Saying “Yes”…

Last night I started the first of 6 Tuesday nights in Guelph at a guitar chord workshop with a fantastic talent; and fellow awesome red-head; Katherine Wheatley!  I’m so excited because in 16 years (yikes!) of playing guitar, I’ve only had a few lessons in the past year or so.

Katherine was one of the teachers; along with James Gordon; in a song-writing workshop (my first ever!) that I took last September.  She is such a solid guitar player, she helped with my song (“A Different Man“) chord progression and encouraged me to get more familiar with my fretboard.  So, I took her advice and signed up for her workshop!

Last night was a great start.  We are starting in the key of “C” and building triads on each scale degree.  Okay, no need for details but I’ve got lots to practice!

At the end of the night, one of the other students, Mark, said that friends of his hold a jam at their house every Tuesday night.  He asked if any of us were interested… another student, Ray, said he would go and, after a moment or two, I just said “yes!”  So I followed them and when we got to the house, everyone was just hanging out before the jam.  We went inside and I saw that they had a great little set-up with a full drum kit, keyboard, mics, amps etc.  Mark, Ray and I plugged in and played a few tunes.  Then everyone else came in and we had about 10 or more people playing in this little room!  It was so fun!  I got a great response from playing two new originals: “But I’m Not Sleeping” and “Alice”.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy playing and singing along which was so cool for me since I’ve never actually played those songs with anyone yet!

I had to drive back to Aurora and was trying to politely excuse myself, but they asked me to please do one more before I left and, well, I had to oblige!  We jammed “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and I got to wail away and again got a great response.  What a way to spend an evening!

So, I said “Yes” to a chord workshop.  As I say to many people, I’ve always been a writer, then I started to sing and guitar followed.  Guitar has always been my weakest point as a musician and music theory has always scared me… actually, it’s more embarrassing than anything… but now I’m doing something about it!

I also said “Yes” to an impromptu jam with a bunch of relative strangers!  I was nervous, but it turned out to be a such a positive experience.

It would have been easy to ignore the invitation to either the chord workshop and/or the jam, but I’ve recently decided to get out of my comfort zone more often and challenge myself.  Yesterday was a great start and I’m so glad I stepped up!

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily.  To not dare is to lose oneself.”  ~Soren Kierkegaard

Thanks for tuning in!