I’ll tell you why it’s been ages and ages since we last updated our blog: we’ve been lazy. I mean, it’s not as though we’ve been sitting around being couch potatoes - we’re very busy writing songs, riding our bikes, and picking up milk from the grocery store, etc. - but we’ve been lazy in making time to write down our adventures.
The newest member of our band doesn’t feel new anymore. The little tyke fits in with our crew like a hand in glove.
Here’s how the first practice session went:
We invited him to a practice session on Wednesday night - the only night of the week he wasn’t busy with school activities (that kid seems to be in every darn club the school offers: fencing, the book club, jv synchronised swimming, jv soccer... The list goes on).
So on Wednesday we sat around the dinner table strumming mindlessly, waiting for the little yellow car to pull up front our porch. I tried hard not to look up every time a car drove past, but it was tough because you see I was just over the moon with excitement. When the little yellow car finally came zooming up to our house, all three of us jumped up out our seats as though they’d been simultaneously electrocuted. Then there was this awkward few seconds where we were all standing in silence waiting for the knock on the door.
*Knock knock knock*
For no particular reason I always count the number of times people knock on the door. Three.
I reached the door first and invited him and his mother in for a cup a tea. His mother was a sweet lady but she needed to zoom off in her zoomy yellow car to her knitting club, so it was straight to our practice session.
“Alrighty, so normally we just jam for a little bit before we get stuck in the complicated business that is songwriting. Are you happy to jam with us?”
Our new friend nodded but didn’t say a word. If only he had known how nervous the rest of us had been in that moment - perhaps we all would’ve relaxed a little if we’d admitted our true feelings.
We all resumed our positions at the dinner table only this time pulling up a new chair next to me.
“Okie doke friends. Let’s just do the Classic. A-one, a-two, a-one, two three, four.”
We had a nice steady beat going with a slight rock-a-billy thing going. Later I’d write in my diary about how easily we play together after having known each other for so long. We were in our own world playing as though we didn’t have a new nervous member to the band, until I remembered that we had a new nervous member of the band. I looked up at him and I was so sorry to see that he hadn’t a clue where to come in or what to do with his harmonica. So I smiled at him encouragingly and said that he was welcome to play a little solo whenever the time felt right. He nodded and I could’ve sworn he gave the faintest smile back. A few moments later he played the sweetest little melody we could’ve imagined.
A few songs later it was time to have a cup of tea (and one glass of milk for the youngin’) and to say goodbye. We sat round the table and chatted about our band, how excited we were to have such a lovely harmonica player in our midst, and the importance of music. I have to say he had much more to contribute after we played than before. I suppose his nerves eased up a bit - I know mine did.
We were so deep in conversation we didn’t notice the little yellow car zooming up to our front porch.
*Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.*
Five knocks, I noted. His mother let herself in this time and gave us a pair of socks she’d been knitting for the past two weeks.
“Here are some socks. They are blue because I think you guys are True Blue. Taking my son in like this and showing him the beautiful world of music. Plus, now I get to knit on Wednesday evenings with the knitting crew.”
I can hardly wait for our next practice session.