I came. I saw…

I riffed off the Bflat minor blues scale in Sakura Park with Stella!

During intermission at Neo Bass Ensemble’s concert earlier this month, Jay invited T and me to attend his Make Music New York set today. It would be two hours of musicians rotating in and out improvising off the Bflat minor blues scale. I didn’t know what a blues scale was, so he quickly explained it. I learned the scale well enough to do simple improvisation, but I still nearly talked myself out of showing up today. With the weather stubbornly not delivering the expected thunderstorms and Stella delivering severe side-eye at me from her case I decided the only way to learn how to do something is to do it and headed to Morningside Heights to see what was what.

My plan was to relax and watch things before daring to join the musicians under the pavilion. But no sooner had I walked into the park with Stella on my back when the keyboardist began singing, “Take that cat/Out its case/Make it sing!” over the chords he was playing. There would be no sitting back and watching for me this day.

I had fun! The neat thing about improvisation is that if it sounds good, it’s the right note. Plus I knew the scale well enough to know what notes to return to if I felt lost. I’m no ace, but I managed to hold my own, even with Jay doing funky stuff on his bass.

The bottom line is I had a good time and wasn’t unnerved by having an audience even though I still have a long way to go before I am a confident player. I’d definitely do it again.