So today the guitar class that I’m taking had a little mini “open mic night” that was somewhat deceptive because there was no mic to be open. However, students were invited to come to the front of the room and perform anything they had prepared. One of my friends went up and did a very groovy blues jam with another student (it was his first time playing live and he did fantastically), and I performed a simple piece I put together recently.
It wasn’t technically complex nor requiring of any skill, as it was three power chords repeated with varying strum patterns which I think is kind of my schtick. However, I did haul in two guitar amps, a wah/volume and a distortion pedal, a whole bunch of cables, and a Nintendo DS running a copy of Dai Gassou Band Brothers, which was considerably more interesting. The DS went through the wah and then the distortion into one amp, while I played guitar through the other amp. Since I’ve never played before in front of people who I wasn’t related to, I believe this counts as my first live performance, and it was a rush.
I screwed up a bunch of times but the class really got into it anyway, and a lot of people who I look up to told me they were really impressed. And of course it felt amazing to play music that I assembled myself, and which I get into, in front of lots of people.
You traxinspace people already know about this since I mentioned it on your forums, but there’s a girl in the class who never smiles. It’s a pity really since she seems like she’d be a really pleasant person if she wasn’t always looking disappointed or withdrawn. But she smiled when I played my song, and that really kind of hit me. My performance, however rough, cracked her shell and made this girl smile.
Call me sappy but that makes me smile too.