Here we are, exactly one week from Fife Mojo’s debut public performance. Ahh, when I think back to those long-ago days (in August 2006) when Fife Mojo was but a seed in my tiny, overheated, lonely, fife-loving brain…
I couldn’t decided whether to name the company “Fife Ninjas” or “Fife Mojo” almost until the $75 check cleared for registering the corporation name…
Wondering if anyone would ever show up to jam once a month… Actually I’m still wondering, but that’s a story for another post.
Big plans, big plans. The loyal cadre of regular Jam attendees has been plotting since just before last DRAM to get something together for this year. “We have a whole year, right? For a four-minute set? How hard can it be?” was heard a number of times last summer… autumn… winter… spring… and summer again—until it finally changed to “Jeez, we better schedule some more rehearsals. We’re not gonna be ready!”
So, we have one last Jam tonight—which depending on attendance may turn into a rehearsal anyway—and one last-ditch, could-our-distant-members-practice-with-us-just-once rehearsal, the night before the muster. Are we ready? F&%$ if I know.
Everyone in Fife Mojo is a better musician than I am—in that sense I succeeded in one of my goals for forming this group in the first place, to learn from others in order to grow as a musician—so there isn’t much doubt about them. They won’t be nervous, or shouldn’t be: collectively, our handful of players has been performing for something like 75 years. Anyway they’ve become what I like to think of as good friends (here’s hoping it’s mutual).
No, the “F&%$ if I know” part refers only to myself. What if I screw up? What if I’m out of step the entire parade? What if I fall flat on my face? What if I forget the tune in the middle? What if I play the wrong one to start with? What if I just burst into tears in the middle of a performance? What if they boo us off the field? What if I’m so off-key they actually send police officers onto the field to carry me off? And what if my fellow corps members actually applaud them for doing so? What if… What if… What if… ? How ’bout this, my fevered brain: What if I don’t have any fun at all?
Then that’ll be the first time, ever, in the history of the world, that a fife and drum muster wasn’t fun.
One thing I’ve learned in my relatively boring, middle-class, well-behaved life: Do what you fear.
It’s just that the stuff I fear doing is—to put it mildly—not very fearsome.
I didn’t post in a long time, seems like. At pipe band camp in late June, I felt like I lived a month in a week. Though it wasn’t a fife-and-drum-related event on the surface, it actually was a learning experience in at least a dozen ways that will probably impact Fife Mojo. Time got away from me before I could articulate the whole experience to post it here, and perhaps that’s for the best. I have an awful lot to learn not just about music but about performance, organizing people and events, setting goals and working steadily toward them, maintaining confidence (that’s a biggie), and probably—let it be said—about chilling the hell out.
I’d truly like nothing more than to be a cog in the grand machine of some uber-organization of badasses—a kick-butt fife and drum corps, say, or a Grade 1 (ha!) pipe band. But that ain’t gonna happen as long as I choose to live and work where I do. My choices are: 1) move somewhere and give up my career goals, 2) give up my goals outside of work, or 3) flip the bird to the world, dig in, do whatever the hell it takes, and prove I deserve what I claim to want.
Hmm…
Well, if it were easy, everyone would have their own Fife Mojo, and we wouldn’t be special.
A recent acquaintance accused me of being so serious about everything that I don’t have a sense of humor. (I hope those of you who know me better are falling off your chairs laughing… Oh shit, what if you aren’t?!) He’s wrong, but he touched a nerve anyway. It’s hard, sometimes, in the middle of the organizing and emailing and ordering and phone calling and cajoling and writing and arranging and contacting and persuading and recruiting, to remember that Fife Mojo is about having fun. It’s about inclusion, new friends, good times, hard music that sounds awesome, and, to be just a little selfish about it, it’s about me getting my fat ass out there onto that tightrope and not worrying about the net, because I won’t need it.
After all, it isn’t rocket surgery.
So at the risk of sounding maudlin and sentimental, I want to thank my friends for their support, encouragement, help, talent, and their mere presence: Stephan, Edwin, Susan, Joey, Audrey, Paul, Levi, Arthur, Cindy, it’s been great jamming with all of you.
Cheers to Fife Mojo’s debut at the Deep River Ancient Muster on July 19, and let the good times roll!
