Working Musician?

 Or is it a musician who also works?

 I think the term working musician applies to one who does music only as a means for income. And when you do something as a means for income, isn't that .. uhh.. work? Or is it business? I think no matter what, a person who goes out to perform for pay in public is "working". I hope that clears that up .. for me.
 
 Ok , so , June will be busy!  I think we have three or four shows in June which is a lot for musicians who also work..  (Please understand, Im not complaining) However , July is pretty much wide open save for a gig at the end of the month. We are talking about heading back into the studio to record our next " Record ".. I don't like the modern term CD.. for some reason. It makes it seem too.. digital.. 

 I have a list of new titles to work on. It is taped to the wall in my workshop. It is an odd looking thing. Just song titles.  One of them is " Don't Tell Rita "..  ( Rita  if you're reading this.. the answer is  yes ) various odd ideas that come to me while working. The titles come with a general " Vibe" or an idea for a chord progression that fits a mood or idea i'm trying to express. Why? Good question.

 Last Saturday's show at Bragi raised that question in my mind privately. Why....  The evening included a smallish , but very attentive crowd. They seemed to be into the slower tunes that evening. Usually our show remains up beat with a few slow tunes thrown in. But that night was different. A conversation between sets with an attendee went to the subject of slower tunes. I tried to explain how much harder those are to perform. Tempo , timing and trying to maintain them, takes more concentration. This reminded me of a lot of slower " moody " pieces I have written but never perform publicly. So the next set started with a few of these. "Don't be sad " " Pretty Please ".. gloomy but effective musical ideas. Two others as well.. but when I got to the fourth one I just decided to speed it up.. Things were getting out of hand. :{) Folks were enjoying the tunes but the mood they project was dragging ME down LOL.

 Anyhow.. recording.. yes, It should be easy enough. I think we will record another batch of our mainstays for one of our typical shows. A bunch of toe tapping songs that cannot be classified as either Blues , Folk or Jazz.

 Next shows are Lake Villa Art in the park followed by an evening show at Three Cellars. That'll be a good day.

Here's to fine weather !

Bill

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