Earlier this week we worked three new songs that we can offer out to a live audience at the Funk N Dive on Friday, 9-Midnight (along with The Proper Way). We’ve gotten into a routine of putting a recorder on the floor when we want to run a new song straight through for the first time. Besides giving Caryn a track to rehearse with, we all get an irrefutable memory of exactly how we rehearsed that song. (Sometimes it’s a fun time capsule, too, realizing how much a song morphs for us as we work it over time.) I put the tracks on my phone and listen to them to get the feel for the changes and entrances. But more than those technicalities I love to hear the end of each recording.
It’s a small miracle, playing a new piece, start to finish. So it makes sense that after the music has finished there’s this pause as the last note fades, and then laughter. It’s some cross between laughing at a punch line and the laughter of astonishment. There’s delight in giving life to something that wasn’t clear before, the genuine joy in figuring something out.
And, I never imagined I’d ever get to play a Stevie Wonder cover.
Hope to see you Friday.