Why I Miss Gigging..
 

I haven't played a gig in almost two years, I haven't even done any street music in a year :(

My playing ability is slipping, my repertoire shrinking..

For my first five or six years as musician I was developing my skills, I was exclusively a studio musician. I wrote a lot of music by myself and it was an immensely creative period for me.. I played with a lot of musicians all the time, a lot of fun and impromptu jamming, a lot of creative energy flowing, a lot of recording and then..

I joined a some serious bands around 2007..
it changed my entire approach as a musician. I shifted from a creative/writing musician towards a performance/band musician. The studio jam sessions were replaced with rehearsals. The free playing was replaced with practice.. also I began to sing and perform material, so I shifted from writing a lot of music to learning a lot of eclectic covers and singing with the other guys in the bands' tunes (I have no muse when it comes to lyrics or finding my own voice for my original music, which remains instrumental)..

I began to play lead guitar, so I shifted from writing originals and recording and jamming with different players to learning scales, learning new songs to perform constantly, running through scales and rehearsals all the time, playing gigs.. It is all just as fun as the studio era was BUT...

now I haven't gigged in a long long time, and since my sonic tastes shifted from experimenting towards performing, from rhythms to lead, and also to singing, I have not been able to get back into being a studio musician.

I miss

a) running through scales and learning new chords and patterns and formulas and keys etc etc

b) learning new songs to perform often

c) the joy of performing

d) the creative flow of improvisation

e) spending every available free hour on the guitar

anyone else aint been gigging in a while?

Do it to it