Reality Check

As a musician, I suck.

I went to an open jam at a local music store for middle aged musicians who would like to get together with like minded souls to play some music. Today was for anyone who is interested in the current session to come and sign up. The store provides coaches to divide the people into bands after seeing them today. There will be four weeks of rehearsal, then a show for all the bands.

I have been wanting to participate in this program for several years, but today was the first time I actually made it to the kick-off session. Everyone is thrown together into 4 or 5 person bands and told to play 3 songs that the band chooses while waiting their turn. I ended up in 2 bands and played 6 songs. I hadn't ever played any of them before. I sang lead vocal on 1, backup vocal on 2 others and played bass for all 6. I believe I was the weakest musician out of the 20 or more people there. Some of the groups sounded like they could have gone straight into the recording studio. I was struggling to try to think of something to play since I didn't have the music for the songs we were playing. It didn't seem to be a problem for the other people. This was a very humiliating experience. Perhaps my money would be better spent on lessons instead of playing in a band. Although, it wouldn't be near as fulfilling.

I think I'll skip this session and work on getting better on my own for a while before I try to keep up with these real musicians. I'm not quitting my day job just yet.