I didn’t fall off a cliff…

I’m a terrible tester. Things have been busy, so I guess I dropped off the face of the earth for a bit there. Cool to see that the site is going live Friday though.

I’ve been dealing with some music and time related frustrations. I don’t know, I keep getting plenty of compliments on my singing, but I just don’t feel like I’m really all that good. I’m constantly in a state of, “am I good enough to keep doing this or am I wasting my time?” Then, I have a gig where I’m up there and it seems like only one or two people are paying any attention at all and the person in charge of the event tells me to stop playing because no one is listening.  That, of course, brings all of that doubt back up, validating it in my mind.  I quit playing for awhile and Dave came over and told me I should go ahead and go back on. I told him the event coordinator told me not to and he tried to encourage me to do it anyway. By the way, encouragement from Dave goes a little something like this… “Wait…what? Fuck her… if it were me I would do it anyway!”  I was really torn as far as what to do, and I ended up kicking myself for not listening to Dave. It’s his pub, I should have listened to him instead of feeling bad about the whole thing because I found out days later that people who were sitting over at the bar with their backs to me, who weren’t part of the event, were actually enjoying the performance and want to hear me again.  How am I supposed to know if they don’t so much as look over, or clap, or anything at all to let me know they’re paying attention?  They were watching a Football (soccer) game and for all I knew I was annoying them.

Anyway, I guess there will always be frustrating gigs and I’m very prone to self-doubt. It helped that this past weekend Dave came over and told me I am getting better and better. I could tell by his behavior that he was happy and sincere. As long as he keeps encouraging me I think I’ll be okay. I know for a fact he would never keep giving valuable stage-time to a musician that didn’t deserve it, and I just have to keep reminding myself of that.

I think I mentioned I was auditioning for a band and had gotten accepted by 2/3 of the band so far. Well, last Friday night I finally got to play for the 3rd member and, well, I’m officially the 4th member of the band. The band has been in a little bit of a slump for awhile and I think they’re hoping having me will add something fresh and get everyone excited to play again. They do play paid Celtic gigs and travel around a bit, so hopefully it will go well. Had I joined a little bit sooner I would have been able to go to PA with them this weekend to perform at a Burns Night Celebration there. I’ll be going next year.

I do have my own Burns Night celebration to perform at this year though. At Dave’s, of course. This months Whisky Club coincides with Robert Burns night, so I’ll be singing while Dave pours for the club. Only downside is that he said I may not get to try any Whiskies. I don’t really see why, all he has to do is pour it for me and I’ll drink it between songs. He has no problem with musicians performing and drinking at the same time, but Dave can be weird sometimes, he gets these weird reasons in his head why things won’t work and I don’t like to argue with him because it just gets him frustrated. There’s one Whisky Rep that I know for a fact will make sure I get to try it all no matter what, so hopefully it’ll be him this time.

With everything that’s going on and changing right now I have no idea what this year is going to hold for me, but, like I told my Mom yesterday, I’m going to just embrace every opportunity I am given and jump in head first.

Anyway, I hope everyone here is well and having a good week.