I’m trying to take advantage of opportunities that come my way to do something different. Today, after work, I stumbled upon such an opportunity.

As I was leaving work and heading to the train (I chose the A instead of the F because it is 900 degrees out) I ran into four people from the office. One had a guitar, one had a suitcase, and one had a folder full of papers. They claimed they were starting a band, and told me to come along. I kind of – no, really, actually – didn’t believe them. I mean, clearly Chris, with the guitar, was going to play somewhere. But Dave had a suitcase with him, and Nate just generally doesn’t strike me as one to hang out with Chris, Lisa and Dave. Then I looked at the papers and saw they were five packets of a bunch of songs with chords. I figured that if this was some joke they were all simultaneously in on, well, good on them. So I got on the A train going the opposite direction of home.

They reserved a space at a practice / recording studio near Midtown on the west side. This place is great – each room has loads of equipment, including full drum sets and keyboard, mics and amps. I was even able to rent a guitar to play for the session. Of course, I had no clue how to tune it using the tuner they had, so both Chris and Dave had to step in.

At first I was a little apprehensive. I’ve *just* started playing guitar again after about 10 years, and I’ve struggled in the past with picking up on songs quickly. But they were so patient with me. Most of the songs we tried had pretty easy chords, and after Chris correctly called me out on being too worried about looking stupid, I relaxed and just went with it. And it was so worth it. I certainly am nowhere near as good and Chris and Dave – they really know their stuff, and can play complicated melodies and solos – but I kept up for the most part, and had an absolute BLAST the entire time. And Nate was amazing on the keyboard. Seriously, it was this silly two-hour jam session that reminded me of how much fun I have when music is involved.

Hopefully we’ll do it again in a month or so. In the meantime, I can’t wait to get started with my guitar lessons.