Last night I went, with my Irish flute, to a YFN music jam at Mike Ludgate’s place. I went to a couple of these jams last summer, but then when CMEMME rehearsals started up again in late August I no longer had time to attend Mike’s weekly jams. So this was the first time I’d been back to jam with the YFN folks since late August of 2008. The music jams take place in a barn that Mike has made into a very nice music practice space. It was a rather small group that showed up last night, maybe around 12 people. All the people there are very nice and I enjoyed their company. I always love to hang out with other musicians. BUT, I have to say that I felt very frustrated at my inability to keep up with the music! In my practice at home I have found most of the tunes in the YFN repertoire to be do-able, at least when I’m just goofing around on my own and playing the songs at a fairly lazy tempo, but at the jam with the other musicians I quickly realized that I have a long way to go on the Irish flute before I’ll be able to play these tunes properly, in a group setting, and at the proper tempo! So it was a humbling experience, but a clarifying one as well. It made it more clear to me how I will need to practice in order to eventually get up to speed (literally!) on these songs.
An amusing thing happened while we were playing. Mike has a calico cat that wanders freely in and out of the barn. This cat came wandering in, came over to me, looked at me for a moment, and then climbed up into my lap. After a minute it jumped back down, but then a few minutes later it came back and climbed up into my lap again, just as I was getting ready to play a tune. I had to pick him up and put him back on the floor in order to be able to play my flute. A few minutes later he came back and climbed up onto my lap again! It was so funny! I didn’t see this cat trying to climb up on anybody else’s lap. Why me?
