I mentioned yesterday that I had a gig today. I played with the Swing Collective, which is basically the reboot of RC Swing. Most of the people I played with tonight were part of RC Swing. The music folder I used was the same one I turned in when I left the band. My handwriting is still on the sheet music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a bit like stepping back in time, and it was exactly what I needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To fully appreciate what this meant to me, I have to tell you about one of the evenings on the cruise. Deck 5 is the promenade, and I was walking across it with a group of other writers. Above the promenade, a small band played some swing music. A tenor, trumpet, trombone, drums, and bass player. They sounded great, and it made my heart hurt a little. I wanted to be up there with them, playing and making music. I hadn’t felt that kind of longing to play my sax in years, and it hit hard in the middle of my vacation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next morning, I had an email from one of the people I used to play with in RC Swing. He needed someone to sub in on Alto, and he wanted to know if I was interested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. We were flying home on Monday night. Practice on Tuesday. Muddle through the rest of the week, then play the gig Saturday evening. I said yes, and it was great!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was afraid I wouldn’t play very well. I haven’t touched my instrument in a long time, and I was afraid I’d be too rusty to perform. While I could have done better, I think I played pretty well. It made me very happy to play again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So why did I quit in the first place? Does this mean I’m going to try to play again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I quit because I wanted to prioritize my writing. From 2013 to 2017, I didn’t finish any major stories. Those were the years I was participating in two bands, plus administration, plus work. I spread myself too thin, and my writing suffered. I left RC Swing in late 2017, and just after that, I finished Spin City<\/em>. The next year, I finished the first half of Synthetic Dreams<\/em>. The next year after that, I managed to get my first short story published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taking a break from band directly lead to me finishing writing projects and advancing that part of my life. I made the right decision, even though I’ve really missed playing music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe I can just stay on the sub list. It’s a lot less responsibility and a lower time commitment. I get to keep playing when the opportunity arises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They asked if I could sub again this month on the 22nd. I’d need to be at practice again this Tuesday. I told them I needed to check with Melissa first and make sure I didn’t accidentally double book. I also wanted to get her opinion on whether or not I should keep doing this, because I have a history of not thinking clearly when it comes to making commitments to band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Surrey International Writers Conference is that weekend, so I think I’m going to have to turn this one down. It’s only one night, but… this is why I quit band in the first place. To prioritize my writing over my music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’ll think about it. I had a lot of fun tonight, and it fed a part of my soul that had been starving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I mentioned yesterday that I had a gig today. I played with the Swing Collective, which is basically the reboot of RC Swing. Most of the people I played with tonight were part of RC Swing. The music folder I used was the same one I turned in when I left the band. My handwriting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4366,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4365\/revisions\/4366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}