It turns out I finally ended up getting COVID, coming down with it on Christmas Day, 2023. Time for a summary.
I continue to follow the guidelines for social distancing & vaccinations. I continue to work remotely. I stopped playing gigs with big bands to avoid risk. As a result, my gigs went from 60+ per year to less than a dozen a year. I am playing exclusively combo band gigs now. Work is picking up, though performance cancellations are still happening due to COVID.
And I’m OK with that. My musical pursuit is refocused on multi-track recording of the band playing live, in the studio and in live performances. I have experimented with re-tracking, mostly “bleeping” out unwanted “noise”, if you will.
As a band and for 2024, we have agreed to jam sessions every week we can schedule it, which we may or may not record. Why? Jam sessions are about playing what anyone may “call” to play. Pressing record is a driver to making take 2, take 3, etc. the goal is to play as many songs we can come up with in a session. I am confident some songs will get another take on a new day and we will “just press record”.
Musically, the BBR songbook had me working every week rehearsing songs for the weekly gigs. I fell off that wagon, for a year. The first trio gig we did after the pandemic was rough. It comes back though. And a new thing, arthritis. I’ve learned to pace myself.
What did I learn? The sabbatical pushed me into learning from Barry Greene, Sheryl Bailey, Pat Martino, some mandolin, lap steel, a just a little piano. I’ve internalized much of this learning, at the expense of reciting tunes I used to play by memory. The good news is I have improved my sight reading; a working knowledge for the bandstand. Still a long way off from reading anything except the guitar charts with the BBR. It’s all forward motion and always time to evaluate and say “more of this, less of that”. And also new things.
Not being on the bandstand means less face time with others, less communication, less interaction, less singing. Time has allowed me to fine tune my gear; the recording studio associated PC equipment/software, recording best practices, my guitar rig, my recording/PA rig,
So, more of this, less of that, self assessment, repeat. I’ll stop when I stop learning or stop having fun.