Do you practice? How often? Everyday? A couple times a week? Do you have a routine? I'm so curious about this stuff. I hope you'll take a few minutes to read this and share a little about how you practice and perhaps respond to a couple of these questions. 

I have a ton of stuff that I'm working on but the skills I would like to work on most are listening and relaxing during gigs. It also turns out that those things are really hard to practice alone when you're not actively playing a gig. So that's a dilemma. 

Listening. I have to work hard to be an active listener when performing with others. It's just the way I am right now. So how to practice that? Well, I do a lot of work with a metronome. I practice tunes with the clicks on the front of the beat, on the back of the beat, or maybe only once in each bar. Here's a fun one: place the click on every third beat of a tune in a duple meter. So the click lands on 1, then 4, then 3, then 2, then 1 again, and so on. That one is tricky. Anyway, I try these different exercises because, with the lack of any other players in the house, the metronome gives some information to which I have to respond. It's certainly not the same as listening to the other members of a six piece band or even listening to one other live player - but it's something. How do you practice listening and responding when no one else is around?

Relaxing, or releasing tension. I'm great at it. I can relax on my own - I can relax all day if I have the chance. But when I'm playing, it' s little more tricky and especially so in a gig situation. So again, I'm great at relaxing all the tension and playing with great technique (and I'm specifically thinking of the right hand here) when I'm working through stuff in the evening at home. That becomes more of a challenge when listeners are present. I do my best to be mindful of it, but it remains a challenge it seems no matter how often I play out or who I'm playing with. I'm not sure I'll ever entirely get on top of it but I'll keep being aware.

So what's your strategy? How do you practice listening? How do you keep tension at bay when you're playing? I'd love to hear your suggestions. Let's talk in the comments.

A few years ago, I had the good fortune to begin co-hosting a monthly jam at the Rustic Barn. You should come check it out - if you haven't already. Let me tell you what I like about it.

Bluegrass jams are great. They really are. It's a really cool thing to play and share songs with others. If you're playing a tune at a jam, it's probably a song that inspired you enough to take the time to learn the melody, the chords, and (hopefully, maybe) the words. And if you took the time to do all that, that song must mean something to you - at least enough to inspire you to learn it. At the jam, you get to share that little piece of yourself with everyone there - pickers and listeners alike. And that's pretty great.

The Rustic Barn is a fun place. It has pub food with real wood fired barbecue - and Jody makes all the desserts herself. The beers are varied and tasty - Jason curates the beer list with a passion for the job. There are always great bands playing there. Everyone in the place - staff and patrons - they all have a passion for music. That soul and that community make it a pleasure to hang out there.

It's a no brainer. A bluegrass jam at the Rustic Barn. I'm grateful every time I show up at 5:30 on the second Sunday of the month to find the people who chose to spend a few hours picking tunes in that special place. Every time someone shares a tune, it builds that sense of community. I'm really proud of that. My co-host is Zack Cohen. We talk a lot about how to make the jam fun for everyone. We want to encourage the brand new picker who might be unfamiliar with the etiquette of a jam to stand up there and give it a shot. We also want to create a space for advanced players to feel welcome and have fun. It's a tough needle to thread sometimes but we hope to find that sweet spot every month.

We want everyone in the Rustic Barn on a second Sunday evening to feel part of the community built around music, spontaneous creativity, camaraderie, and positivity. All are welcome. See you at 5:30, Sunday, at the Barn.  

Basically, that means I'm talking. I have varied musical interests and a couple projects. I'm going to talk about them. I'm going to post pictures of them. I'm going to hope that you have any interest in talking about them, too.