changes in players is fun and sometimes it’s unsettling. We had me, the girls, and three teachers… pretty much only me and the bass teacher on guitar this week, but we did make it work better than I thought it would. A is taking a break and B will be gone for over a year. I’m going to have to deal with the fact that this is more of a jam session than a working band situation, people are going to come and go.

Never in my wildest dreams did i ever think I'd be able to stand in with a band, have someone say "hey, let's try ____ it's G, Am and C ... 2, 3, 4 go!" and be able to pull it off well enough for the vocalists to sing it. I never dreamed that I'd ever be able to make music at all and this has been simply amazing, and they told me last night that they've had several calls from moms about kids' lessons from our ads and have had a few new kids start already. They're really happy with the trade too. I come home from every practice just amazed.