Tonight I’m hosting an open mic session on the beach. We’re lucky to live on a small lake with it’s own private beach, and even luckier that many of the neighbors are excellent musicians. This is to be the first, (and hopefully not the last) open mic, so everybody has their fingers crossed.<\/p>\n
I can remember when I first started playing out. I hit every open mic session I could find. There were some I could never go back to, having thoroughly embarrassed myself. But after awhile, some of those nights actually led to real gigs. Some others were introductions to other musicians. All of them were learning experiences.<\/p>\n
These days, I see open mic as a bridge, a way to get back in the habit of playing out. I’ve been playing, and writing and occasionally sitting in here or playing at a party there. But, I haven’t played any real gigs in awhile, and the discipline of practicing everyday because you have upcoming shows…that can’t be simulated.<\/p>\n
But also, and more importantly, it’s a chance to play with some new musicians. New faces. New sounds. New experiences. New is good. Inspiration comes from New. Motivation comes from New. All good things come from New.<\/p>\n
With luck, New will become a regular thing and it won’t get Old. Old is when it becomes tiresome…more a chore than an adventure. Good things come from Old as well, because nothing New can exist without Old to compare it with…to build from. As long as it isn’t the Same Old.<\/p>\n
So, here’s to Old and New. A little bit of Blues. A little bit of Folk. Country. Jazz. Rock & Roll.<\/p>\n
It’s all good, ain’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tonight I’m hosting an open mic session on the beach. We’re lucky to live on a small lake with it’s own private beach, and even luckier that many of the neighbors are excellent musicians. This is to be the first, (and hopefully not the last) open mic, so everybody has their fingers crossed. I can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[4,14,519,9],"tags":[16,520,15,17],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements","category-blog","category-jamies-blog","category-music","tag-guitar","tag-music","tag-open-mic","tag-songwriting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12,"url":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2008\/07\/its-about-the-music\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":0},"title":"it’s about the music","date":"July 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry so long since my last post. The Open Mic the other night was a great time. Plenty of good musicians showed up to sit in, and it became more of a jam-fest than open mic. At our peak, we had a full band...two guitars, drums, bass, and even harmonica\/vocals.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":119,"url":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/blogtv-feature\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":1},"title":"BlogTV Feature","date":"September 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Starting tomorrow, BlogTV will be featuring my show every Thursday!","rel":"","context":"In "announcements"","img":{"alt_text":"jamie gray","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/jamiegray2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":541,"url":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2014\/08\/and-were-back-jamiegraymusic-com\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":2},"title":"and we’re back – jamiegraymusic.com","date":"August 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We've had some issues to deal with Now it's time to move on Follow ! www.jamiegraymusic.com","rel":"","context":"In "jamie's blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15434,"url":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2018\/01\/uggh-luckily-just-when-it-seems-male-evolution-has-hit-a-major-speed-bump-we-have-a-social-media-snow-plow-to-push-things-along-timesup-article-republican-senator-caught-on-mic-calling-teenage\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":3},"title":"Uggh. Luckily…Just when it seems male evolution has hit a major speed bump, we have a social media snow plow to push things along. #TimesUp Article: Republican senator caught on mic calling teenage staff ‘beautiful girls’ Source link: https:\/\/ind.pn\/2E2xlnI","date":"January 23, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Uggh. Luckily...Just when it seems male evolution has hit a major speed bump, we have a social media snow plow to push things along. #TimesUp Article: Republican senator caught on mic calling teenage staff 'beautiful girls' Source link: https:\/\/ind.pn\/2E2xlnI http:\/\/bit.ly\/2DvUEoG","rel":"","context":"In "#blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":241,"url":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/april-already\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":4},"title":"april already?","date":"April 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"well a lot of stuff is going on this month. first, there's a brand new song available for download...shows in western connecticut and new york...and more to come","rel":"","context":"In "announcements"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":596,"url":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/2014\/08\/15-essential-simpsons-episodes\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":5},"title":"The 15 Essential Simpsons Episodes","date":"August 18, 2014","format":"image","excerpt":"The 15 Essential Simpsons Episodes Since Dec. 17, 1989, when America first met Bart, Lisa, Homer, Marge and Maggie, no television show has influenced pop culture more than The Simpsons. Considered by many to be the greatest television show of all time, the series' brilliance and longevity \u2014 25 seasons\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiegraymusic.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}