“The purpose of art is not to produce a product. The purpose of art is to produce thinking.” (Erik Wahl)
Last night, at last, The Sitting Room had the first rehearsal, in fact, first meeting of any description since the beginning of March.
Zoom doesn’t count, and is unsatisfactory in many ways for band meetings, even when not playing music. It doesn’t allow for spontaneous breaking off for two out of five to riff on something said that’s caught their fancy. The daft and stupid asides don’t work on zoom.
So last night… we were together again. Oh how I’ve missed them! I felt strangely apprehensive for all sorts of reasons. The covid19 thing being just one. We are all sensible people, that was fine. But I found myself nervous to sing. I’d lost confidence that my voice would go where I wanted it to. I had a thought that it would sound different. That I would forget the melody and forget the words even more than I usually do.
Last night we did not produce a product.
But we did laugh, catch up, remember what it is like to make the monumental cock up. To sing at the wrong moment, to not hit the note, to play the wrong chords, or the right chords, but “not necessarily in the right order”. (Eric Morecambe)
It does keep you on your toes, making music with a bunch of lovely talented people who bring out the best in you.
It produced thought.
And they make me laugh. Which let’s face it at the moment, laughter is in short supply!
Thanks guys.