The Acceptance

Back in 2008 or something like that, I wrote an entry about how blogging was about to undergo a radical change with the advent of social media. Well, time has proved me correct. Although many people read my blog (usually brought in by an update notice in Facebook and Twitter), precious few leave comments here. Instead, they leave their comments in those media sites.  I actually like this change, because my presences "over there" are protected and, personally, more liberating. I've been thinking lately that disabling comments might be a good thing, so that's what I'm doing.

Am I simply buying into the social media monster? Possibly, but I'm too busy with my life to think that's an actual problem. It's only the internet, after all, not the life I live here in the real world with my family and friends, and my work.

Psst...
The internet is an illusion;

nothing but smoke and mirrors.

It's the end of an era for me. Besides shaking the internet's Siren Song, I'm done with the trolls whose only purpose is to be unkind and hateful. But, mostly, no one seems to want to comment here anymore and I'm tired of fighting the current. I'm 63 for fucksake and life's too short to be concerned about all these immaterial ones and zeros.

Onward.

Getting Things in Hand

It's been such a long time since I played a guitar every day of my life, my calluses have gotten a bit soft on me. They're still there, but they've been sleeping. This past week, I've rather called Reveille on them, however, and they're proudly rising to the occasion.

I'm not a believer in "Play until your fingers bleed!" In fact, unless you're onstage and it occurs from an especially robust session, it's pointless. When I was younger and first learning guitar, my grandmother, who was a musician and knew about these things. told me to soak my fingertips in vinegar before and after playing. It really worked, and I developed a healthy, durable set of calluses that can still be called on after 50 years. These days I'm giving Eric Clapton's advice a try by soaking them in rubbing alcohol instead of vinegar. So far, so good. It in fact seems to work more quickly than vinegar. I also think that the fact that I'm switching between 6-string and 12-string guitar is helpful, because doing so covers the entire fingertip pad; it may be a little more painful, but not as painful as playing a 6-string, exclusively.

Working on getting both my playing and singing chops back into shape is proving to be a real joy. It's just my memory where lyrics are concerned that's the challenge. My hands know what to do (good old muscle memory never fails!) so I don't give that a second thought. Remembering the words of 36 songs, however, is proving to be harder, not to mention that all of my music was lost back in 2001 and I'm having to dredge up my own song lyrics. Most of them have resurfaced, and those that just won't, I'm simply rewriting. What's the harm? Who's to know? They're my songs.

I have five months until my house concert (I've penciled in the date as October 9th), and there's plenty of time to get everything in hand, so to speak, calluses and lyrics, so I'm not worried in the least. Meanwhile, all of this is completely silencing the old stage fright beast, and that was the biggest challenge of all.

In-Home and Homegrown

Years ago, from 1983-85, I was a member of a southern California group of folk musicians, patrons, and lovers of folk music that met for in-home concerts, camp-outs, and workshops. Nearly every weekend I was in someone's living room listening to a songwriter or folk group, and meeting them close-up. Even back then (or perhaps especially back then, during the heat of the Eighties) I found the experience enriching. Soon, I was performing at house concerts, too. After years of playing duets with bar blenders, and cocktail waitresses shouting out drink orders, I really took to the respect an artist feels when the audience is actually listening, not whooping and whistling. I'm afraid that if I were a well-known songwriter and was met with that crap, I'd leave off playing and say, "Look, you came here to hear me. I came here to play for you. Now, sit down and be quiet." I'm sure that wouldn't gain me any fans, but at least I'd have had my say. But you never know. Some major acts are demanding their audiences put their cell phones away during their concerts.

House concerts are great because they draw a listening audience—everyone is there for the express purpose of hearing the song. If you've never experienced live music in a true listening situation, then you need to.

"All of these things, we believe, set us apart from the usual large concert and bar experience, where sometimes the music winds up being secondary to the party atmosphere and worse yet, relegated to background music." - Scott Aycock, House Concerts Unlimited

I've decided to host my own house concert this year, here at Bookends Cottage. I miss performing, despite the crippling stage fright that started to appear around 1990 and grew to such epic proportions that I couldn't even sing for my family unless I was three sheets to the wind. Of course, that only exacerbated the problem, because I can't perform at peak with even so much as one drink in me. Invariably, I'd wake up the next morning, remember how shitty I sounded, and tell myself my performing days are over. Well, my days as an unabashed wino are gone, and I'm really itching to perform again.

So here I am relearning some of my old songs, learning my new ones, and brushing upon some favorite covers, and I'm finding that the planning process of this is having a calming effect on my stage fright. Well, that's how it works, isn't it? The better one knows one's material, the more confident one is. Who knows what this might lead to? I'm already planning to record an album this year, so maybe I'll get on the house concert circuit again. But sh! I'm not ready to start thinking beyond this one performance just yet.