A Tribal Healing

The sound quality at the jams is still an issue for me and my bari sax. This is both a technical and psychological issue. When I have trouble hearing myself I can fall into a horrible sense of inferiority. Thursday night I couldn't hear myself with all the other instruments on top of me, and all I could figure is that the sound man wanted it that way and I must suck and that is why my volume is too low. But by the second set I spoke up and asked for some more amplification and then I could hear and everyone else could too and it was SO FUN!!! I have more joy than I can manage at times from just one note played at the right time. I think of the jams as my church but it is funny to think that this church is full of drinking police, guitar-playing lawyers, belly-dancing nurses, and late night wildness.

I love that the other horns let me, a beginner, join in. I feel like the baby elephant being sprayed with water by the big elephants. This is true apprenticeship, like years ago when my big dog taught my puppy how to pee. And my puppy taught my big dog how to fetch!