Well, my friends continue to be good for me. In particular they continue to find reasons for me to get out. I think I’ve told you about going to a session on Tuesday nights. Nice place in Fergus, pretty normal as far as these things go, and pretty special too in its way. Folks are nice enough to let me thump along on the bass for much of the night, but they cut me no slack and play in all the challenging keys. Then comes the moment when I’m trying to figure out the bass part to that song I know, except I don’t know it in C-sharp minor, and someone takes that as a cue to begin a conversation with me. I don’t know what it is about me trying to figure out something on the bass that makes a nice, normal person think I’ll have a brain cell left to put together any kind of response to whatever it is they’re saying.
Or maybe you’re right, maybe it’s just that at that particular moment it doesn’t really sound like I’m actually trying to play. So they take it as an invitation. I suppose that’s fair enough. You couldn’t really say, “Careful! He has a bass in his hands, he might be trying to play it. You never know.” That somehow wouldn’t be fair.
Although this whole thing might be giving weight to my personal theory that no one actually hears the bass, they just notice when it stops.
But somehow I am reminded of how the duck swims–on top all serene while underwater paddling like mad.
A really large, flightless duck.
That never particularly learned how to swim.